2004 Sonata Needs New Clutch

And if you win, you may not be able to tell anyone about it

 

Unlike most clutches, the damper in this system is in the flywheel rather
than the clutch disc. Not only can the flywheel not be resurfaced, it's
also very expensive.

 

G'Day Mate.

 

Information useful if it can be trusted. You aren't a trustworthy
person and thus your information isn't trustworthy and is thus not useful.

Matt

 

I agree that a clutch should last much longer than that under normal
conditions, but Hyundai has no idea as to whether your car was driven
"normally" or hard. The same problem exists with brake linings. I
often get 60,000 miles out of disk pads, yet I know many people lucky to
get 12,000 and you need only one ride with them to know why.

The problem with wear items like this is that their life is necessity
VERY dependent on driver technique and the car maker has no control over
that. I'm concerned that my Sonata clutch is not going to have a long
life as it is a VERY hard car to drive such as to be easy on the clutch.
The clutch is too light with little feedback during engagement and the
throttle is like a switch. This makes if very hard to start out with
anything less than 1500 or so RPM. With my Chevy truck, I can modulate
the throttle and clutch such that I can start out smartly yet smoothly
and never exceed 1,000 RPM before the clutch is fully engaged. Doing
this with my Sonata is nearly impossible and can be done only with
intense concentration and with a very slow start - not very conducive to
driving in heavy traffic with a line of cars behind you waiting for you
to get going.

Matt

 

What do you mean by this? Do you mean that the spring center is in the
flywheel rather than the clutch disk? By this I mean the springs that
are oriented circumferentially and allow the disk to rotate slightly in
relation to the splines so as to absorb rotational shocks.

Matt

 

Matt,

I understand your point regarding items that wear and Hyundai having no idea
whether the item was abused or not. That doesn't work for me though. It is
too subjective, therefore there must be objective criteria for the service
person to use in order to judge whether abuse or misuse ocurred.

Thanks for the reply.

 

Matt wrote:
"What do you mean by this? Do you mean that the spring center is in the
flywheel rather than the clutch disk? By this I mean the springs that are
oriented circumferentially and allow the disk to rotate slightly in
relation to the splines so as to absorb rotational shocks."

Pretty much. I've never actually tried to take one of these flywheels
apart to see what the dampers look like, so I'm not sure that the
mechanism looks like it does on the clutch disc. In this system, the
clutch disc is solid-- the fibers are attached to the disc, which is part
now essentially part of the hub, rather than being attached via the
dampers (the circumferential spring assemblies). The flywheel has two
parts, joined by a damper, and it's possible to turn the transmission side
of the flywheel about 20 degrees or so with respect to the engine side.

 

Since I'm not that great at describing things, I did some googling on "dual
mass flywheel," and here's one of the better links I've found. It's the
LuK website.

http://www.luk.com/content.luk.de/en/products/clutch_systems_new/zms_new/zms_new.jsp

I do wish, however, everyone would stop using the verb "dampen" and the
noun "dampener" to indicate the verb "damp" and the noun "damper." Am I
alone in this?

 

\

Amen, brother! Dampener Verboten!

Good job finding the Luk link. Bookmarked
(Anyone visiting the site, click on "Detail" for the inside story.)

No freakin' wonder the flywheel costs over a grand!!

Speedy Jim
http://www.nls.net/mp/volks/

 

Unfortunately, you are looking for an ideal that simply doesn't yet
exist. I suspect some day more cars will have "black boxes" that record
every move the driver makes which then makes these warranty issues much
more objective, although I suspect most car owners will NOT want such a
device in there car. The few cars that have even a simple black box now
are causing all sorts of consternation among their owners.

Matt

 

Interesting. I wonder why Hyundai made this choice? Since these
dampers are likely to deteriorate with use, it seems much more prudent
to attach them to the primary wear component rather than a more
permanent component.

Matt

 

No, but I've long given up trying to correct the unwashed masses that
can't seem to understand the difference.

Matt

 

It's just not that simple. Doing things like slipping the clutch to hold
the car on hills will wear it out rapidly, but will likely not leave any
indications unless one really burns the clutch badly. I have no idea how
you drive and I'm not assuming anything, but clutch life it totally
dependent on driving technique and it doesn't necessarily have to do
with whether a car is driven "hard" or not. FWIW, my '04 Elantra has
almost 70K miles on it and the clutch is fine. I've gotten over 100K
miles out of the clutches on all but one of my my other cars (a '79
Saab, which were known for rapid clutch wear, but it was an easy DIY
repair) and hopefully, I will with this one, too.

 

No, you're not.