What can we do? (RE: dealership problems)

[D4ng3r]

Several years ago, my father purchased a sky-blue 2007 Hyundai Accent new, from a dealership in our city. He loves his car, and was very fond of his little blue gas-efficient sedan. He is a simple man with simple wants, and driving that car has made him happy.

Until recently.

Unfortunately, a problem started occurring in the engine, where one of the cylinders would cut out. When brought back to the dealership, the code (revealed through scanning the engine) led to replacing an ignition coil, and he was sent on his way. Every couple of months, the problem would reoccur, and he brought the car in to get it fixed, and they would provide the band-aid fix and he would be on his way again (as the car was under warranty). Time went on, and the word from the service manager highlighted the fact that their mechanics did not have the permission from Hyundai Canada to spend the resources and hours to dig through the car's internals to find the true cause of the problem.

About a year and a half ago, my sister was driving the Accent on the highway. The cylinder cut out, and she almost lost control of the vehicle and narrowly avoided causing an accident at 100kmph. I have had a friend die in a car accident, and this incident with my sister struck me emotionally much more deeply than a simple "oh, its time to go to the mechanic to get that piece changed again" could fix. I approached the Service Manager at Myer's Hyundai with my father to ask him to contact Hyundai HQ for permission to fix the car. After months of back and forth, they finally had permission to take a more thorough look at the car. We left the Hyundai with them for over five months while they investigated the issue. We got the car back this past summer, with the Service Manager telling us it had a clean bill of health.

The problem with the engine has started again, even after the dealership assured us it was fixed. My dad is getting incredibly frustrated with his purchase from Hyundai. My dad recently informed me that to "compensate", the service manager has written a letter stating that any more problems that arise regarding this same distributor cap issue will continue to be taken care of by the service counter (as in, we repeatedly will need to bring the car in for them to fix the problem). I was actually insulted when they gave my dad a couple of spare distributor caps in case the problem comes back. Will it take an injury or, god forbid, death from an accident for them to truly appreciate the gravity of this situation?

Recently, my dad was able to get the vehicle to the dealership while it was throwing the error that the cylinder was out, and they were able to get another code. They supposedly sent the code to Hyundai Canada to find out what they could do to fix it. They have had our car for over a week now.

Yesterday was the last straw. I got a call from the service manager. It went something like this:

"OK, D4ng3r (my dad was out of town, I was the contact number). Your dad's car is ready, we have it all put back together now, and its running fine"

"That's great news! What ended up being the problem?"

"Well we had the mechanics working on it for a week, and haven't had the problem come back! You're good to go!"

"Uhh... what did you end up fixing?"

"As I said, we had a mechanic drive it for a week, and nothing was wrong... so we couldn't do anything"

At this, I was pissed, because he tried to pass it off as if he had fixed the car.


Guys, WHAT can I do? My dad bought a car that the dealership isn't fixing (either they don't want to, or they don't know how- but thats no excuse. REPLACE IT (or parts) if you can't fix it!!!).

This is not good enough. It may be for my dad, who does not like to cause a stir even if he has been slighted. I am here watching this series of events unfold, and am hurt on my dad's behalf. He bought a product with the reasonable expectation that Hyundai would now be working at his side to make sure the vehicle he received was not defective.

[7thgear]

write to Hyundai head office

get a copy of that code they got, and transcribe what you wrote here, only with less emotion.

[Dave-ROR]

It's borderline, but you can submit a dispute to CAMVAP (http://www.camvap.ca/ they limit it to 4 model years old) however you might barely sneak by, and it's obvious the problems started before then.

Sadly Canada doesn't seem to have lemon laws, but some provinces have similar consumer protection so check that also.