What is it with these Sonata transmissions?

When we purchased our 2000 Sonata last year it had 22,000 miles on the
clock, coming off a lease. The second day we had the car, the automatic
transmission failed right in the dealer's parking lot when we drove
there to pick up some paperwork. Much embarassed, the dealer promptly
replaced the tranny under warranty.

Some months later we brought the car in due to a noticable whine
emanating from the drivetrain -- diagnosis: excessive pinion noise,
requiring replacement of the new transmission.

Now, several months later, a very noticable whine/whirring sound was
coming from the drivetrain after returning from a vacation trip. Very
faint at first, it started getting louder so we brought the car in to
be checked. After machining the brake rotors and replacing a front
wheel bearing, the dealer's service people told us the noise persists
-- diagnosis: replace the transmission (again!!).

This car has had had to have its transmission changed almost as
frequently as the engine oil! Thank goodness for the long factory
warrantee, but that's not even the issue at this point. Just what is
the deal with these transmissions? Is there some person or department
at Hyundai to complain to? The dealer's service department has been
great, but Hyundai seems to be providing them with transmissions that
fell off the truck somewhere along the way!

Admittedly I'm from the old school, I've come to expect a certain level
of reliability in basic drivetrain components. The Sonata is the wife's
car, I have an old AMC Hornet that I tool around in. The latter has
been on the road for THIRTY YEARS and, aside from occasional fluid
changes, the transmission and final drive have NEVER had to be
serviced. Of course the Hornet's transmission and rear axle alone
probably weigh almost as much as a complete Hyundai Accent and
realistically I don't expect the Sonata's drivetrain to go for decades
without repair, but I'm pretty mortified over this car being on its 4th
transmission in a year's time.

 

This car has had had to have its transmission changed almost as

I would imagine that your repeat failures are caused by improperly
overhauled replacement units. Originally the transaxles installed in
these cars were made by mitsubishi if I'm not mistaken. Aside from the
shift flare problem that was remedied by the TCM update, these
transaxles seem to work fine provided you do the fluid changes as
required. My experiences with overhauled automatic
transmissions/transaxles has been rather poor, most do not last as long
as the original and they usually develop annoying problems early in
their life.

See if you can talk the dealer into giving you a factory new unit. I
would imagine that you would have much better luck with a new one
rather than another overhauled one.

Chris

 

I would imagine that your repeat failures are caused by improperly

That may be the case, though I would think a factory rebuilt unit
should be pretty good. Actually, except for the first failure, it's not
the transmission itself that has been problematical. Both replacements
shifted quite well, the trouble with both was pinion whine, indicating
excessively worn or misaligned gears in the final drive. In an older
car with conventional rear-drive, the rear axle or differential would
be serviced in such cases, but of course in a front-drive transaxle the
differential is part of the transmission. (Presumably it is not
cost-effective to tear down and fix just the differential in these
units, particularly since differentials are tricky to set up right.)

I recall reading someplace that the design came to Hyundai through
Mitsubishi, but that it ultimately is derived from Chrysler. Not sure
whether Hyundai buys them, or builds them under license.

At this point they have already ordered whatever they are going to
install. If the same problem rears its head we're going to have to get
more aggressive about obtaining a proper fix.

 

I am on my fourth trans in my 2002 XG and it is now starting to act
up. Shifting twice when going into 4rth gear.
My car has 26,000 miles on it.

 

Unfortunately, there's little you can do. Hyundai will neither allow the
dealer to overhaul the unit themselves nor install a new unit. If it has
an internal failure, they are required to replace it with a remanufactured
unit.

This transmission has relatively few failures, so I suspect there aren't
many remans out there. I've replaced so few, I can't judge reman
performance. Hyundai has had problems with their remanufacturing vendors
in the past, and has learned how to take certain actions that will improve
things. With their original remanufacturer, they began shopping for
another, and (big surprise) this remanufacturer's quality went up. The
problem is that they're paid per unit, so they naturally try to do as many
units as they can as quickly as they can. It's been clear to me that the
original remanufacturer was simply not doing all the things they said. I
recall a car in the mid nineties in which I had to replace the
transmission three times in the period of a week. It came it with a trans
problem and left ok. In a few days it came back because the torque
converter clutch was staying on and causing the car to stall at stops. I
believe this was because the remanufacturer failed to open and overhaul
the torque converter like they said they did. The next transmission
didn't even leave the lot. On the test drive, fluid was spewing out. It
looked like a bad end cover seal, so I removed the cover to replace the
seal only to find that it looked like someone had dragged the sealing
surface about fifty yards across a concrete floor. The remanufacturer
said they bench tested all the transmissions, but obviously they didn't
test this one or I would never have received it. The third one finally
did the trick.
If you continue to have problems, try to get Hyundai to give you some
sort of concession. You probably won't get the new trannie, but you might
get an extended powertrain warranty or something. I think it's reasonable
that if you continue to have problems with these units that Hyundai make
some gesture that indicates their willingness to stand behind them.

 

Hyundaitech,

Are the current Sonata transmissions any better?

Thanks

 

I have no problem with remanufactured transmissions as long as they
have been properly overhauled. (I've gotten excellent service from such
units over the years in other cars.) On the first two replacement
trannies that were installed in our Sonata it appeared that whoever did
the overhaul job either never bothered to check the final drive, or did
not service it correctly.

This evening we picked the car up, and it seems OK. This transmission
is the quietest of the bunch and it shifts just fine, seems essentially
like new. Hopefully the third time is the charm and that will be the
end of this aggravating problem.

Maybe they just don't care, but Hyundai has to realize that there is a
lot of "bad karma" associated with these kind of incidents. Not only
are we considering our own plans to perhaps purchase a new Sonata or
Santa Fe in a year or two, everyone we know is telling us "see, we told
you those cars are junk!" I personally don't believe that, but it was
not long ago that this was pretty much the case and the market has a
long memory for such things.

 

I remember in April Hyundai earned a best New Car Initial Quality
Award. I laughed at the time as I felt it was a joke with all the
problems I have had with my XG. I feel sorry for anyone purchasing
anything better than an Elantra from Hyundai.

 

1999-2005 Sonatas all use basically the same transmission and are
relatively trouble-free. The poster likely had a rare issue with his
vehicle and has had reman issues since that time. I see no significant
problem with the 99-05 trannies in Sonatas.

 

didn't

Really..how were you able to communicate with the remanufacturer?

 

Thanks!!!

 

I would like to think so, but the tranny on my '04 Sonata GLS hasn't
been right since the day I drove it off the lot, but of course the
dealer says there is nothing wrong.

 

I think you've got pretty much the right attitude about this. The Sonata
isn't the best quality car out there, but it's better than any American
car I can think of that directly competes with it. If you're looking for
tops, I'd recommend the Camry or Accord.

 

The award Hyundai received was for -initial quality- for the -Sonata-. If
you know what this award means, then you also know it doesn't mean very
much. If I recall correctly, initial quality refers to problems in the
first three or six months. This is of course not very indicative of the
overall lifetime quality. Similarly, the award was for the Sonata, not
the XG or any other model. I believe the XG to be the lowest quality of
any Hyundai model offered in the U.S. It's got more doodads and more ways
to break. I've seen or heard of nagging problems with the transmission,
variable intake, and electronic throttle on the XG. Two of these can't
even exist on the Sonata, since it doesn't have these systems. Hyundai
knows of several problems on 01 XG's and has made many steps to correct
them. But, as the original poster said, there's a long memory. Although
at the very least, Hyundai has probably corrected the trannie issues, I
don't know whether that's really so. While I don't see many XG tranny
problems, either, that doesn't change the fact that I know these problems
existed and that my opinion is now tarnished.

 

If I remember correctly, you didn't answer my question when I asked the
first time, so here's another chance for you to come clean on this.

How familiar are you with Toyotas and Hondas?

I've never seen you posting in the Honda and Toyota newsgroups. Not a
single post.

One extra question:

Why is a GM tech masquerading as a "Hyundai tech" on Hyundai newsgroup?