I have a decent amount of second hand experience with used cars, through my brother who is a mechanic and spent a number of years working at a used car dealership. Hyundai/Kia is the only company he ever had to do engine replacements for at said dealership, and he did dozens. All under 200k km (frequently right after the extended warranty on the engines ran out, and occasionally on the second or even third engine for the vehicle). These are cars with good service history and otherwise in excellent condition. Sometimes cars they got on trade, sometimes purchased from auctions, sometimes customer cars (after they were sold). No rhyme or reason, just a genuinely bad design that was “fixed” but never fixed.
The only other universally-bad major component is JATCO CVT transmissions. I think his record was an Infiniti QX60 that had 95k km and a blown transmission. Most small vehicle/sedan CVTs he did were in the 160-190k km range, with some lasting as long as 250k km. And of course they were not repairable, since even if parts were available, the entire thing grenades leaving basically nothing left to rebuild.
Point being, “one engine issue due to a manufacturing flaw” is drastically underselling the issue, at best. It is an incorrectly-engineered engine that fails prematurely when built within specification, except when the tolerance stackup lines up in your favour and you perform much more frequent maintenance than prescribed. Oh and the affected engines were manufactured over about 15 years (and there’s signs that their current GDI 4-cylinders are still affected).
The E-GMP Hyundai/Kia EV platform is also unreliable. Around 1 in every 50 of these cars will suddenly lose power while driving due to ICCU failure. Search any forum for the EV6 or Ioniq 5 and this is all over. Mine broke down and got towed back to the shop so many times, where it sat for ages because my dealer was sharing a single EV-qualified tech with 2 other dealers. I eventually had the car Lemon Law'd. As far as I know this issue is still unsolved after 4+ years. (The software recall made no difference.) I loved the car when it was working though.
Maybe just anecdotal evidence, but i'm noticing a lot of Kias with no brake lights. I'm suspecting bad body control modules are going to become more of a thing as these cars age.
I noticed when GMT800 trucks were blowing DRLs constantly and lo and behold there's a TSB for that. So I don't think I'm imagining things.
Hyundai is fairly unreliable. They were up and coming back in the 2000s and to some extent the 2010s, but their reliability has been quite poor in the past 5-10 years and I really wouldn't recommend a Hyundai to anyone.
Anecdotal, but I'm extremely disappointed with my Hyundai Tucson purchase. It's the first car I've owned. The drive train is gone on it and the mechanic says it's a common issue. Only 140k on it, 2019. It's hard to believe I paid so much for it and got so little use.
140,000 miles is a lot of use in 7 years. "expected" design life of cars can be 10yrs/100,000 miles. Sorry to hear about your drivetrain issues. I don't know about the Tucson in particular, but many manufacturers are lying about the transmissions having "lifetime" fluid when the transmission manufacturers themselves recommend fluid changes around 60-80k. But if you don't change it, yes technically the car will make it to 100k, but then no shop will touch the transmission fluid for fear of wrecking it.
People who have purchased Hyundai/Kia products w/ the GDI Theta II engine would, perhaps, take issue with "used to be".
One engine issue due to a manufacturing flaw shouldn't be enough to counter their massive change in produt lines over the years
I have a decent amount of second hand experience with used cars, through my brother who is a mechanic and spent a number of years working at a used car dealership. Hyundai/Kia is the only company he ever had to do engine replacements for at said dealership, and he did dozens. All under 200k km (frequently right after the extended warranty on the engines ran out, and occasionally on the second or even third engine for the vehicle). These are cars with good service history and otherwise in excellent condition. Sometimes cars they got on trade, sometimes purchased from auctions, sometimes customer cars (after they were sold). No rhyme or reason, just a genuinely bad design that was “fixed” but never fixed.
The only other universally-bad major component is JATCO CVT transmissions. I think his record was an Infiniti QX60 that had 95k km and a blown transmission. Most small vehicle/sedan CVTs he did were in the 160-190k km range, with some lasting as long as 250k km. And of course they were not repairable, since even if parts were available, the entire thing grenades leaving basically nothing left to rebuild.
Point being, “one engine issue due to a manufacturing flaw” is drastically underselling the issue, at best. It is an incorrectly-engineered engine that fails prematurely when built within specification, except when the tolerance stackup lines up in your favour and you perform much more frequent maintenance than prescribed. Oh and the affected engines were manufactured over about 15 years (and there’s signs that their current GDI 4-cylinders are still affected).
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The E-GMP Hyundai/Kia EV platform is also unreliable. Around 1 in every 50 of these cars will suddenly lose power while driving due to ICCU failure. Search any forum for the EV6 or Ioniq 5 and this is all over. Mine broke down and got towed back to the shop so many times, where it sat for ages because my dealer was sharing a single EV-qualified tech with 2 other dealers. I eventually had the car Lemon Law'd. As far as I know this issue is still unsolved after 4+ years. (The software recall made no difference.) I loved the car when it was working though.
Maybe just anecdotal evidence, but i'm noticing a lot of Kias with no brake lights. I'm suspecting bad body control modules are going to become more of a thing as these cars age.
I noticed when GMT800 trucks were blowing DRLs constantly and lo and behold there's a TSB for that. So I don't think I'm imagining things.
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https://www.dashboard-light.com/reports/Hyundai.html
For what it's worth, this puts Hyundai around "industry average", above Acura, Audi, BMW, Subaru, Mazda, Nissan.
Below Chevrolet, Honda, Porsche, Toyota.
Hyundai is fairly unreliable. They were up and coming back in the 2000s and to some extent the 2010s, but their reliability has been quite poor in the past 5-10 years and I really wouldn't recommend a Hyundai to anyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge
Yeah maybe I'll get a Chinese car in 50yrs
Anecdotal, but I'm extremely disappointed with my Hyundai Tucson purchase. It's the first car I've owned. The drive train is gone on it and the mechanic says it's a common issue. Only 140k on it, 2019. It's hard to believe I paid so much for it and got so little use.
140,000 miles is a lot of use in 7 years. "expected" design life of cars can be 10yrs/100,000 miles. Sorry to hear about your drivetrain issues. I don't know about the Tucson in particular, but many manufacturers are lying about the transmissions having "lifetime" fluid when the transmission manufacturers themselves recommend fluid changes around 60-80k. But if you don't change it, yes technically the car will make it to 100k, but then no shop will touch the transmission fluid for fear of wrecking it.