I’ve seen it referred to a few times now that Hyundai Motor Group is not known for quality and that it has been on a downward trend since 2010. Yet, they (and siblings Genesis and Kia) offer one of the best, if not THE best, standard warranty in the industry and, in recent years, have topped or been near it on several JD Power “Initial Quality” and “Dependability” lists. They rank lower in CR rankings, but are still typically listed among the more reliable brands. The Telluride/Palisade have been very well-reviewed in their segment since their introductions to the market as well.
Outside of Kia inexplicably introducing CVTs to a couple of their models in the last year or so, what makes these brands so bad in 2021? I fully understood poor sentiments in the early 2000’s, but not today. Whatchagot?
Oil leaking onto the alternator is a common design mistake, ask Honda 3.5L V6 owners who's engines cylinder deactivation system control unit leaks like mad right onto the alternator.
Quite honestly, all of the added complexity you saw on Hyundai a decade ago, now exists on many Japanese cars.
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I wish what you'd describe would be only a Hyundai thing,
Be it Toyota passing cheap-ing out on harnesses and using the CAN-BUS for everything, to the point that it passes though the headlights causing damage repair on many newer models become incredibly difficult.
I've been hearing about it for a few years, but here's just a recent example:
https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/postid/192937/
Or be it Honda's ongoing questionable engineering practices, look in the forum and you'll find all on Hondas: Bad thermal design on CRVs, Bad factory paint, Bad transmissions on Acura and large SUV models, expensive injectors getting destroyed on EarthDreams, litters of gasoline getting into the oil even on cars that "aren't affected by oil dilution".
Terrible engineers are everywhere!
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Yes Hyundai quality is lower than competition, there's no arguing that.
But I just must say that the competitors are getting to the same levels of bad engineering and lack of QC. Terrible times for the car industry.
They have a lot of plastic that with age gets brittle and breaks. I would not buy a used one more than 10 years old or with more than 100K on it. I have gotten good service out of my Hyundai's but I bought them new and they were properly maintained. That was when the warranty was bumper to bumper "no questions asked". Any thing that broke got fixed. They have modified that to only the drive train. The rest is 5 years and 60 thousand miles and they are not so liberal. The dealers now routinely disallowing warranty repairs based on maintenance history. You have to get all your maintenance done by the dealer including oil changes and pay dealer prices.
I bet you Hyundai was losing a lot of money before when they were fixing “everything” that broke. After all, offering a warranty that long and willing to fix stuff “no questions asked” is not cheap for the company, and not sustainable.
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It won’t surprise me if they reduce their warranty periods in the future and drop it to 3/36,000 and 5/60,000 like the rest of the (non luxury) automakers.
My 2011 Santa Fe needed a steering rack at 100k and a starter at 40k. My 2008 Veracruze needed all four wheel hubs at 60K and suspension bushings at 100K. The rest was normal maintenance. Traded the SantaFe in 2021 and the Veracruze in 2020. So I probably saved about $5000 over the life of the cars. Otherwise they ran fine and got me where I wanted to go. I did not go back to Hyundia because the dealer management changed and they started ripping people off. My entire block had Hyundia's for a while. Now we have all switched mostly to Kia's since the local Kia dealer is eager to please. We will see where they go in ten years.
Update: Kia and Hyundai dealers are out of control. Cabin air filter $90 US. I can buy them on Amazon for $11. They come in Hyundai packaging. Same thing with oil filters. dealer $70 amazon Hundai OEM $19. I went to get a drain plug crush washer. $45 for one. I bought a bag of 10 for $6.95 at Autozone. When I visit the dealers I always hear someone screaming when their estimate doesn't match the final bill. You look around in the shop and there are piles of engine blocks everywhere.
I recommended one dealer after I bought a Sorento in December of 2020. My friend came back to me and said every car was marked up 5 thousand dollars above MSRP. That was last month. And the dealer reported record profits this year!