Are you KIDDING me, Hyundai?

"MoCamino" (mocamino)
03/26/2019 at 14:40 • Filed to: None

My son drives a 2003 Hyundai Sonata with the 2.7 V6 and anti-lock brakes. (Why should you care about the brakes? More about that in a moment.) He’s not a car guy, so the depressing appliance quality of the car is fine for him. It gets him where it needs to go and (generally) just works, even with 200k+ miles on it.

Last week his battery light came on. He’s out on his own and didn’t want to bother me with it, so he took it in to WalMart, figuring the battery was bad. Testing showed he was right, so he bought a new battery and all was well. For about an hour, after which the battery light came back on. He texted me about it and I told him to bring it over after work and we’d check it out. Some time with the tester showed 12.6V while the car was turned off and 11.5V when it was running. Ok , bad alternator. Don’t worry, son, that won’t be too bad. I’ll help you replace it.

Little was I to know it would be no problem IF his car didn’t have anti-lock brakes. You see, the alternator on the V6 Sonata is between the engine and the firewall, down low. The only route the alternator can take to exit the engine bay from above is occupied by the ABS unit. The route out the bottom is blocked by the exhaust and several other objects. The route through the wheel well is blocked by the axle and the body. My research shows that the accepted way to replace the alternator on these cars includes removing the passenger side axle and moving the strut and spindle off to one side.

So again I say: Are you kidding me, Hyundai?

DISCUSSION (15)

Chariotoflove > MoCamino
03/26/2019 at 15:07

Have you decided what you’re going to do yet?

LOREM IPSUM > MoCamino
03/26/2019 at 15:12

Easy repairs made hard and time consuming = good for their dealer network’s service departments.

What was a $100 repair becomes $1000. You pay, deale r wins . You bow out, new and used car sales are right this way sir.

Dealer wins.

MoCamino > Chariotoflove
03/26/2019 at 15:13

No choice but to do it. Paying someone to do it would cost too much. It’s not that I can’t do it. I’m sure I can, it will just be a major pain . It just ticks me off that they made it this hard. It’s going to take me all freaking day to change an alternator. It’s stupid.

CompactLuxuryFan > MoCamino
03/26/2019 at 15:15

What about removing the ABS unit?

OPPOsaurus WRX > MoCamino
03/26/2019 at 15:18

That was a similar situation with my wife’s former Ford Escape

MoCamino > CompactLuxuryFan
03/26/2019 at 15:18

I could do that, but the brake lines would still be hanging there and I’m not sure I could get past them without bending them up. Plus bleeding the ABS unit would be a pain, too.

Discerning > MoCamino
03/26/2019 at 15:22

They may want to consider a different car.

Ev er seen how a Sonata performs in a crash test?

MoCamino > Discerning
03/26/2019 at 15:26

Yeah, he’s been talking about getting a different car due to the miles on this one. Frankly he just doesn’t have the money to do that right now.

Sovande > MoCamino
03/26/2019 at 15:54

Removing the passenger side axle and spindle is probably pretty easy. I know on my old Volvo that would take about 20 minutes. The hardest part is (possibly) removing the axle bolt or nut from the hub.

MoCamino > Sovande
03/26/2019 at 16:14

Yeah, I’m hoping it’s not too bad. My worry is mostly that it’s old and I need to be careful not to break something else while I’m at it.

Sovande > MoCamino
03/26/2019 at 16:32

I was very surprised how easily the axle came out. Luckily with that transmission, there was no fluid leaking when you pulled the passenger axle. And the rest was just bolts. Fingers crossed that it goes smoothly. I hate when things are buried in an engine bay.

oldmxer > MoCamino
03/26/2019 at 22:20

my son has one of these also v6, just did some work on his and this is by far the worst vehicle i have ever dealt with on the subject of access to just about everything to do with the whole front of the car from the windshield forward, some of the engineering on a lot the stuff that really matters under there kinda sketchy compared to similar size cars i’ve worked on over my 50 years of experience, looks and drives good tho

pip bip - choose Corrour > MoCamino
03/27/2019 at 06:13

better than radiator removal in an opel/vauxhall Vectra from 1998-2002 with a V6

step one: remove engine

MoCamino > pip bip - choose Corrour
03/27/2019 at 08:46

OUCH. That’s ridiculous!

pip bip - choose Corrour > MoCamino
03/27/2019 at 09:00

German “engineering”