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Transmission Issues Out of Warranty

5K views 9 replies 4 participants last post by  gmfreed 
#1 ·
2012 with about 105,000 miles

Looks like the transmission in my Azera needs to be replaced, or rebuilt. Quick back story... This car was originally my dad's company car, but when he retired in late 2017, I "bought it" from them as part of his severance deal.

Starting in late 2016, my dad had noticed that on cold mornings (below 40 degrees), the transmission would not engage in drive or reverse, until the car was warmed up. If you put it in those gears, and hit the gas, it just felt like you were in neutral, except the car would move ever so slightly. He took it to the dealer about 3 times, maybe 4, over the course of a year, and they could never reproduce. Said there were no TSBs or recalls on the transmission. So being a typical dealer, they didn't go much further than that. They never even spoke to Hyundai about it. And honestly, at the time, I just thought my dad was overreacting about it. Up until this past Sunday though... when experienced that issue first hand.

I think i got around it for so long because I remote start the car all the time through BlueLink. However, on Sunday, I was in a rush and just jumped in the car and "tried" to go. But ended up having to sit there for about 5 minutes, until the transmission was warm enough to engage. Seeing the issue first hand worried me a bit, so I took the car to the shop near my office, that I trust. Left it with them last night, so they could try to duplicate the issue today... and they did. They did some digging, a found a TSB related to the car. (see attached)

Has anyone else in this forum had this issue? Does anyone know how Hyundai handles TSBs with second owners, out of warranty? I spoke with my father, and he is going to take the documentation to the dealer that has his complaint history and see if they'd honor it. If that fails, i guess I would talk to Hyundai USA directly, and plea my case with them to cover it. I don't think i even want to know how much it would cost me to replace the transmission.
 

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#2 ·
Has anyone else in this forum had this issue? Does anyone know how Hyundai handles TSBs with second owners, out of warranty? I spoke with my father, and he is going to take the documentation to the dealer that has his complaint history and see if they'd honor it. If that fails, i guess I would talk to Hyundai USA directly, and plea my case with them to cover it. I don't think i even want to know how much it would cost me to replace the transmission.

TSB is essentially a directive to service people that in event of warranty repair,,, "If you see this concern,, look here,, and repair as directed here"....

Failure to follow TSB when performing a warranty job first will result in denial of claim..

The .pdf link is a nothing value,,, just states what we allowed to do at dealer level..

Replacement cost.... Re-Man Hyundai unit in box will run approx $1700, add 6qt of ATF, 1 cooler flush, and labor at whatever dealer decide to charge to swap unit and misc GDS to finish calibrate
 
#3 ·
Thanks!

Will probably still go the route of talking to the dealer, and Hyundai USA if needed, just to see if i can get something done. Technically less than 5,000 past the powertrain warranty, with this problem recorded multiple times, surely has to allow some level of good faith.

Based on your cost analysis above, i'll probably be nearly $3,000... if not more. Seems almost pointless to drop that money in a car that barely worth $5,000.

Thanks again!
 
#8 ·
So I received a reply to my email, on Saturday, which said they wanted to speak with me on the phone to "address my concerns". Being that it was a Saturday, and even though they are open 7 days a week, I decided to wait until Monday to call. My thought process was that there was unlikely to be a manager on duty over the weekend. If it needed to be escalated to that, it would be nice to escalate immediately.

Anyway, they seemed to be very understanding, and appear to want to be accomodating. They said they would speak to the dealer service, to honor any warranty repair/replacement needed for the transmission. The representative said they would call the dealership immediately, and they would call me back today. I still do not have a return call as of ~6:30pm ET, but that does not surprise me. There is no guarantee the service manager, or anyone else that needs to be involved, was available at the time of call. I figured I'd give them through tomorrow, then follow up.

Now, they didn't give me a ton of details, besides what is said above. I'm sure this is all contingent on the dealership actually duplicating the issue, which they've said they never had. I doubt they'll just cover a replacement transmission without their techs verifying that's the issue. For what it might be worth, I am going to try to "force" the issue, so I can catch it on video. This once helped our Mazda dealer figure out an issue with the infotainment, that they could not reproduce. As soon as they saw the video, they were able to figure out the issue. Probably a little harder when dealing with a transmission, but it might help and could be a good start.
 
#10 ·
You were on the right path. All service, before i owned the car, was done at the dealer. So from that aspect, it should have had the correct, and verified it was. But ultimately the problem was that the car was extremely low on transmission fluid. It only took a week at the dealer to figure this out.

In their defense though, they never brought the car into the shop until the last day. Each morning, the shop foreman would attempt to drive the car to duplicate the issue. This did not happen until the 8th day the car was there. I knew it would take a while, since there was no way to force it, and it was completely intermittent.

When I dropped the car off, i had a meeting with the service manager and the shop foreman. They both were SURE it was going to end up being a bad temp sensor. The shop foreman said that when the fluid is a different temp than what the car is expecting, it can make the transmission to wired stuff (simplified explanation). Once he was able to duplicate the issues, he verified temp and saw that the sensor was spot on. It was at that point he realized that we were all over thinking this issue, and it was going to be much simpler of a fix. The next logical step was to drain the transmission fluid. When they did that, only about a 1/2 quart came out. I believe they said this car requires 3 quarts. Regardless, it was extremely low. But, i guess not low enough to trigger any warning.

But back to when the transmission was flushed, at 71,000 miles, it was a different dealer that did it. One in PA as opposed to mine in MD. Mine said there was no signs of leaking, no signs of burning either. So the only logical explanation is human error. But that means that this car was driving for the last 34,000 miles on about a 1/2 quart of transmission fluid. I ultimately hope that didn't cause an longstanding issues, since the original dealer wouldn't own up to it. Not like I expected them too, especially after the vehicle changed owners. And it goes without saying that Hyundai USA closed my case, with zero action or involvement, since this would not have been an issue on them... even if the dealer fessed up. Though both them and the dealer used the excuse that... "the car had to get the appropriate amount of fluid, since that's what was billed." Riiiiiight.

Anyway, the car drives much better now. Smooth shifts, quicker shifts, no more rough idle, and doesn't feel like it's going to stall on short stops (this was another issue i had in a different thread). All said and done, just over $200 between the diagnostic charge and the refill.
 
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