Our son’s 2008 Hyundai Sonata GLS
Previously I detailed the detailing of the ’08 Hyundai Sonata that I gifted to my son. See the original COAL here. Mid August I gifted it to him a second time when he returned from study abroad. In this update I will take you through some final fixes, two road trips, random musings and his reactions.
Putting a stop to it: the brakes.
There was a pulsation and unevenness in the brakes. I pulled the rotors and had them resurfaced. These rotors and pads looked very new. I assume they were replaced shortly before I bought the car. Whoever put them on was not doing a thorough job. On the left rear one of the pads was stuck so bad it crumbled like cookie when I resorted to the pry bar. I expected the brand new pads to easily drop into place. But they did not. In fact they were so tight that they would not slip into the bracket. I could file some material off the pad‘s base plate or I could remove some coating material off the bracket. I did the latter. I assembled everything using lubricant at the proper places. Oh what a difference that made! These brakes are smooth! I am thinking that the factory did not take into account how much space the powder coating takes away.
Brake bleeder bottle makes it a one person’s job.
With the help of our other son I changed the 10 years old brake fluid. Unfortunately I managed to get air into the master cylinder and had trouble to get it all out at this session. I made a bleeder bottle so I could do it without a helper. It improved a lot but the ABS still activated for a second when the brake was slightly applied. The third time around I clamped off the brake hose and removed the bleeders in order to clean the tips of corrosion and to put Teflon tape on the threads. In addition I used a piece of 2×4 to stick under the steering wheel to keep the brake pedal down while closing the bleeders. It worked like a charm.
It occurred to me that the parking brake shoes will not get properly seated because the parking brakes are applied when the car is standing still. I used the parking brake a few times to slow the car down. Then the parking brake needed adjustment at the hubs and the lever which was easy enough.
Consequences of a missing rubber: a dead battery.
During the winter the battery drained a few times. I didn’t drive it that much and it was horribly cold. But still it shouldn’t have drained that fast. Then it happened two times in the spring. Something wasn’t right.
O’Reilly’s tested the battery twice with “GOOD” results. The clerk suggested googling for most common parasitic drains.
Gamle-ged posted on HYUNDAI-FORUMS.COM:
“….. When you lock the car, you should hear a single “beep” and you should see a single flash of the parking lights.
If you don’t get these indications when you remotely lock the car, your security system is unarmed and is continually TRYING to arm and this (for some reason) will drain a fully-charged battery overnight.
There are switches in each door and in the trunk and the engine compartment which must all be engaged, or the system can’t arm. The most common fault is the hood switch, where (on the passenger side) a rubber bumper mounted to the hood falls off [or becomes dimpled/depressed] and the switch below it isn’t made with the hood closed, gradually causing a battery drain…”
Guess what: there was no rubber bumper on the hood to operate the proximity switch. I rigged something up and it worked. The doors locked accompanied with the flash of the parking lights and when I push the button a second time the horn chirped and the lights flashed. A visit to the junk yard yielded an assortment of rubber bumpers free of charge.
But the “GOOD” battery was still draining. I was getting ready to chase down another parasitic draw and had the battery checked again for good measure. This time the verdict was “BAD”. The missing rubber stop killed the battery right after the warranty expired. O’Reilly’s replacement with 2 year warranty was $130. I told the clerk that Wal-Mart had one with a 5 year warranty for $100. He replied: “I have a Wal-Mart battery in my car too.” With the new Wal-Mart battery in place all electrical systems are fine.
Tracking traces: the steering rack.
While under the car working on the brakes I noticed power steering fluid leaking out of the rack on the driver side. Luckily I found a small shop who installed a re-manufactured rack and pinion for a very favorable price. The steering feels proper and the squishy sounds are gone. The mechanic told me that this rack had been worked on before and some bolts were missing. That leaves plenty room for speculation. Did the PO’s parking maneuvers involve lots of steering with the car standing still? Did someone replace the seals for her? Did someone (the place I bought the car from) replace the rack with a junk yard unit? Whatever, the sloppy previous repair is fixed now.
To my surprise the mechanic also mentioned that the engine was low on oil. I have to keep tabs on how much it uses and/or loses. He also noticed a ticking sound in the valve train. He advised me not to worry about it. “Just keep changing the oil every 3000 miles.”
Parked at the oldest house in Slater, Iowa
Dollars and cents: a numbers game.
You may wonder if it all still works out on the spreadsheet. It does. I like to keep the cost of the vehicle below $100 per month. That includes depreciation, maintenance and repairs. It excludes insurance, registration fees and fuel. I bought the car 39 months ago and I tallied up a total outlay of $6200. That means I need $2300 in resale value to meet the goal. That would be no problem what so ever.
Details that matter: the finishing touches.
Leaves in the blower fan make noise.
After changing the cabin air filter the blower made an unusual noise. I knew something must have dropped into the fan. Easy fix: remove 5 screws, pull the fan out and remove the offending objects. In this case they were two dried up leaves.
Before and after treatment.
Upon watching some Youtubes on auto detailing I put Woolite Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner to the stains on the seat and the headliner. It worked very well indeed as these before and after pictures show.
Seats after treatment.
Through E-bay I bought a used ash tray. Installing it was a matter of turning screws and pulling clips to remove the center console and the lower parts of the dash. It took me two hours. On the old tray the peg of the catch mechanism was broken off.
It’s not the journeys it’s the destinations: road trips.
Driving the Sonata was uneventful, lacking any drama whatsoever. We were cruising in a 10 year old car that ran without a hint of trouble and took us to some worthwhile destinations.
Shelter with a “floating roof”, Frank Lloyd Wright style.
In Dubuque, Iowa we were really impressed by the architecture at Eagle Point Park. The builders were obviously inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style and much of the construction was financed under the depression era‘s WPA (Works Project Administration). Read more here. http://www.encyclopediadubuque.org/index.php?title=EAGLE_POINT_PARK
I found this footage of a walk through the park by Quarter Reel. He has added some eerie music for dramatic effect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s0upwjd0eg
Chicago River
The other trip took us to Chicago. On the way there we stopped at Starved Rock State Park. We have never seen a State Park that was this busy! Here is a video by DJI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuZ6oHq7P1E
On the return trip we stopped at Davenport, Ia.
Boys spotting the ferry on the east bank of the Mississippi.
“No ride for losers”: random musings.
Mrs. W has not changed her opinion one bit: she called the Sonata a non-descript car. I asked her to show me a “descript” car. “The red one we saw the other day” was her answer. That would be a Subaru BRZ, making for a great comparison, like Gala apples to passion fruit.
To me however the Sonata falls right in line with sedan designs that started with the NSU Ro 80 in 1967 and continued with the Audi 100 (5000), Ford Taurus and more recently Camry/Accord, thus spanning about 43 years (for 2011 the Sonata received a new design). It’s a nice highway runner with a spacious comfortable and quiet cabin and it’s easy on the fuel. I could keep singing the praises of the Hyundai Sonata but the Amok Bros from Poland did a better job of that than I will ever do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkWhhluTqfI
The Sonata – a chick magnet!? Facetious trolls they are! At least they poked their fun at the previous (4th) generation Sonata.
Better than fruitcake: a gift once more.
Mid-August our son returned from study abroad in Germany. We picked him up from the airport in the Sonata. The car was not the first thing on his mind. There were too many things of higher priority like moving into an apartment, the girlfriend, getting ready for school etc. A few days after handing him the keys I asked if he noticed any changes to the Sonata. He said the most significant thing was to actually be driving again after a year of using public transportation and walking. “By the way, how do you pronounce Hyundai?”
What’s that in the back ground?
He is not a man of many words. To gauge his reaction you have to look for a twinkle in his eyes, a change in demeanor. He does appreciate not only the car but all the other support we are providing. Regarding the Sonata: the carpet, the proper working ash tray and fuel door release put a bright smile on his face. A few days later he flashed a smile again and said: “Hey, the horn is working!”
I’ve noticed Hyundai voiceovers in the UK, Australia and the US use 3 different pronunciations. He’ll need to find a Korean student and ask them.
And in the video provided above you can learn the Polish pronunciation as well. I like the Polish version.
That’s pretty close to what they use in Britain now. They went from an English-accented actor saying “High ‘n Dye” to a (presumably) Korean-accented one. Skoda have changed pronunciation and accent too.
Australia used an Australian accent and a blend of the above. The American “Hundy” seems laughably unrealistic – it seems to use the same approach as someone who has lots of bits left over after assembling flat pack furniture and thinks “Fuck it”.
I think most people, at least the ones I’ve been around, get Hyundai’s American pronunciation right. At one point, they had an ad campaign that said “Hyundai, like Sunday” during a particular year’s Superbowl. I think the Korean pronunciation is something like “Hee-un-dae”, with the first two syllables transitioned together.
It’s always fun to see how brands cultivate regional pronunciations of their names and trademark. One they pronounce their name in a TV, audio or Internet ad, they’re pretty much endorsing a particular pronunciation. For instance, the Japanese pronunciation of Mazda is closer to “Mott-su-duh,” as opposed to our “Mozz-duh” pronunciation.
I wasn’t questioning how the public pronounce it – logically they will follow Hyundai USA’s lead, and you can’t expect people to know how it’s pronounced in Korea, it’s just baffling to me how they ended up with “Hundy”.
When my five year old isn’t sure of a word or a song lyric, he slurs and mumbles and rushes through, hoping no one will notice – I wonder if they asked a five year old how to pronounce it, or someone’s bigoted granny?
It’s funny how this happens. Look at some Australian market pronunciations:
High-un-day (Hyundai)
Mazz-dah (Mazda)
Cryz-lah (Chrysler)
Niss-ann (Nissan)
Cress-ee-dah (Toyota Cressida)
Sell-eek-ah (Toyota Celica)
All of these pronunciations were used in advertisements so they’ve stuck.
Here’s a cracker for you William. It’s very common to hear Scottish people pronounce “Peugeot” as “Perr-geot”. The reason is that when they hear the English voiceover guy say it in a half-hearted (better not sound too French or they’ll hang me as a traitor) way, they think there must be an R in it.
We Scots are sometimes confused by the English/Aussie practice of only sounding the letter R when there isn’t one. 😉
Many working class Scots also sound the “t” in Renault even though they know fine well it’s silent. Can’t be sounding too educated now. The voiceover folk don’t exactly do that one with a French accent but say it like “Renno”.
Interesting, I always pronounce it as Hun-Die. As in Attila the Hun and We’re All Gonna Die.
Makes me wonder- if Chevrolet was a new brand would people pronounce it Shev-roll-it?
Kyree, your Mazda comment also reminded me of a conversation I had about 20 years ago with a fellow student from Japan. He stated that basically all words in Japanese ended in a vowel. So that our Super Mario Brothers in katakana would sound like “supa mario burazu.” Not sure if it’s true, but it’s interesting.
Tonito, I’m ashamed to admit I called it “Perr-zho” for many, many years. Now I’m wondering if I based that off of a commercial I heard. It’s a brand that’s been here for decades but doesn’t get much word-of-mouth buzz so that’s how it took so long for me to be corrected.
And yes, a lot of Americans teased me for “adding Rs”… Like how “no” has almost an “r” sound on the end when dragged out.
Well, that was before my accent became this weird Aussie/American hybrid.
Yeah but those Scots are rolling the R. The difference between “Perr” and “Peu” will be so slight in your accent as to be unnoticeable to me. Unless you’re doing something else which is common in the UK and saying “Pyoo-zho”.
BTW, how is one supposed to pronounce “Studebaker”? The only two people I’ve ever heard uttering the word are Bryan Ferry and Germaine Greer. Seriously.
“BTW, how is one supposed to pronounce “Studebaker”?”
In Indiana (where they were built, so it has to be right?) I have always heard it as STOO-duh-bay-ker (Stool without the L, duh as in done but without the noun ending, and baker as in the guy who makes bread). I have heard some misguided souls go with STOO-dee-bay-ker. In the southern US I have heard STEW-di-bay-ker
In case you’re interested, Bryan Ferry (NE English) says Stoo-duh-bake-uh on “Virginia Plain”, and I heard Germaine Greer (Australian) say “Stew (or Styoo for clarity) duh bake uh”.
She was telling an anecdote about how, in her youth, she had decided to have sex with her Jaguar driving date “But he showed up in his father’s Studebaker”.
Tonito, “stew-da-baker.”
William, American accents are funny as well. My wife tells me I have a Chicago accent only when I have to raise my voice, like in a drive through window. “Caaaan I get a laaage caaafeee?”
In Aus, they initially tried the appalling tag, “Say g’day to Hyun-day” – to which a dry public reponded with “What’s that, say goodbye to Hyun-die? And so that second pronunciation is the one used here.
William, surely “Purr-zho” is closest to correct, as in it sounds most like the French. I say it. Albeit most Aussies used to say “Pyoo-zho.”
Love the thought of loyal Scots pausing and rolling on the “r” lest they be hanged. Probably have to hide their French carriage in the garridge too….
But it is in America that the word reaches the apogee of awkward, and is a compelling reason for the failure of the company in that market.
I mean, imagine you have just taken your new, shiny brown manual turbodiesel lwb wagon 505 to show off to your mate Joseph. What’s that, asks he.
“Why, it’s my big brown Poo Jo.”
No wonder their sales stank, and kept dropping off.
Naw naw, ye’ve got it a’ heelster gowdie, neebor.
I meant the English actor couldn’t sound too French – traditionally we like them. The guys driving Ren-Ultts aren’t scared of sounding French, they’re scared of sounding effete.
BTW, on the subject of carriages – A. My American mother-in-law thought we were calling our garage “the carriage”, and B. (apropos of very little) Lord Brougham was born in Edinburgh, so Scotland has even more to answer for than you might realise.
Oh, are we talking about pronunciation of car brands and model names? Grand! I’ll leave this here. My favourites are the first Japanese one (two syllables in “Toyota”), the Mexican Spanish one near the end, and the Finnish one with 4 syllables in “Toyota”. And everything sounds better in Italian, no? (Speaking of the Toyota Celica, watch this and listen at 1:17, but be careful as the series is addictive; you’ve been warned).
More to the main point of this afternoon’s symposium, here’s a compendium of Hyundai pronunciations from round the world.
(And yes, in Canada we mostly say “MAZZ-duh” and not “MOZZ-duh”; “spor-TAJ” and not “SPORT-idge”; “CRY-sler” or “CRY-zler” and not “KREISS-ler”; and “KILL-uh-meet-ur”, not “Mile”)
I like these Sonatas’ looks. The only time I was in one was a rental and it wasn’t a very well-kept example, so I don’t have enough experience as to how they drive in good shape. When they were new the dark red looked really sharp with those same wheel covers. I like the clean lines and it has a pretty face to me.
Dark Cherry Red. My favorite color too.
I recently replaced a battery and got one with a 3-year replacement warranty from Advance Auto Parts for $130 (regular $160 but 25% off over Black Friday weekend). The one from Walmart (made by the same Johnson Controls) would have been $20 more but it had an additional 2-year ‘pro-rated’ warranty. From what I can gather, the pro-rated portion of these battery warranties are worth very little, so I figure I saved the $20.
That model Sonata with a turbo diesel engine were popular as taxis here, Ive seen some for sale ex cabs with huge mileages racked up and said to be running just fine at very cheap prices, for the money probably quite good cars, I did some brake work on a Hyundai I load van a while back and it was well designed and made and easy to work on.
I had a 2006 Sonata(the first year of this generation)
It was my first Hyundai/Kia and I was very impressed with it. Mine had a V6 in it and it was fun to drive. It had power.
However I wish that I had bought a 2009 or 2010 as it had the better looking console and a USB port.
On the brakes, you did not need to shave anything off, you simply needed to borrow the advance auto brake tool to compress the piston.
You also can add a fullsize spare tire to the car. It fits fine in the spare tire well. If you want to use that black styrofoam thing that holds your jack (called a case tool) then you need to get a case tool from a Elantra touring as the current case tool in your car is a larger one that helps to keep the floor level. With a full size spare you don’t need the case tool to make it level. If you don’t care about the case tool then just put the jack and tools in a sack and stick it in the center of the tire(the valve stem side faces down)
The piston returned just fine. But the cage (bracket) that holds the pads in place was too tight
This is a common problem on cars in the salt belt, like Wolfgang noted the caliper bracket itself rusts enough to start pinching the stainless brake hardware, which prevents the pads from sliding with a bit of room. My wife’s 2012 camry started to drag one of the rear brakes a bit 2 years ago already, fixed simply with grinding the face of the caliper bracket where the pad “ear” sits and slathering it up with high temp grease on both sides of the new hardware to keep rust from forming again underneath.
Exactly. Only it wasn’t rust. It was a thick layer of powder coating ostensibly applied to prevent rust. I chipped the powder coating off and used high temp grease as you described.
A friend had one of these with the V6. Seemed nice enough, nothing exciting but decent power and felt good on the road. A bit of a pain to work on though since replacing the rear spark plugs requires removing the intake manifold. (Probably a common issue on transverse V6 engines.) The 4-banger is probably best if you’re going to buy one with the idea of wrenching on it yourself.
Agreed!
Absolutely!
This car could turn into one of the great used car values of this era. The best ones (from my vantage point, anyway) are those that are cheap *not* because they are troublesome cars, but those that are cheap because nobody likes them.
Up until recent times, I avoided Hyundai-Kia as older used cars because some of the older ones were not all that good. But you prove we have reached the point where these ought to be on every bargain-shopper’s list.
Unfortunately I think these have developed a bit of a reputation for subframe rot on cars that haven’t been looked after well and live in road-salt heavy areas. A coworker had one of these since almost new, by 120k and 8 years old it was quite ragged out: fuel pump related no-start issue, some kind of transmission solenoid issue that made it vibrate and shift funny from a stop, and some miscellaneous things like door handles breaking and a (IMO) prematurely clunking suspension. Then again with Indy’s roads and how my coworker drives (doesn’t dodge potholes) I can’t hold that last point against the car.
I do love the styling of them, and the interiors are actually pretty nice, arguably better than a Camry of the same era in terms of soft touch materials and fit/finish. How the interior holds up long term… maybe a bit suspect.
So with some careful pre-purchase inspection, I would certainly consider a well-cared for example, a V6 in wine red would be particularly tempting.
As a regular car renter, I’m also a fan of this generation of Sonata.
I actually liked the exterior appearance. You could call it restrained, but to my eye it had a more European look than most Asian-built cars. The rear end and the greenhouse were particularly well done. The interior though may well have led some to up their anti-depressant dosage.
It was the first Hyundai model I’d driven in years, and it was a pleasant and quiet highway cruiser & got good gas mileage to boot. They strike me as a great used car choice from a practical perspective – I think Consumer Reports had the same opinion for several years.
Indeed. I had a GLS V6 for a weeklong rental in July 2007 and I still remember thinking it was fantastic in that role: relatively quick, relatively roomy and relatively comfortable.
I would have also added “relatively well-assembled” except that a passenger in the back seat pointed out an air leak at the top of the rear window… and that pushing against the edge of the glass separated it from the roof enough to see light through the gap. Maybe it had been replaced at some point?
Nice fixes on an honest beater. I don’t bother to resurface rotors – I just replace them, given that I do the job myself. I had to laugh at the time you had to spend trying to fix the ashtray. I had a similar experience with the coin tray on my wife’s Honda Civic.
I’m with Mrs Wolfgang. It’s not at all descript.
And as a result of the lack of descript, it occurs to me that the reticence of The Son may be because he’s not sure if this second gifting is the same car as last time. You see, he’s damned if he says “Why, this is much nicer than the last one” OR if he says “Why, what a good job you have done on the (old) car.” Either way is a bit rude.
Hence, he settled on a safely neutral observation about the horn.
Oh justy baum, you just had to burst my bubble!
What in the heck was that on the visor and headliner?
It is not a good idea to clamp off brake hoses. It can cause internal damage that rears its ugly head at the most inopportune time.
The hose and a bottle is not a one man brake bleeding solution, it is something that will only cause more work and headaches.
Gravity is your friend. Remove the cap, open the bleeder and let gravity do its thing. Sometimes you do need to remove the bleeder to get it going, but usually it will start flowing with a just a turn or so.
Make-up. Foundation. Look at the burn mark on the edge of the mirror. The previous owner used that mirror so often that the switch for the make-up light burned through. You could call it a cosmetic issue in more than one sense.
Thanks regarding the pointers on brake bleeding. I’ll try this the next time.
The 147-mph Hyundai Sonata
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/the-147-mph-hyundai-sonata-car-news