[ale] way OT - used car buying tips - yea or nea - PT 2

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Hi Sean,

It's good to know the Santa Fe can do some hard work when needed.  Mine has the 2.7 L engine, not the 3.5 L, but it's still a V6.  Transverse mounted, so the last three spark plugs are buried under engine equipment and the timing belt will be a bear to do.  Otherwise, I think it's a good car.  We've had my wife's Sonata for 3 years and really like it.  My mechanic says newer Hyundai's and Kia's are right up there in quality with Toyota, Honda, and Nissan.  He also likes newer Ford's.

Re: towing - I was surprised to find out that the towing limiting factor is based, not on the power of the engine, but whether the trailer has brakes.  With trailer brakes, I can do 3000 lbs.  Otherwise, it's 1500 lbs.  Some people on internet forums said the 2.7L is underpowered for towing.

Re: awd - All wheel drive can be very handy.  I almost bought an AWD Mazda Tribute.  However, it had an unpatchable screw AND nail in one tire.  They said I had to replace all tires at once to keep them the same circumference.  I did some research and it appears to be true.  You have to keep the tread depth of all tires within 1 or 2/32 of an inch or it screws up the drive train and can cause premature failure.  I never knew that before.

Re: gas brands - What brands does it like?  I usually use QT without problems.  I guess their wholesale brands can come from different sources depending on pricing.  Have you noticed a difference between summer and winter?  On that fuelly site I mentioned where people track their mileage, I noticed a big difference between summer and winter.

Re: scan gauge mpg - I cannot speak re that particular product.  However, I did get an ODB / bluetooth interface and used my android tablet to talk to it with the torque pro program.  I found the MPG readings to be way off compared to counting miles and fuel used at each fill up.  I have no idea why.  I could add a fudge factor into the program, but I just gave up on that.  Right now, I'm just logging fuel and miles at each fill up and tabulating manually.

Sincerely,

Ron



Sean Kilpatrick <kilpatms at gmail.com> wrote:

>About a year ago we purchased a new Hyundai Santa Fe AWD to use as a
>tow 
>vehicle.  After using it to haul our 1-ton camping trailer through 
>Colorado to the west coast and then up into the Canadian Rockies I can 
>comment on a few things Ron mentioned.
>
>Fuel economy:  The latest version of the 3.5 V6 is rated at 275 bhp,
>but 
>those are Clydesdales, not quarter horses.  They need more oats.  I
>didn't 
>hesitate to let the engine spool up to 4500 rpm climbing 10,000 foot 
>mountain passes in the Rockies -- at 65 mph, while pulling the trailer.
>
>Gas mileage suffered! :)
>
>For the whole trip we averaged about 17.5 while towing and anywhere
>from 
>18 - 22 when not.  I have never owned a car that was as sensitive as
>this 
>one to different brands of gasoline.  Best mileage was in Canada, where
>
>they do NOT add ethanol to the petrol.
>
>The best widget I purchased for the trip was the Scan Guage II.
>
>http://www.scangauge.com/
>
>This plugs into the OBDI port under the dash and allows constant
>readout 
>of nearly every variable the engine's computer is tracking.  Displays
>any 
>four. Especially useful for towing are the (near) instant fuel economy
>and 
>water temp.  The temp. gauge in this car is a joke.  It looks like a 
>regular temp gauge, but it really has only three positions: cold,
>normal, 
>and overheated.  It shows as "normal" anything from 157F to 223F, the 
>highest I have seen so far.
>
>To put the fuel economy into some perspective, this V6 is producing
>more 
>drive-wheel horsepower than many of the muscle cars of the late 60s
>with 
>their hulking, ginormous V8s -- which got 12-15 mpg IF you only touched
>
>the gas pedal with a feather-light foot.  Those four-barrel carbs were 
>thirsty!
>
>The 2013 version of the car no longer comes with the V6 -- only a
>regular 
>4-banger and a turbo-four.  Couldn't find anything on tow capacity, but
>I 
>suspect it is now limited to one ton.  The V6 is rated to tow up to
>3500 
>lbs with trailer brakes.
>
>Bottom line: strong engines with lots of torque are thirsty.  Those
>little 
>turbocharged 4-bangers produce enough horsepower at high revs while 
>sipping gas, but are gutless coming away from a stop, especially up
>hill 
>with a load.  We need the grunt factor, so we put up with the fuel 
>mileage.  If we didn't we'd have a much smaller car with a turbo-four
>and 
>enjoy 40% - 50% better fuel economy.
>
>Sean
>
>
>
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--

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(To whom it may concern.  My email address has changed.  Replying to former
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Ron Frazier
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