Hyundai Santa Cruz

"Hesitation between shifts"

"We had purchased somewhere else, but our local dealer still honored the warranty and did what they could here. Basically, the car felt grumbly when slowing down. Shop first said ignition coil and replaced that. No better and over time grumbles got worse. Next time they did a firmware fix but turbo power felt 60% compromised and still a little grumbly. Dealer kept car for weeks at this point and they said firmware just kept making tolerances worse, so they replaced the entire transmission. Local dealer did give me a rental vehicle. Pre-transmission fix we had times where we tried to turn across traffic and randomly when you pressed the gas it would start like the turbo was jumpy and be too fast, but then the gears would notice, so you would lose power and we literally almost got T-boned (twice in situations like this) because the Santa Cruz would then only coast until it figured out to down shift again (like trying to accelerate from 0 in a stick shift that was in 3rd gear). Post-transmission swap we had random power loss (75mph down to 45mph on the interstate in the dark and I think it may have slowed more had we not luckily been coming to an exit). Basically, it would drop into what I was told was safe mode and it felt like we were driving over logs and literally could not accelerate again. It happened twice on the interstate and once in the middle of nowhere. We had to get off on a very creepy exit, but strangely when we did a u-turn the car fixed itself. It did fine the rest of the way home, but we could not trust if for trips. The deal replaced the fuel injector once and so that is how we trusted it again on the next trip that did the same thing randomly once but the u-turn (different location just to clarify since the events were so similar) did not fix it. We came to a stop and then turned the car off and on again, and things were ok again. Dealer replaced the fuel rail (I think it was), and we were supposedly ok again. Had another issue and replaced another fuel injector, and I said keep the car there because we are returning it. The entire time I had been talking with Hyundai Corporate and they would not call not it a lemon even though I looked up the law in the state of purchase and it said if it risks your life (it did with the T-bone scare twice and loss of power to going dangerously slow on the interstate and then even stopping on the interstate) or if you had the same issue repaired twice, which we did, it was a lemon! Hyundai Corporate would not offer a vehicle swap and only offered to refund minus the mileage driven, after months of sending documentation, etc. First layer of telephone people said definitely legit for swap. Second layer were the paper work folks and said swap likely. 3rd layer were the money fix it people and denied lemon forever and would not negotiate. The guy who did the car return, said why did they not just do a vehicle swap? Should have gotten a lawyer I suppose!"

"4 times in 19 months the radio did not produce sound quick fix remove and reconnect negative battery cable other wise make appointment with dealer and have no sound till appointment Hyundai has a technical bulletin for the problem"

"Same as the fuel injector. Seemed minor to me but 4 weeks to get part and repair is unsatisfactory"