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As someone who's been following this issue pretty closely, I'm very skeptical about what they could fix. This is a fundamental engine design issue in their pop

by pcurve 9y ago

As someone who's been following this issue pretty closely, I'm very skeptical about what they could fix. This is a fundamental engine design issue in their popular Theta II engine that results in premature and excessive wear on cylinder wall, leading to excessive noise, vibration, stalling, and ceased operation. In a quest to save weight and increase power, they made connecting rod too thin and height of the bearings too narrow to hold unwanted movement of pistons in check. Instead of piston moving just up and down, there was sideway play often resulting in severely scratched cylinder wall after 15k mile of driving. There are many reports of connecting rods grenading altogether. For those not familiar with engine parts, here it is. https://image.slidesharecdn.com/sixstrokeengineppt-140826102700-phpapp01/95/six-stroke-engine-ppt-21-638.jpg?cb=1409048910 https://image.slidesharecdn.com/sixstrokeengineppt-140826102... Hyundai found out about this pretty quickly, and de-tuned engine output in later iterations to increase reliability. Yet, they have consistently denied this design defect as a problem for many years. There already has been multiple massive class action lawsuits and recalls on this in the U.s. since 2015. Many Korean customers were angry that Hyundai was not issuing the same recall in their home country, where they often pay higher price than identical exports. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/hyundai-kia-recall-engine-failures/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/hyundai-kia-recall-engin... The only fix that will 'stick' is complete engine replacement. I hope Korean customers get the same treatment.

strebler 9y ago
I notice the recalls are up to 2014 models so far - have they addressed it in any way or are they still just cranking out cars with this problem?
- pcurve 9y ago
  As far as I can tell, other than reduced output figures, they're still using Theta II engine design. However, they may have revised manufacturing process and improved tolerance... it's hard to say. Many people with well over 100k don't have any issues, so it's bit of a crapshoot. Given the cost of this recall, I don't think they're stupid enough to keep cranking out the same engine without having high level of confidence that the issue has been more or less addressed. With that said, even in its revised state, I doubt this engine will be as reliable as Toyota's AR engine or Honda's K24 engine. Time will tell.
  - heywire 9y ago
    Yeah, we were up to 140k on our 2011 Sonata with no engine troubles when we traded it in recently.
userbinator 9y ago
Hyundai found out about this pretty quickly, and de-tuned engine output in later iterations to increase reliability. Coincidentally, I was recently reading about early American cars and their heavily overbuilt construction is a huge contrast to this "value engineering" of modern engines; whereas those old engines could be tuned to make far more than stock power with little effect on reliability, it seems today the aim is to make the margin as narrow as possible --- just enough to get past the warranty period, with the associated effect that, due to how the statistics work, quite a few of them will fail before too. Samsung's "exploding" washing machines are a recent, non-automotive, example of this. Today's cars may be more efficient and less polluting, but if they last a fraction of the time as the old ones and have to be replaced many times more often, are they really that much better environmentally overall?
- jsight 9y ago
  What makes you think that modern cars have to be replaced many times more often? It seems like replacement intervals have actually been creeping up.
  - techthroway443 9y ago
    The value engineering he just described. Read his comment again
  - shliachtx 9y ago
    How many people do you know with 20 year old 2000-2017 cars?
    - Randin 9y ago
      None, as that year range is less than 20 years.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - vertex-four 9y ago
CarMaker 9y ago
I'm asking you since you're following this closely. Should my car buying decision take into factor the fact that SKorea, as Nytimes says, punishes whistle blowers? If so, does this happen in Japan too? How does one take this kind of stuff into account?
- csours 9y ago
  >Should my car buying decision take into factor the fact that SKorea, as Nytimes says, punishes whistle blowers? Are you asking this as a moral question or a technical/value question? For moral, I can't help you. For technical/value, new Hyundais/Kias are generally regarded as very decent cars. >If so, does this happen in Japan too? Japan also has a VERY hierarchical management system, where top-down direction is the only way things are done. > How does one take this kind of stuff into account? One generally does not, because generally speaking none of these things have a first order effect on the product.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  I don't think it matters. I don't think we've seen much whistleblowing coming out of competitors in countries with a more open culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch...
- pcurve 9y ago
  As you know, whistleblowers are punished everywhere, even in the U.S. "60 percent said they were fired after exposing organizational corruption." This is actually lower than the figure in the u.s. Where the rate was 70 - 80 % according to a Virginia tech research. If I may rephrase your question to "Should your car buying decision take into factor the fact that SKorea does not have as strong whistle blower protection as the U.S.?" Car market in the U.S. is so competitive, and consumer protection so strong, that personally it wouldn't influence my car buying decision in the U.S. If I were buying a Hyundai in Korea, then yes, it would be a factor, though how much, it's hard to say. I don't believe Hyundai would consistently misbehave like this. It's entirely possible that had the fix been cheaper for this engine recall, Hyundai may not have dragged their feet. As to your question on Japan, I'm not really qualified to speak about whistleblower protection legal frameworks about either country. Both countries have it, but they are relatively recent concept, where there still is strong sense of company loyalty, hierarchical chain of command, saving face, and slim chance of re-employment in the same industry after whistleblowing event. It probably still needs to time to mature. Either way, if I were buying Korean or Japanese goods in the U.S., all I would care about is product quality and performance. They are both nations of people that take strong pride (some may say too much) in their outputs, and care too much about how their countries are perceived on oversea stage that to have meaningful impact on their product quality.
Yizahi 9y ago
Wow. I have a Hyundai Sonata 2009 with 2.0L engine and I somehow totally missed any news about this recall. Crazy. Reading Wiki I can't determine which Theta engine I have - I or II. Apparently it's 163hp so most likely Theta II, but it is definitely non-turbo so I'm lost here.

by pcurve 9y ago

strebler 9y ago

I notice the recalls are up to 2014 models so far - have they addressed it in any way or are they still just cranking out cars with this problem?

pcurve 9y ago
As far as I can tell, other than reduced output figures, they're still using Theta II engine design. However, they may have revised manufacturing process and improved tolerance... it's hard to say. Many people with well over 100k don't have any issues, so it's bit of a crapshoot. Given the cost of this recall, I don't think they're stupid enough to keep cranking out the same engine without having high level of confidence that the issue has been more or less addressed. With that said, even in its revised state, I doubt this engine will be as reliable as Toyota's AR engine or Honda's K24 engine. Time will tell.
- heywire 9y ago
  Yeah, we were up to 140k on our 2011 Sonata with no engine troubles when we traded it in recently.

userbinator 9y ago

Hyundai found out about this pretty quickly, and de-tuned engine output in later iterations to increase reliability. Coincidentally, I was recently reading about early American cars and their heavily overbuilt construction is a huge contrast to this "value engineering" of modern engines; whereas those old engines could be tuned to make far more than stock power with little effect on reliability, it seems today the aim is to make the margin as narrow as possible --- just enough to get past the warranty period, with the associated effect that, due to how the statistics work, quite a few of them will fail before too. Samsung's "exploding" washing machines are a recent, non-automotive, example of this. Today's cars may be more efficient and less polluting, but if they last a fraction of the time as the old ones and have to be replaced many times more often, are they really that much better environmentally overall?

jsight 9y ago
What makes you think that modern cars have to be replaced many times more often? It seems like replacement intervals have actually been creeping up.
- techthroway443 9y ago
  The value engineering he just described. Read his comment again
- shliachtx 9y ago
  How many people do you know with 20 year old 2000-2017 cars?
  - Randin 9y ago
    None, as that year range is less than 20 years.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - vertex-four 9y ago

CarMaker 9y ago

I'm asking you since you're following this closely. Should my car buying decision take into factor the fact that SKorea, as Nytimes says, punishes whistle blowers? If so, does this happen in Japan too? How does one take this kind of stuff into account?

csours 9y ago
>Should my car buying decision take into factor the fact that SKorea, as Nytimes says, punishes whistle blowers? Are you asking this as a moral question or a technical/value question? For moral, I can't help you. For technical/value, new Hyundais/Kias are generally regarded as very decent cars. >If so, does this happen in Japan too? Japan also has a VERY hierarchical management system, where top-down direction is the only way things are done. > How does one take this kind of stuff into account? One generally does not, because generally speaking none of these things have a first order effect on the product.
kalleboo 9y ago
I don't think it matters. I don't think we've seen much whistleblowing coming out of competitors in countries with a more open culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch...
pcurve 9y ago
As you know, whistleblowers are punished everywhere, even in the U.S. "60 percent said they were fired after exposing organizational corruption." This is actually lower than the figure in the u.s. Where the rate was 70 - 80 % according to a Virginia tech research. If I may rephrase your question to "Should your car buying decision take into factor the fact that SKorea does not have as strong whistle blower protection as the U.S.?" Car market in the U.S. is so competitive, and consumer protection so strong, that personally it wouldn't influence my car buying decision in the U.S. If I were buying a Hyundai in Korea, then yes, it would be a factor, though how much, it's hard to say. I don't believe Hyundai would consistently misbehave like this. It's entirely possible that had the fix been cheaper for this engine recall, Hyundai may not have dragged their feet. As to your question on Japan, I'm not really qualified to speak about whistleblower protection legal frameworks about either country. Both countries have it, but they are relatively recent concept, where there still is strong sense of company loyalty, hierarchical chain of command, saving face, and slim chance of re-employment in the same industry after whistleblowing event. It probably still needs to time to mature. Either way, if I were buying Korean or Japanese goods in the U.S., all I would care about is product quality and performance. They are both nations of people that take strong pride (some may say too much) in their outputs, and care too much about how their countries are perceived on oversea stage that to have meaningful impact on their product quality.

Yizahi 9y ago

Wow. I have a Hyundai Sonata 2009 with 2.0L engine and I somehow totally missed any news about this recall. Crazy. Reading Wiki I can't determine which Theta engine I have - I or II. Apparently it's 163hp so most likely Theta II, but it is definitely non-turbo so I'm lost here.