[ale] [OT] [way OT] dealing with funky problems in hyundai vehicles

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

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



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Ron Frazier
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