Acceptable production to delivery time period?

Hi guys.
Took delivery of my shiny new Sonata 3.3L today.

Looked under the hood, and the aluminium engine was covered with white
corrosion spots. So I'm thinking, how old is this car.

Bearing in mind I took delivery on the 1st Sept, the car was produced 15th
FEB.
BTW, there is a different plating system in the UK to the US, for example.
The plate that shows the VIN is on the engine bulkhead and does not show a
date. As far as I am aware, and from what I can see, there is no production
date anywhere on the car. I got the date by asking the dealer. I would have
checked the date before paying if it was easy like the US system, but
because you have to ask here, I though I would try and make the buying
experience as painless as possible and not ask, that is, trust Hyundai to
treat their customers right.
I'm telling the dealer that 6 1/2 months from production to delivery is
unacceptable, especially looking at the corrosion on the engine. He is now
going contact Hyundai and ask them to change the car for a more recent
build. But he was arguing the case that 6 1/2 months was ok, so he is hardly
on my side.
Would anyone agree? What would you say would be a satisfactory time period?

nn

 

Did you order the car and have to wait 6.5 months for it? I would
consider that excessive, yes. If you just picked a car up from the
dealer, then you have no beef as long as it is the correct model year.
And the engine will corrode on the surface whether the car is in transit
to you or in your possession so you are making much ado about nothing,
in my opinion.

Matt

 

I ordered the car on 1st August and took delivery 1st September. The car was
produced Feb 18. We don't have 'model years' here in particular. The model
came out Sept 2005 and is the current model here. Over 6 months old is
excessive hear. I have purchased 7 new cars in total and all the rest did
not show signs of corrosion, mostly I suspect because they took about 6 - 8
weeks to come through. I suppose I am mainly miffed at the corrosion. It
just does not look new under the bonnet (hood). And that has occurred
because of the storage time. I take it from your comments you are from the
US. I understand that you purchase previous model years and so yes, the car
would have been around a while, but you get big discounts. I did not get big
discounts as it is sold as the latest and new.

nick

 

Join the club.
In New Zealand my "three month" old Sonata 3.3 Elite was actually a
year old all ready.
Delivered in March-06 - manufactured in June-05? Is anyone in the
Hyundai food chain in this country interested? Nope - they reckon this
is normal. I call it a rip-off. How anyone by any stretch of
imagination can market the vehicle (which has carried serious defects
since delivery) as a 2006 model is beyond me. Nine months of sitting in
a yard - woo hoo! Really good for the car. Or perhaps it has been
dumped here from another market where their sales are crap?

Do Hyundai care? No. Anyone speak Korean?

Definitely the only and last time I will have anything to do with the
brand.

Piri

 

Mine was built March 29, 2006 and I took delivery from the dealer lot
on June 16. Not bad at all from what I read here.

FWIW, I took a tour of the HMMA assembly plant last week. Their
gigantic back parking lot (and acres of unpaved grass and fields and
every other nook and cranny) was absolutely jammed with finished
Sonatas and Santa Fe cars waiting for transport.

I don't mean a LOT of cars. I mean a couple miles of them, nose to
tail. Maybe 50,000 cars.

No way for me to know if this is normal practice or not -or whether it
applies to the Pusan Sonata plant or the one in Europe- but if Hyundai
is OK with this sort of backlog, it might explain why some of the cars
seem to sit in limbo.

The disturbing thing was seeing them parked in dirt and grass and mud
getting filthy. OK, so they can be cleaned but it just looked
depressing.

They need to sell these things, not let them sit.

On the other hand, it was nice to see the HMMA employee parking lot was
also populated by a good percentage of of personal-use Sonatas. Maybe
the workers get a cheap deal, who knows -but they are driving them.
Lots of them. If auto assembly plant workers won't drive the car they
make, there's something wrong. For example, almost nobody at the Ford
Taurus plant drives the car they make.

They also had at least two Equus sedans on site. blech. Boxy worked
for Volvo.

 

Yes, we have model years that must be listed on the title to the
vehicle. When you sell a car, how does the buyer know how old the car
is if you don't assign model years to your cars? Is the manufacturing
date listed on your title or whatever proof of ownership document you
use? Yes, I'm from the US. Here the date of manufacture isn't relevant
to vehicle value, it is the model year assigned by the manufacturer.

What part of the engine is corroded. On my Sonata, I can barely see the
engine under the plastic cover and other stuff packed around it.

I ask again, what about the corrosion bothers you? If the car had been
delivered the day aafter you ordered it, it would still have the same
corrosion, and possibly more, after you had owned it for 7 months, so
what is the difference?

Matt

 

The registration (plate) number.
This year there is 06 and 56 on the plate, and that means March-Sept (06)
and Sept-March (56)
This only shows when the car was first registered, not when it was built.
This is the usual UK cock-up on how to do things. On UK madels the
production date cannot be found on the car. Big error.

Do you have the 3.3L? You can see around the sides of the cover quite
easily.
Look at,
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/nickpike/WJ56OUA_1.jpg

When you use a car on a daily basis, any engine, exhaust, etc. corrosion
tends to be burnt off by the heat. Corrosion tends to have quite a long time
factor (on aluminium). Sure, the engine looks corroded and tatty eventually,
but tends to take years. My point is that I bought a new car and it should
look new. Also, the whole car has been subjected to this corrosive
environment. Something else that has come to light is that certain features
are missing that should have been on a Sept 2006 car, presumably cause of
the car's age.

nick

 

No, I have the I4. The corrosion in your picture looks pretty trivial
to me and the engine isn't exactly a cosmetic feature of this car
anyway. I think you are making much ado about nothing, but good luck
with your challenge to Hyundai.

Corrosion doesn't burn off, at least not at any normal temperature that
an engine reaches. The moisture that causes corrosion will evaporate,
but once metal corrodes, you won't burn it off.

Matt

 

I feel obliged to answer your comment. I cannot agree with the use of your
word 'trivial'. That level of corrosion is what you see on an old car, not a
brand new one. The corrosion is also indicative of the harsh environment the
whole vehicle has been stored in.
nick

 

Almost every new vehicle I look at on the lot has surface rust/corrosion
on the suspension components and some engine components. Many such
parts aren't treated to prevent corrosion as the treatment wouldn't last
and it makes no real difference in serviceability anyway. Untreated
aluminum and steel start to rust/corrode the instant after they are
formed. This simply isn't a defect in a car.

Sure, cars are often stored in harsh environments and transported in
even harsher environments. Many cars cross the ocean on ships. Ships
are exposed to salty air. Many are shipped on rail cars and exposed to
rain, industrial pollution, snow, etc. Same when they are transported
on trucks. Then again, they are driven in harsh environments in most
cases by their owners so why worry about it?

I'll say one thing, I envy you to have so little else to worry about in
life that you worry about things like this that make no difference in
the scheme of things. Unfortunately, I have far bigger things to worry
about like how to pay for my kids' college... :-(
A little corrosion on a part of my car that nobody but me even sees just
doesn't even rank mindshare.

Matt