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It seems there are several differences between U.S.-spec Elantras and those in other countries. I guess if I had to choose I'll take the cruise control with alarm on my Elantra over the back seat armrest in Australia--except you can add cruise more easily than a rear arm rest!
The only reason I'd like an alarm chirp is to keep me from getting befuddled while searching for my car on a parking lot.
I remember previous cars that did not run the a/c compressor to defrost my car when temps dipped very low. So far, my Elantra has used the a/c to do so (winter wasn't our worst this year in Michigan).
Think about this one: a black grille with body-color surround (instead of chrome)... what do you think? (Maybe more for the GT...)
All in all, I love my Hyundai though. Not only was it super cheap to buy, I don't tire of driving it like I did my last 5 spd. It may not be a sports car, but the actions of both the clutch and transmission are very smooth and that makes the whole driving experience much more enjoyable in my opinion. I don't fear stop-and-go traffic with my Elantra like I did with my last stick.
"The delay allowed the driver dummy's head to strike the steering wheel, resulting in high head injury forces. In a third test, the airbag again deployed late (64 milliseconds into the crash), INDICATING THE RESULT OF THE SECOND TEST WASN'T AN ANOMALY." (my caps)
"Clearly the airbag sensors in the Elantra aren't recognizing in time the severity of all of the crashes they need to," O'Neill points out.
http://www.hwysafety.org/news%5Freleases/2001/pr071701.htm
I posted about 4-5 months ago that I had spoken with the customer relations group at Hyundai.
They told me that based on all their testing there is no problem that requires any fix.
I asked for copies of all their in house crash test data to be faxed to me, (can't hurt to ask)but never received any.
I guess this could be my first problem on my 01 Elantra GLS. My driver side front left yellow reflector light went out. What I don't know how to do is replace the bulb. Do you have to remove the yellow plastic lenses. If so how do you do that?
Any help would be appreciated.
Happy motoring
Shawn
Keep your fingers crossed!
Pat
Sedans Host
That would be great!! :-)
I have read most of the posts in the archives and there is a ton of useful info, especially for new members
Don
i just wanted to ask all the people who come on this board who owns a new hyundai elantra about how much are the monthy payments on one with automatic trans and cd player and maybe a sunroof.. i want to know b/c i am still in high school and i am looking for a (good) cheap eco car to get me back and forth to college next year..
Check out this edmunds link for the steps to buying a car.
www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/43091/article.html
I am paying $268 a month (5 year loan) for an 01 Elantra with Opt 3 and auto.
I negotiated the price by having edmunds TMV and carsdirect.com pricing before going into the dealer. I also had online financing beforehand.
I bought my vehicle for about $50 less than the best price that carsdirect would sell for. But I also added a $280 gap insurance policy on to the payments and put nothing down. My final price was about $14,400 with all fees, gap ins, and taxes.
I felt this was a decent deal for being in the Atlanta area but I have read of much better deals on the coasts where the cars actually come into from Korea.
Just make sure you are prepared before going to the dealer. ;-)
I ended up paying $300 under invoice if you include the rebate, 200 over if you don't.
I thought it was a pretty good deal. Perhaps I could of got it for 1 or 2 hundred less, but I really didn't care to drive to Milwaukee to find another one in the color I wanted. Plus the dealer I purchased it from gives out free "VIP packages" which essentially amounts to complimentary oil changes and car washes for as long as I own the car.
my payments are 235 a month for 60 months at 5.79%, it was 13900 for a 2002 gt , with tax and title it came to 15100 and i put 3k down . i pay 300 a month and hope to knock it down to 3.5 years . if i remember right i think 36 month loan would have been 340 somthing a month.
taxes here suck i had to pay 7.50%. if i had gotten the car 4 days earlier i would have saved .25% but had to wait for the loan but that would have only saved me like 35$.
I have two problems with my GLS, automatic Elantra with about 4k on it:
The first problem became evident almost immediately after I purchased the car. It sounds as if my '01 Elantra has a frog in its throat after it sits more than four or five hours (or overnight) and/or the weather is cold. At first it was obvious only upon acceleration from a stop and disappeared when the car warmed up but now I can also hear a faint remanent of it (sounds like a piece of gravel caught up in the engine) even after it warms up. The colder it is the louder it is and the longer it lasts before it fades away.
Yesterday I left the car at the dealer for the sixth or seveth time and came in again this morning to do a test drive with the same tech that looked at it 4 months ago for the same problem. Well, thanks to good 'ol Murphy's Law, there was hardly a trace of the noise today so here we go again (no solution). That's why I'm hoping someone here can help.
A friend put his ear to the engine one night and says it sounds like a taping with a hiss to it, like a leaky vacuum. The dealer insists that if it were anything serious though, it would have tripped a light on the dash, which hasn't happened.
So far they have given me three different opinions: noisy lifters, normal. Noisy EGR celenoids, normal. Noisy exhaust shield, tightening it did not help.
The second problem occurs after the car has been driven for a longer period of time (after warm up). Usually on my way home, and particularly when outside noise/traffic is low, I can hear a thumping or slight knocking from the rear of the car while sitting at a stop light or after pulling into my driveway before shutting off the car. It sounds as if somebody is in the trunk going "thump, thump, thump" and then it disappears. The first time I heard it I thought another driver was doing it or that it was the bass from a someone’s stereo (mine was off).
Initially, I thought it was associated with the breaks but a friend heard it and mentioned that it might have more to do with the tail pipe or catalytic converter. Once again, however, there are no dash lights illuminated.
Has anyone heard of or solved either of these problems? Should I ignore it until a dash light comes on?
I've had a lot of odd problems including a steering wheel tipped to the right, a clock that burnt out and had to be replaced. Both front struts had to be lubricated due to creaking and the right front strut assembly was entirely replaced within a month after purchase. I've also experienced the common issues such as a sticking gas door/latch, the creeks, etc. But obviously I'm having some oddball issues too.
I like my car but I feel like I live at the dealership! Suggestions? Solutions?
It's normal for engines to make more noise when cold than after they're warmed up - they're made out of metal. Mine is slightly louder (as has been every car I've ever owned) when it's cold as well. It doesn't necessarily signal a problem.
I suspect you've been a little on the paranoid side since your clock when out. But I highly doubt your car is coming apart at the seams. Relax.
I was so aggrevated that I emptied my car looking for that incessant sound. I started with the glove box and even went so far as to empty the trunk.
DUH! I felt very dumb when I found out what it was. I was placing my "Club" steering wheel lock on the passenger side floor. It is the model that does not need a key to lock. Just pull on it and the metallic clicks tell you it is locking. That was my problem.
To clarify, the friend who put his ear to the engine did so to see if what I hear in the cabin while driving (above road, wind and engine noise) sounded any different up close. It did. He describes it as a tapping/hissing sound. From where I sit, it sounds like "rocks rolling around a empty coffee can" as a fellow over on the maintenance/repair board wrote about his Audi (with the response to his post being a possible problem with the oil valves/lifters).
As for hearing it from "4 feet away," I Have had a family member hear it from the outside with the hood closed too. It's tricky to trigger it when your just idling at a stop though. The problem is evident during cold weather but it has to be moving before it becomes loud enough for practically anyone to hear it. (I can hear it faintly at a stop too now though.)
One young tech at the dealership heard the sound but that was four months ago and he's forgotten (my fault for getting sick of bringing it back and letting time lapse.) As for the rest, most are practically deaf. It's an occupational hazard. I have a family member who owned an auto body shop who suffers from hearing loss too. So no, I am not paranoid. This is legit, and according to the brothers at CarTalk, a very common problem across all makes.
If it goes away in a minute or two, they say it's normal. But if you're hearing it for 10 -15 minutes — even several times a day after the engine has cooled — there's wear and tear going on that may eventually destroy the camshaft and the engine. The miles are low enough now that I want to rule out this type of issue before the damage adds up.
The problem: The dealer won't perform even a basic oil pressure or compression test without hearing it first. And since not a lot of people on these Elantra boards are having the same problem (I only found two other posts like mine), it would appear that something unique and not "normal" is going on here.
I grew up, as I said, around the automotive repair business and I've had just about everything in the book happen to me with various cars. Life would be a lot easier if it were "in my head!"
Sorry to hear about the door mishap. I too had a misadventure the second week after I got the car. I got it back from the dealer after the struts were lubed and there was paint missing on the front passenger door molding not far from the area where they were working. I could swear it wasn't there before I took it in for service but they said it was my responsibility to have it repainted, which of course they couldn't do because they don’t have an auto body dept. The service manager gave me the name of a place in another city and even though it was a bit of a drive, I decided to check it out. The manager at the auto body shop did the job for free! Wow. Sometimes there are actually decent folks working in the automotive business. ;-)
As for the struts, yes they were noisy while driving. They creaked like an old house, particularly during cold weather. When the car leaned into a turn, it became worse — particularly on the right. Eventually they replaced the whole assembly on the front passenger side and I haven't had a problem since.
I've also had a problem with my steering wheel pointed just a few degrees downward on the right but the dealer says they can't adjust it because there's basically only one way to install it (the way it came from the factory). At first it didn't bother me but now that I notice it, I can't seem to "unnotice" it. Another person on the Edmunds board reported the same and said a Sears Auto Center was able to fix it whereas their dealer tried and couldn't. Hmm. Maybe I should get another opinion, but then it's at my expense. So much for the 12,000 mile "adjustments" warranty.
According to a manager, Corporate treats warranty claims on a car like an HMO treats a doctor/patient. Car manufacturers want to keep costs down by discouraging extensive testing/diagnostics. This forces dealerships to take an ultra-conservative approach when it comes time to investigate a customer complaint.
If they send back a part that's suspected of causing a problem, the part has to be defective or they don't get reimbursed for the warranty work that's been performed. Same thing with tests. Dealerships don't have the freedom to poke around under the hood looking for borderline or intermittent problems. So unless it's obvious to a three-year-old, they're going to be reluctant to do anything for fear that they won't get paid if they fail to correctly diagnose/fix it on the first attempt.
End result? As long as the manufacturer warranty applies, dealerships seem to prefer a wait-and-see approach. This, in turn, prevents "early detection." And forget about an intermittent problem — they don't want to touch it if the solution isn't clear cut. Of course, they have to tell the customer something in the meantime, so you can imagine why some of these guys eventually start to sound like con artists.
Corporate lays out the rules in this way for fear that they would go bankrupt trying to reimburse dealerships that run every test in the book just to make a few extra warranty bucks. This is the first time I've ever heard of corporate being afraid of being taken advantage of just like the little guy who goes for an oil change and is told his whole engine needs to be rebuilt, the transmission needs replacement, the breaks are bad, etc., etc. But yes, it's true. Corporate is afraid of being sucked dry just like the rest of us. Unfortunately, for people like me, this means that to catch a developing problem before the damage is irreversible, I have to pay-out-of-pocket — which is exactly what one service manager suggested I do! My only other alternative, according to the dealer, is to ignore it because it's probably nothing on a car with only 4k. So now, thanks to this wonderful way the automotive industry does business, the burden of proving I deserve warranty service shifts to me. (Anyone else ever feel that way, like You have to be the expert or they won't listen? Now you know why.)
But not all is lost. I guess in 30,000 miles when the noisy valve lifters have shot the camshaft and destroyed the engine, then I'll have a legit warranty claim — minor detail that the car won't be worth repairing by then! What an eye opener.
Wal-Mart changed the oil on my '01 Elantra three straight times using a SuperTech 2808 and this time noted on their repair order (thanks) that the wrong filter had been used, substituting a 6607. I was leaving before I noticed it. A tech (not the one who changed my oil, he left) said that both filters had the same diameter but that the 2808 was larger. Their book called for a 6607, their on-line database called for a 2808.
My assumption is that the 6607, as the smaller filter, fits each and every Hyundai out there and the 2808 if clearances will take the larger filter, is the way to go.
I'll e-mail Champion Labs and see if they respond. I know this has come up on other cars. I am a bit, worried, however, by the Mark Salem comments about different filter media being designed for a particular weight oil. Since Hyundai allows everything from 5W30 to 10W40, I don't think this is a big deal.
Anyone else have thoughts or comments on this?
The Super Tech catalog calls for the ST2808 on the 2001 Hyundai Elantra.
The ST6607 could be used as a smaller alternate, however the correct filter
which we recommend is the ST2808.
The only air filter we have available for this application is the Champ
AF7999. For the nearest Champ distributor in your area, please contact our
Customer Service at (800) 851-3641.
If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us at any time.
Thank you.
Chad Garrett
Technical Service
Representative
Champion Laboratories, Inc.
They can re-center the wheel by realigning the vehicle.
also , it has been very windy here the last few days . i mean really windy . and i have notices on high gusts or cross wind as i am driveing i get a whistle sound. this is the only time it happens . i have had the gt up to 100mph and haven't heard any noise like this . but on the couple of very windy days when the wind comes from the side of the car i get a whistle .
Perhaps the serpentine belt on your Elantra needs to have the tension adjusted.
The only reason I can see for a small filter like that is that it would keep the same filter across an entire line of cars-- i.e. Accent (or something else) wouldn't have the clearance.
Does anyone know what the Hyundai OEM filter is like? Is that tiny?
I will however let you all know about my mpg findings with the K&N air filters I placed in both.
In the Sonata with a 4cyl engine mileage is up +4 mpg highways and city and average. I have always checked mileage on every fill up and it is positively up which is a good thing.
NOW, it’s a completely different story on my 01 Elantra. The mileage is DOWN 3-4 mpg on EVERY tank in the last 1000 or so miles. I also placed the original filter back in and it immediately goes back to 30mpg with the K&N I can get no more than 27 no matter how conservatively I drive.
I have reset the computer by disconnecting the battery for a period of time as well and no improvement.
I decided to do one last test and that is to wash and re-oil the K&N filter. I will be taking a couple hundred-mile road trip tomorrow and will know right away.
IF the mileage is NOT as good as the original paper filter I will be selling this one, which is, every bit like new, just not providing me the end result I hoped for. Soooo if anyone is looking for a K&N air filter be ready, I may be selling it for a good price
I follow the manufacturer's book, and keep all my receipts when I get the work done. If something creeps up, then I will have the docs to deal with it.
How do I post the URL for the article? It's telling me I can't post a word more than 115 characters long. Well, you can go to the latimes.com website for today, click on the Highway 1 section, and it's on that section's front page.
Thanx to EBEKINS for the heads up.
Thanks a lot.
Also, when I first turn over the engine, it revs to about 1500 rpm and stays there a few seconds, slowly working it's way down to normal idle speed. But sometimes it'll rev to 1500 rpm, and immediately drop down to normal idle speed. Is this normal as well? And why isn't it consistent?
This is my first automatic car and I wasn't sure if these are common traits. Thanks for any comments.