Do you all think that Hyundai and Kia are still the butt of jokes like they were years ago (meaning they still build terrible products)? Or are they improving and making better vehicles than before?
They make better vehicles now than they did in the 90's. But that is not saying much AT ALL.
I would not go near one with a 10 foot pole and yes, they are absolutely still the butt of jokes amongst mechanics for sure. People go on and on about their warranty. Yeah, well, you're gonna need it.
Just look up the class actions against Hyundai motors right now. They cannot build proper working motors whatsoever.
Hyundai and Kia still make some of the worst cars. Not that long ago Scotty made a video of a customers 2002 Sonata that was completely falling apart and compared it to his wife's 2002 ES300. While Hyundai and Kia quality may have been even worse in the past, at least they were also dirt cheap back then, so there was actually a reason to buy one. Now they cost almost as much as a Honda or Toyota so there is absolutely no reason to buy one.
Definitely better then before but still no where near the quality/reliability of a Toyota - which I consider the benchmark. But a Toyota is not for everyone so if someone wants Hyundai/Kia - I’d only recommend to keep under warranty and/or lease. I’ve had many friends/family members/co-workers buy them, but a lot of them end up switching to a Toyota or Honda after the warranty is up. That should tell you something.
They are building much better vehicles than lets say 30 years ago, but realize, in the late 2000s, they were making more reliable vehicles than they were making now. Built in Korea, naturally aspirated engines, 4 speed automatics... Those times are gone, and they all fall apart around 100k miles.
What I can say is, when it comes to PERCIEVED quality, they have improved astronomically (get in a 15 year old Hyundai and you will see what I mean). But in REALITY, they have gotten much more complicated and cheaply made that they just fall apart in front of your eyes. Especially the motors on those are horrendous hunks of junk.
It seems that all Hyundai/Kia factories in the US were built on cursed soil and are full of enemy-state spies disguised as workers. 😀
In all seriousness, H/K cars have a much better reputation in Europe (at least eastern part of it) than in the US. They have their share of problems here too, but nowhere as much as you guys are facing. Biggest problems I know of are only found in Russia, here they are:
- 2.0L Theta II engines (G4KD) scratching their own cylinders because of lack of proper oil cooling (a plague of all Sportages and Tucsons used in Russia on 5W-40 and 10W-40 oil during winter), fixed with the addition of special "oil injectors" (sorry, I don't know the proper term in English) that spray the bottom of the piston with oil so it cools down faster;
- 2.4L Theta II engines (G4KE) having a flaky oil pump which can stop working if used with too-thick oil, results in lack of lubrication and engine seizure, can be fixed by replacing the oil pump with more simple one from the 2.0L engine;
- Newer 2.0L Nu series engines (G4NA) have an additional catalytic converter installed in the exhaust manifold, which can lead to ceramic dust being sucked into the combustion chamber (remember, we're talking Russia, where it can go well below -30°C (-22°F) and the engine will literally burn the catalytic converter to heat it up on cold start, that results in gradual destruction of the converter over time), and this dust will damage the cylinders, similar to G4KD problem.
There's also an AWD system that has its flaws, but it's somewhat manageable. We never had any issues with metal shearing and other problems people were facing with these cars in the US, so the main answer to the question "Are H/K cars good yet?" is "It depends on where you live".
The Theta problems are extremly prevelant in the US as well, like the Hyundai Sonata 2.0 and 2.4, as well as the Gamma and Nu engines. In fact they are even worse here because they are made in US plants that make them bad from the factory (not sure about Russia)
We got lucky, because we get engines manufactured in South Korea, Slovakia and (a small part) China.
Most of the Theta II issues here are caused by people not taking proper care of their cars. They don't let their cars warm up in the morning (because *gas is expensive*), use bad quality oil that's too thick for the engine considering the weather and they don't change it at recommended intervals.
The dealerships are to blame here too — they recommend that you change the oil every 15.000 km for city driving and 20.000 km for highways. They also have a track record of using counterfeit oil when doing scheduled maintenance, which isn't helping those engines at all.
People who use thinner oils that are within the engine's spec usually have less problems and can run their cars up to 300-400k kilometers.
That said, most of the people who use thinner oils on these engines are motor oil enthusiasts, and they change it religiously and most of the time they take samples of old oil when changing it and send it to a lab for an analysis. 🙂
Wow, here they just blow up for no reason. Generally around 125k ish miles (200k km) this happens. Which is pretty decent in some cases, but when you have Toyota Camrys that are double the age as a Sonata with more miles and still going for 60 70% more in the market, with similar new prices, it begs the question why anyone who knows anything about cars would buy one. Then again, how many Americans do reliability research on cars. From my Hyundai experience my parents own one made in Korea with the older 2.0 Naturally Aspirated engine and they were good enough, but the newer ones not so much.
Yup. Still the butt.
I’ve never had one long term. But I must say, I am quite impressed with them when I rent them out. Heck, that’s mostly what the rental company gives me. I expected them to feel cheap, but they are descent.
I suppose it depends on the model of car.
My wife bought a 2013 Hyundai Genesis Coupe 3.8L Grand Touring (automatic transmission) brand new from the dealer; so we are the original owners still.
It has now turned 90,000 miles. Synthetic oil changes every 5K miles and all other maintenance/fluid changes are done on time. We also have the dealer do the intake port induction cleaning every 15K miles since new to clean the carbon buildup off the intake valve (GDI engine) and have also added an oil catch can.
Inside/outside and drive-ability is still like new and everything works. Nothing to complain about from us so far. She won't drive anything with more than two doors so she's waiting for Genesis to come out with another two-door before she gets rid of this one.
For clarification our Hyundai Genesis Coupe has the 3.8L Lambda II RS GDI (348 HP version). Which we liked because its naturally aspirated.
Just from my own experiences Kia > Hyundai, and yes I know they're basically the same company but I don't see issues with Kia's as much as I do Hyundai's.
I had a 2015 Hyundai Sonata I got rid of it at 145k miles. Nothing wrong with the car what so ever I just wanted a different car. I am not a person who keeps a car longer than 3 years. Dont know why. I can never find a car that fits me and my life style. The longest car I've had/have is my 2019 Silverado 1500 with 110k miles and my 2016 Camaro SS with 66k miles.
They have significantly improved. I see new corollas having complete transmission failures at 120,000 miles or less.
i see 1ZR engines burning oil as early as 80,000 miles.
Honda EarthDreams engines diluting and burning oil even when new
toyota and Honda quality has fallen so low Hyundai looks actually like a good buy.
I had once a couple Hyundai Accents reach 200,000 miles almost trouble free (steering knock issues and struts wearing out and other minor issues did exist but they were easy enough to fix) with just regular engine and transmission oil changes.
Previously I had a lot of complaints about seats and interior quality, but I recently rented a 2020 Sonata (my go is the Seat Ibiza or Škoda Rapid but i decided to treat my self and give in to my curiosity) and it was impressing. smooth, comfy, packed with tech and features (not on the Level on a luxury car but definitely way above its price range)
the real disadvantage of Hyundai and Kia cars is poor handling at high speeds, or poor interior quality and sometimes even odd failures (for example: Power steering is known to develop knocks for some reason) you wouldn’t expect to see in a Toyota.
conclusion: new gasoline automatic (not dual clutch) Hyundai or Kia are great cars and they CAN sometimes even outlast their uber complex Toyota or Honda counterparts.
Before all the flak, I’ve operated a car fleet and I’m still in the tranny repair business so I‘m sure I know what I’m talking about 🙂
EDITS: typos, I’m super tired and writing this on my phone
I see your downvote and match it. I've had more experience with Hyundai's than I could ever possibly care to. I know fellow master techs that were replacing engines in those Sonatas while they were being touted "Car of the Year". Give you a great example of Hyundai "quality": when they issued the recall for those Sonatas for engine failure, here is what the service center told the techs to do: get a laptop with Hyundai GDS software on it and a Bluetooth OBD-II scanner. Drive the car to a "quiet place." Once the computer mic detected that the ambient noise was at a certain decibel, the tech was to rev the engine and hold it for 8 seconds. Hyundai said if the mic did not detect a sufficient increase in decibels, the motor was fine. It was absolutely laughable. They sent out motors and told customers it checked out fine, only to have it grenade days later. Conversely some of the good engines were replaced because some outside noise beyond the techs control (car horn, bird, etc.) registered on the decibel software and put it over the limit. And you only got one shot to record, so it isn't like they could go back and do it over again if a noise happened. Dumbest system for troubleshooting an engine problem that I have ever seen.
This is the campaign they were working on at the time. Bad connecting-rod bearings. Yeah that's a quality built car. {blackemo}:laughtertotears:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.caranddriver.com/news/amp34874678/hyundai-engine-bearings-recall/
I have personally known more people (friends, family, coworkers) get a Hyundai product and then switch over to Toyota/Honda than the other way around.
Welp, at this point Toyota transmissions are so bad they can’t be recommended at all.
Get one, your regret it. The new ones make the Jatco JF015E look amazing next to it.
At least that one was serviceable and there were clear ratings on the belts (“10 Year” and “12 Year”)
As far quality goes, compared to a Citroën or a Peugeot with even worse AISIN TG-80SC trannies (8 speeds, completely non-rebildable) Hyundai’s simple 4 and 6 speeds are MUCH better quality.
And on Toyota; just wait a couple of years for the U760 in the Camry (rusting valve bodies on new cars! Never seen that before even on LADAs! ) to all start failing, and for the “MultiDrive” all start to to out.
It happened in Europe ago when they released the automated manuals that lasted all of the better part of 90,000 miles with endless recalls.
Toyota and AISIN reliability is dead. I’ve had to explain it to so many owners with bellow 120,000 miles and dead transmissions costing thousands to replace (rebuilds are too expensive and often require more then it’s worth in labor alone)
I’d rather have a Renault AL4 tranny or a Gatrag 6DCT250 cause these are a piece of cake to make them go on and on and on.
I haven’t seen Honda recall their terrible Oil deluding EarthDreams engine, they’re still making new one’s that burn oil like there’s no tomorrow.
And Toyota didn’t bother fixing their flawed ZR-series since the 90s, they’re only making them cheaper and cheaper. I once was helping a costumer purchase a used one and I couldn’t believe how many of them loose 12-13% compression before 120,000 miles.
Don’t be fan boys, soon you all outside of the car fleet business that like to keep their cars for over 120,000 miles will see everything I talked about here.
Yeah I'm not a "fan" of any one manufacturer and definitely not a "boy" either my guy. Did you mean, "Getrag" transmission? Because I've seen some things, but I have NEVER seen a Gatrag. BTW? My 2020 Accord 2.0T Sport burns ZERO oil. I don't think you understand how oil dilution works as it has nothing to do with burning oil. As for the rest of your statement, cheerlead on as you will.
Sadly knowing 4 languages has caused me to misspell Getrag, cause in Hebrew it’s גאטרג with no E - the pain of being quad-lingual.
Anyways, it doesn’t matter at all because this, as far as I know, no spelling bee.
I’m obviously happy to hear that your car doesn’t burn oil and trust me I know what I’m talking about.
Let’s get back to the point of Honda cheeping out:
These engines have poorly designed cam shafts, I’ve seen a lot of them have serious camshaft damage before 150,000 miles.
Here’s a picture of exactly what I mean:
https://www.drive2.com/l/529741679679242913/
They also knock when they need their valves to be adjusted (sounds to me like a thing that would happen on a Mitsubishi ClearTech!)
Throttle bodies get dirty causing floating rpm
Many engine mounts fail and I’ve seen lair of them leak like it’s an 08-09 Corolla.
And early model years are known to have hot spots in cylinder 4 causing warping (the last time I’ve saw this was in 2001 on the 1.6 Petrol Renault Meganè K4M)
They burn oil, they dilute oil and in general, yeah I wouldn’t get close to a modern Honda.
Even the Renault K9K and Suzuki M15A are better built and those are very cheap engines put in budget cars.
That being said the 1.5L accord sport (I don’t think other trims have manual transmissions) with the L series Honda (an engine designed in the early 2000s) engine is actually alright.
I am not willing to debate further as I am confident in my knowledge and the Honda’s I’ve personally written off for bad engines.
You're knit picking problems with Toyotas and Hondas. I am in no way loyal to Japanese cars at all and can confirm they still make much better cars than the Koreans. Now when you talk price, I can appreciate it. I bought a Fusion instead of a Camry just last week because it was cheap, not because it was necessarily better made.
I do think that Toyotas are somewhat overpriced and their quality has gone down somewhat, but I would trust a brand with a few problems that have been worked out over the years over a brand currently known for exploding sunroofs.
But oh-no. Your personal experience must be right and years of actual data must be wrong.
You can like and drive Korean cars, but don't try to tell us they are better than manufacturers with actual reputation for reliability because of individual problems on very specific products. We're talking about manufacturers as a whole here.
What I’m saying is that a Hyundai Elantra for how cheap they’re to buy are fine for 90 precent of people.
“I do think that Toyota are somewhat overpriced and their quality has gone down” - exactly, they’re too expensive for what they offer.
I’d rather buy an Elantra (or a Ford / Volvo as I did - I work on powershift gearboxes anyway so what do I care) with 20,000 miles and use it to 120,000 miles then buy a corolla with 100,000 miles and use it to 200,000 miles.
I live in Europe where Toyota are the actually built badly. Terrible CVTs (Since 2008-ish), 1ZZ engines blowing up (not 1ZR, look at how much issues the ZZ had), and Toyota hybrid systems come equipped on every car and those can go bad in 7-8 years (depending on climate - they can last more)
As a whole 2008-2011 Toyota’s have terrible gearbox issues with the European spec C50A PSA built gearbox.
2012-2013 Corollas they’re alright, oil consumption is an issue on that 1ZR-FAE but overall 8/10 solid.
2014-2017 terrible CVTs Scotty advised against and I support that I’ve seen some just explode after belt snaps.
2018-2020 Corolla better CVTs but the DynamicForce isn’t living up to what it should’ve been - but still CVT doesn’t offer the driving dynamics I’d want. It should’ve been an AISIN TG-81SC 8 speed automatic and not that bs.
That’s why here we drives Peugeot, Volkswagen, Kia and other cars that are built well *for the European market*.
American Hyundai’s had issues with the 2.0L and I would never touch a Tucson or any complex car.
^ so that’s in that question.
American Toyota > American Kia
European Kia > European Toyota
(Here they offer only like 2 popular cars, the Corolla hybrid (mostly sold as the “Corolla space” wagon), and the Euro Yaris (not the Mazda2 you’re getting there, but a Japanese spec city car that’s actually roughly on the same level as the mazda2 but much slower and hella un-fun to drive - realistically does 0-60 in like 15+ seconds)
@7.3PunchInA3.4
it’s not personal experience.
It’s fact here’s the entry for the gearbox that they put in the Toyota Corolla in Europe.
The entry clearly says “Approximate Lifespan 90,000 miles” (150,000 KM)
Go explain to a costumer that his 100,000 mile Toyota is stalling on takeoff cause his gearbox *completely worn out* cause they’re just built so poorly.
I’ve saw people go into tens of thousands of euros in debt cause they bough a prestige used Toyota and it would completely fail.
By saw I mean probably a hungered when I was in the gearbox repair industry…
genuinely was the most depressing time in the industry.
I’d rather replace the clutch on a BMW SpeedTronic (1,500 dollars) or seal leaks on a (750 dollars) Volvo on cars of rich kids and people who like racing.
not tell a young family that they have been *scammed* by Toyota out of their savings 😪
Oh and they did it again in 2015
@7.3PunchInA3.4
The gearbox in some RAV4 modes would vibrate like crazy and slip and slide worse the. A Chevy CVT.
“Approximate Lifespan 120,000miles (200,000 KM)” and no they didn’t bother recalling them and I’ve seen A LOT fail even before 120,000 miles.
At least when buying a Renault I know the engine is good for 180,000 miles and the automatics typically need a new clutch at 120,000 miles and electro-mechanical (the TCM with the solinoids pressure fit to it) part repacked at around 140,000 miles.