2006 Sonata door handles turning dull

The door handles and the fairing pieces behind the handles on my 2006
Sonata are turning dull and changing color slightly. Has anyone else
had this problem?

When I bought the car in 2005, the dealer asked me to bring it back
shortly after I bought it for several "recalls" (what they called them,
but no recalls in the legal sense). One of them was to replace the
fairing pieces behind the door handles. He said he had no idea why they
had to replace them as the new ones looked identical to the old ones,
but I think now I see why. The fairings on the front doors are not
turning dull and still match the paint well. However, the door handles
themselves are turning dull and changing color and both handles and
fairings on the rear doors are doing likewise. Apparently, they
replaced only the front fairings during the "recall."

It appears that the paint they used on these parts (or the color in the
plastic - I can't tell for sure if they are painted or not) doesn't deal
well with UV and/or weather.

I have to look up the warranty coverage again, but I'm guessing this
won't be covered as the car is more than 3 years old now and has 47,000
miles. They sure are starting to look ugly though and this isn't a very
good advertisement for Hyundai.

Matt

 

I don't deal with paint warranty very often, so I'd have to look this
up to be sure, but I think it's 3 years/36k miles.

The reason for the recall on the door handle trims was that the door
handles would stick in the out position if you pulled back on them
slightly when opening the door.

 

I imagine it fall under the paint category
Following components covered for time and mileage limits indicated:
- Radio And Sound Systems (i.e. radio, cassette tape drive mechanism, and
compact disc player): 3 years / 36,000 miles
- Paint: 3 years/ 36,000 miles


OTOH, since it appears it was a know issue, they may do something to help
you. Just curious, what color do you have? I wonder if it was all of
them or just certain colors that went bad.

 

I don't recall the exact Hyundai color name, but it is a "gun metal
blue" color. Wait, I think I have a bottle of touch-up paint here
somewhere. Stand by...

Well, the bottle has no color name on it. The top of the lid has
"00253-F6000" and under that "D3" in larger letters. The label wrapped
around it has "30805" on it. The rest appears to just be directions and
warnings from the Federation ... er, uh, state of CA.

Matt