Introduction

We had a Hyundai Atos 1999, a fine car but it had a lot of starting problems. I looked on the web for solutions because the behavior was so fuzzy, our maintenance man tried to reproduce the problem but it did not show up at his place, we even thought about a weather connection. With dry weather the problems were not that frequent and at times it seemed the problem had cured itself. I think this may sound familiar to a lot of Hyundai owners and in my opinion it may be applicable to other brands as well.

The symptoms

I am sorry if I don't use the correct terminology, but anyway... When the engine did not start it was like the current could not get through. The starter would make a noise: tick tick tick, about seven to 10 per second, or after moving the car in the second gear, even the noise would disappear and with a sharp click something was like getting into a locked position and not move anymore. I changed the starter, but the symptoms did not change. The starter was examined for wear, but there was no reason to assume a refurbishment would do it good in this respect. A second problem arose with the continuation of the engine not starting: the gas cable was not moving freely anymore. Upon examination it proved the plastic cover of the cable was melted down, like it had been into contact with some aggressive fluid.

The solution

After changing the battery that finally also gave up, the problem still persisted. The man at the garrage supposed it would be a problem with mass, the connection of the negative pole of the battery with the engine housing. He tried to loosen the mass bolt, but gave up because he expected it to break down. His theory was that it was so corroded that its resistance was providing a barrier for the current during the starting of the engine. What we saw during trials to start the engine was the gas cable smoking, evidence for the current to look for another way having less resistance! Putting the starter to mass directly did start the engine without any problems. The ultimate solution for the problem was to provide another mass to the engine consisting of a simple multi threaded copper cable. Just loosen another bolt and realize an alternative connection between the engine and the battery negative pole. It is at least worthwile trying!

A happy ex-Atos fan

i am having exactly the same problem with my pony so its off home with some copper wire for me..... sound like you may have solved my problem there..... i hope so. Cheers

hi i`m wael from Egypt, and i found what happend to your atos very strange, because i got an atos of 1998 and it didn`t do any thing like that. and i wish it never, bye