2000 Sonata steering/AC drive belt problems

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Joey Goldstein - 06 Oct 2006 19:12 GMT

Hi

2000 Sonata, automatic, 4-door, 4 cylinder, 101,000 kms on odometer

In Nov 05 I had an incident where I lost power steering due to a drive
belt that frayed and came off.
It was replaced and then it happened again a few days later.
The tech told me he'd need to replace one of the pulleys which he did.

The other day I took the car in for service.
One of the things I asked them to look into was a mild squealing sound
under the hood when the car is started cold. He re-tensioned the drive
belt and the squeal went away. But 150 kilometres later the drive belt
came off again and once again I lost my power steering.
Now they're telling me that the other pulley is the problem and it may
need to be replaced.

Does it sound like they know what they're doing, or am I being taken to
the cleaners?

Is this a common problem on 2000 Sonatas?
I've never had anything like this happen on any other car I've owned in
my 35 years of driving.

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Joey Goldstein
http://www.joeygoldstein.com
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/joeygoldstein
joegold AT sympatico DOT ca

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hyundaitech - 06 Oct 2006 21:24 GMT

I saw this once on a four cylinder. I don't recall the year, but it had
the same engine as yours (if you have the four cylinder). The car had
been wrecked and I suspect something was bent on the engine.

I replaced the bracket holding the tensioner pulley and it better aligned
the pulleys, but it still wasn't as good as I would have liked. In any
event, it was good enough to keep the belt from coming off again.

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Joey Goldstein - 07 Oct 2006 00:39 GMT

> I saw this once on a four cylinder. I don't recall the year, but it had
> the same engine as yours (if you have the four cylinder). The car had
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> the pulleys, but it still wasn't as good as I would have liked. In any
> event, it was good enough to keep the belt from coming off again.

Thanks hyudaitech.

This time they didn't replace the pulley.
They said they just needed to clean some of the rust off of it.
But if I lose my power steering again due to the drive belt falling off
or fraying, while I'm the owner of this car, I'm gonna be pissed.

Here's something else I want to bounce off of you...

I had a "Check Engine" light thing happening on the dash a few months
ago and I took it into this same shop.
They told me that they couldn't find anything wrong and that I should go
to a Hyundai service centre instead. I did that, but either the warning
light went off by itself or the guys in the other service centre had
turned it off, and the Hyundai service centre said that they couldn't
check anything unless the light was on.

So, last week the light came back on. I took it to the non-Hyundai
service centre again. This time they said that their computer was giving
them a code but that the number for this code didn't match up to
anything in their software. They say they spent hours trying to find
info about this code and attempting to trouble-shoot other things in the
engine.
Anyway...They say they figured it out and that it had something to do
with the fuel mixture. They changed the fuel filter (and may have done a
few other things too) and they think it's OK now.

The code number was 0171. Do you know anything about this code number?

Signature

Joey Goldstein
http://www.joeygoldstein.com
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/joeygoldstein
joegold AT sympatico DOT ca

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hyundaitech - 07 Oct 2006 21:27 GMT

P0171 is a valid code and means that the computer must inject more fuel to
keep the proper mixture than it thinks should be required.

Check for vacuum leaks, especially at the PCV hose. Check the air bellows
between the air flow sensor and the throttle body. Make sure it's securely
attached on both ends and that there are no breaks in it. If all that is
okay, the problem is probably with the air flow sensor.

As for not being able to do anything if the check engine lamp is off,
that's mostly bs. If the code is there, the shop should be able to tell
determine what sort of issue is occurring, even if they cannot pinpoint
the cause. Of course, if the other repair facility turned off the light,
this means that they erased the code, too.

I'm not particularly impressed with either shop. The first shop should
have been able to easily find information on the P0171 code. Furthermore,
replacing the fuel filter is likely to have minimal effect. The dealer
should have at least been willing to check to see if trouble codes were
present. It sounds to me like they don't want to actually help you.

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Joey Goldstein - 09 Oct 2006 14:18 GMT

> P0171 is a valid code and means that the computer must inject more fuel to
> keep the proper mixture than it thinks should be required.
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> should have at least been willing to check to see if trouble codes were
> present. It sounds to me like they don't want to actually help you.

Thanks.

I think they said that the air flow sensor checked out OK. I don't know
if they checked for the other stuff you mentioned or not.

The car seems to run OK now.
The only problem is that when I first start it up (after about 8 hours
of not driving it) it is quite slow to respond to the gas pedal when
accelerating from a full stop. After the car warms up it seems OK.

Signature

Joey Goldstein
http://www.joeygoldstein.com
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/joeygoldstein
joegold AT sympatico DOT ca

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hyundaitech - 09 Oct 2006 17:47 GMT

It only takes a subtle difference in the air flow readings to set the code.
The last time I had a car with this code, upon finding nothing conclusive,
I had a sensor shipped in from another dealer and put it on the car. I had
taken some readings from the old sensor and then took some from the new
sensor at the same rpm's, and sure enough, the new sensor had slightly
lower readings, especially at higher rpm's.

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