[ale] [OT] [way OT] dealing with funky problems in hyundai vehicles
Sean Kilpatrick
kilpatms at gmail.com
Fri Sep 13 16:37:58 EDT 2013
I have a Hyundai Santa Fe 2011. My problem is with the fly-by-wire
throttle, which (only) at the worst possible times will not feed gas to
the engine from a full stop -- like stopped at a light on a steep hill. I
take my foot off the brake and press on the gas peddle -- and the car rolls
backward. Not Good!
But, I am writing to comment on Ron's notes on the Hyundai water temp.
guage. The one on the dashboard >looks< like a real temp. guage, but it's
not. It is actually a three position "idiot light." Its three positions
are, Cold, Operating temp. and Overheat.
I do not know at what point the "guage" will indicate Overheat, but it
registers Operating temp. from 157 F up through 235 F. I can assure one
and all that this does not help much when towing a one-ton trailer over a
10k foot mountain pass in Colorado.
Sean
--------------------------------------------------------------------
On Friday, September 13, 2013 02:57:48 pm Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> This is a diverse group of people with many different interests that we
> discuss here. I've been working on solving problems in power
> protection, gps's, scripting, lighting, audio recording, eyeglasses,
> and automobiles over the last year and you have given me help on many
> of these. I appreciate that. I always try to share what I learned
> back to the group in case the info will help others.
>
> For some time, I've been trying to solve some funky problems with my
> 2005 Hyundai Santa Fe. I think I've found some solutions, and I want
> to share them in case someone else can benefit. This applies to other
> Hyundai's too.
>
> This is a bit long, so if this topic doesn't interest you, feel free to
> skip it.
>
> If you reply, feel free to snip it since we may hit the board's length
> limit.
>
> * If you own a Hyundai, you should know that they, unlike many other
> manufacturers, publish almost all their technical data online. By
> signing up for a free account, you can get access to shop manuals,
> technical service bulletins, schematics, obd data, etc. The address
> is https://www.hyundaitechinfo.com/ . I tried to use the system with
> Firefox, but couldn't get the sign up procedure to work until I used
> Internet Explorer. After that, I was able to get much of the site to
> work on Firefox, but a lot of the graphics and schematics wouldn't
> load. The only way I could get everything to load was to use IE and
> load an svg viewer from adobe. Nevertheless, lots of the data should
> be accessible to you even if not using IE. See the site requirements
> link. What can I say, it is what it is.
>
> * We had a thread not long ago about car air conditioning. You can
> refer to that for more info. But, long story short, my ac would cut
> out at idle. I tried to charge the refrigerant on my own and
> overcharged it almost to the point of being dangerous. I had to have
> a mechanic set it straight. Bottom line, the little cans of r134a
> that you buy with the little gauges are virtually useless for the
> purpose of determining how much refrigerant charge is in the system.
> It's better to have your mechanic do the ac recharging.
>
> * My ac is still cutting out at idle for a different reason that I just
> discovered. The 2005 Santa Fe (not sure about other years) has two
> electric cooling fans on the radiator. Both can run at either high or
> low speed, and both can be turned on at any time the car wants. One
> is considered an air conditioning fan and one is considered a cooling
> fan, but they both have a role to play in engine cooling. The ac
> condenser coil is mounted in front of the radiator on the driver side.
> Right behind this coil toward the rear of the car is the radiator.
> Behind that, in the engine bay, is an electric fan. I think this is
> commonly called the radiator fan, but it is the one of the two fans
> that helps cool the ac condenser coil.
>
> It turns out that this fan was failing to turn on. But, the second
> radiator fan was working. The only real symptoms I had were that the
> ac would cut out and blow warm air after idling for a while; and when
> I have to work in the engine bay to check fluids, etc., the air in
> there felt REALLY hot. I put a funnel in the transmission oil opening
> for just a few minutes and it was almost too hot to touch to take out.
> The engine temp gauge wasn't showing anything unusual. I finally
> attached my tablet to the obd port and read the coolant temperature at
> 235 deg at idle. That seemed pretty hot to me. When traveling down
> the road, it would be about 195.
>
> By observing the fans, I determined that one would run whenever the ac
> was on, and the other one never seemed to. I was going to have the
> mechanic replace the driver side fan, which he thought was a good
> idea. By the way, it pays to check online. The OEM fan was $ 260. A
> Dorman replacement from AutoZone was $ 130, and the same Dorman fan
> was $ 80 on Amazon, of all places. I like OEM when it's really
> necessary to pay the price, but a good aftermarket part will often do
> the trick too.
>
> The mechanic worked on diagnosing the problem and sometimes the fan
> would go on and sometimes not. He thought it was the motor. I told
> him I might order the part elsewhere. Note that the mechanic will not
> warrant the part that way, so if it failed again, I'd have to pay to
> replace it again. I got the car back while I was waiting on the fan
> from Amazon. So, no repairs had been done. But, I noticed the fan
> was running one day. I cancelled the order from Amazon and told the
> mechanic we'd just wait and see how long it would run.
>
> I noticed that, with both fans running when the ac is on at idle, the
> ac continues to work just fine. So if I can fix my fan problem, I fix
> the ac problem too. This was likely the problem when I first decided
> to charge the ac. However, I didn't have any clue since my engine
> temperature gauge didn't show any problem. I hooked up my tablet
> again and found out that, with both electric radiator fans running,
> the coolant temperature doesn't get above 205 at idle.
>
> A couple of days later, the radiator fan cut out again. I started
> poking around and wiggled the wiring harness and it came back on. So,
> it's a wiring issue. I took it over to the mechanic and we poked it
> some more and eventually isolated the problem to the connector pair
> which joins the car to the fan. Looking inside the connector, we
> found the plastic shell partly melted, which would lead you to believe
> that the connection had excessive resistance. The mechanic suggested
> that I search for the part, since that would probably be cheaper than
> going to a dealer. I looked and looked. Nobody had it. Nobody sells
> it.
>
> I know I could hot wire / splice the wires. But, I don't want to.
> This would make it harder to ever replace the fan and harder on any
> future owners.
>
> I eventually called the dealer parts desk. That guy said they didn't
> sell individual connectors, but I could potentially buy the whole
> wiring harness for $ 2K. He wasn't totally serious, but I declined to
> do that. He suggested junk yards. I called several, but couldn't
> find my car. Someone told me they usually want to sell you the whole
> harness too, rather than letting you chop it apart.
>
> I kept searching and googling for a whole day. I even tried calling
> Dorman to see if I could get their engineering data on the connector
> they use. I kept searching. Eventually, I happened to see a google
> listing of a hyundai technical service bulletin which mentioned
> radiator fan connectors. I went to the afore mentioned website and
> pulled up the TSB. Sure enough, this problem is common enough that
> they DO sell a parts kit just for this connector pair. I called the
> dealer back, gave them the specific TSB number, and he was able to
> order the part for me. I should be able to pick that up tomorrow, and
> the mechanic can install it within an hour. I could install it
> myself, just splicing wires and such, but I'd rather the mechanic do
> that and put his warranty on it. Once that's done, it should fix my
> ac problem and my really hot engine bay problem. Also, it will be far
> less likely that I would have NO cooling fans like I would now if the
> 2nd one went out.
>
> * I have a slow transmission fluid leak. I haven't solved it yet.
> But, if you have something similar, just know that there are some
> TSB's on the Hyundai website about that too. (Note: a TSB is not the
> same as a recall. It doesn't mean that they'll pay to fix it if the
> car is out of warranty. But it does acknowledge the problem and give
> the techs info on repairs.) I went up and down some really steep
> north ga mountains not long ago and I don't think the transmission
> liked it. Both my Sante Fe and my wife's Sonata seem to have a really
> low 1st gear, which is good for acceleration. Normally, on a
> mountain, if you don't want to go down a hill beyond about 20 MPH, you
> could put it in 1st gear and let the transmission slow you down. For
> these cars, I don't think that's a good idea. It seems to put a
> severe strain on the transmission. After several minutes of this,
> something smelled hot. Use the brakes discretely. I read a forum
> post once that said, essentially, so ...! you (the original poster)
> are saying that you'd rather stress out and potentially damage a
> transmission that costs $ 2K to fix than stress out and potentially
> damage the brakes that cost $ 300 to fix. Ron talking again, I see
> his point. Personally, I'd just rather avoid the mountains.
>
> * I've been troubleshooting another problem on the car which is very
> intermittent and very annoying. On about 4 days out of the month,
> usually after starting the car, driving, and parking somewhere; the
> car will not want to start. The starter spins the engine fine, but it
> won't fire. I try to start it about 7 more times, then it starts. My
> mechanic thought it was the crankshaft position sensor and replaced
> that. Problem still exists, so he's going to replace it again under
> warranty. Neither of the mechanics at that shop think it's the fuel
> pump. I tried replacing the fuel cap, and it's not that either.
>
> Googling hyundai crankshaft position sensor cps ckps will get you lots
> of interesting reading. Apparently, they're a bit infamous for this
> problem, mainly the older cars. This can cause the symptoms I've
> described, also engine sputtering while running, and sometimes, even
> shutting down. The car uses this sensor to know when the piston is at
> top dead center and when to fire the spark plugs; and if it can't read
> the sensor, it won't fire the spark plugs. There is a shop bulletin
> on their website about how to inspect, align, and troubleshoot this
> sensor. I asked my mechanic if we could check the alignment of it.
> He said no, not without taking apart half the engine. Replacing it is
> apparently easy by comparison. One other thing you might want to be
> aware of is that the old hyundai's, at least Santa Fe's, are somewhat
> famous for baking the wires on this sensor. Then, the insulation
> crumbles, things short out, and bad things happen.
>
> Overall, I like these cars and think they're a good value. My mechanic
> says the newer ones have very good quality. My 2005 may be on the
> borderline where they were having some quality issues.
>
> Hopefully, soon, my car will be (relatively) cool in the engine bay,
> cool inside, cranking when it should, and not dripping any fluids.
>
> Hope you found this information useful.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ron
>
>
>
> --
>
> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9
> Mail. Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the touch
> screen.
>
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
> call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate
> energy mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email messages
> very quickly.)
>
> Ron Frazier
> 770-205-9422 (O) Leave a message.
> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
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>
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