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

[Jim Kinney]

That's not fun! I "glassed" by nonmetallic brake pads once back when I ran
road rallys  in my Fiat 131. Nothing scarier that pressing the brake hard,
feeling the solid impact of shoes on rotor and seeing no change in speed
going into a reverse banked curve at 30mph over safe speed! Used hand brake
to isolate rear wheel drum brakes and discovered "drifting" in a rear wheel
drive car doesn't work well. :-)
On Sep 13, 2013 3:50 PM, "Boris Borisov" <bugyatl at gmail.com> wrote:

> My dad used to have two stroke car. Downhill you cannot use the engine to
> break because engine does not get oil (unless you are driving like rally
> champion with break and throttle together ). Once after 3 km steep downhill
> We had to stop to get breaks cooled down because of smoke coming out and
> breaks just stop working ( no friction ).
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 3:40 PM, Boris Borisov <bugyatl at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On my old van I solder the wires directly to the sealed beam light. The
>> new connector is
>>  $14. The new sealed beam light is $14. Soldering process about a minute
>> :)
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
>> atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> 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
>>> Litecoin: LZzAJu9rZEWzALxDhAHnWLRvybVAVgwTh3
>>> Bitcoin: 15s3aLVsxm8EuQvT8gUDw3RWqvuY9hPGUU
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>
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