Hyundai Hybrid Hell

Tags

blog, cars, hyundai, lessons learned, life, personal, travel, writing

Discouragement is a three letter word, spelled C-A-R. I have made several bad vehicle choices over the course of my lifetime, and I am very afraid my current choice of vehicle is once again a bad one. This follows a very good choice, and I regret not considering another Subaru this time around. My Crosstrek was such a good, dependable, sensible car. When I replaced my Subaru this past September with a 2021 Hyundai Santa Fe HEV, I was attracted to the idea of a hybrid. I commute 2-3 days a week, a little more than 140 miles per day, so gas mileage and comfort were two big considerations for choosing the Hyundai hybrid. I liked the roomy interior and trunk space of the mid-size SUV, the comfort of the leather seats, and the airy feel the panoramic roof provides. 19″ alloy wheels give the Santa Fe a nice, quiet ride. To top it off, my wife has enjoyed her two Hyundai Elantras, extremely reliable vehicles. I thought I was going to have the same experience with my Santa Fe hybrid.

Since September, I have become acquainted with the dealer’s service department too well. Today is the fourth service visit (I may be missing one or two visits in my count) and the second time I have been without my car. Since I bought my car, I have been without it for several days at a time. The first time, I was given a loaner for a few days while I waited for the dealer to diagnose the issue with my car, but only after I raised the issue with the salesman who sold the car to me. My car’s air conditioning quit working the day after I bought the car. Once diagnosed, I was told that I really wouldn’t need the air conditioning — and they told me that because the part needed (a replacement inverter, a part specific to hybrids) would not be available for more than a month. Eventually, after two weeks of driving the car without AC, I was able to convince the dealer to find the part needed, and they expedited it. A month after I bought the car, the air conditioning was finally fixed. Then there was a problem with a damaged lift gate panel (fixed immediately). And then the rear view camera quit working, a software update that fixed itself. I am not dissatisfied with the service I have received, even though the air conditioning problem could have been initially solved better — I should not have had to push for better attention.

Today, the car is at the dealer. Monday morning, while driving to work, my Hyundai suddenly lost power. It basically went into limp mode. The hybrid battery level indicator began to drop rapidly, and a ‘Check Hybrid System, Stop Safely’ message lit up the dash. It was 5:30 AM, dark, and I was on a snow lined country road. A few hundred yards later, the car quit moving while I was still on the road and looking for a place to pull over. Thankfully, no one was behind me. And also thankfully, all I had to do was shut the car off and turn it back on again. It seems odd to say that, but this car is not key start. It has a push button start. I also noted that the gas mileage has dropped considerably. Right now, the car is getting around 22-23 mpg, which is 10 mpg less than what it is rated and 10-12 mpg less than what I was getting until recently. Since Monday, the car has shut down twice more while I was driving it.

What did the service technician say this morning? First of all, he said his Hyundai hybrid gets 4-5 mpg less gas mileage in cold weather. OK. That’s news to me, and 10 mpg less should indicate a problem. If the car lags that much when depending on the gas engine more, then the engine is underpowered and is a flaw that should be corrected. After checking out the car, he told me there were no fault codes, so no problem with the hybrid system is indicated. Did he check the batteries? No. But he is keeping the car outside today to see if that will cause the same issue. I am at home now, since a porter took me home. They are going to come pick me up later today. My concern? The symptoms are already indicating an issue. The tech shouldn’t need a fault code to see there is a problem. Dismissing the issue seems to be a common practice with this dealer, as they dismissed me when the air conditioning quit. Honestly, it really looks like they are hiding design flaws and problems with Hyundai hybrids. It looks like they sold me a lemon, knowing there are problems with the Hyundai Santa Fe hybrid design.

We shall see. I am hoping that the dealer can restore my confidence moving forward. Otherwise, I see headaches in my future.

One final note — I am doing my best to honor God through this, and am encouraged to have thus far behaved in a WWJD fashion. Praying that continues!

Update: Since there was no fault code, the tech could not figure out the issue. After sitting in their lot all day, the car did not repeat the problem. Not sure what to do. All I know is that the next time it gets frigid outside, the car is going to fail again.

Oops

Tags

blog, cars, Cycling, humor, travel

I’m not really sure how long it had been, but it had been a long time. I was due, I suppose. These days I drive quite a bit due to a 140+ mile a day commute (2-3 days a week). The first 30 miles of the commute is relatively new to me, added as a result of the move west. My morning commute is a long stretch of country interstate driving, with a 70 mph speed limit. Most drive around 85-90 mph. I usually set my cruise close to 80 mph and keep it there from point to point. My Subaru has adaptive cruise control, so it adjusts to the speed of the car in front of me, which saved me from overdoing the speed limit up to now. The morning after Memorial day was an unusually light traffic day. I found out that speed limits go to 65 mph, then 60 mph around 20 miles into my commute, something I was not aware of until I was pulled over by a Illinois state policeman. He pulled a nifty maneuver to wrangle me, pulling into the lane in front of me as I approached, braked into the shoulder and moved behind me. Had I not been in a state of shock, I may have clapped in appreciation of the performance.

I was clocked at 78 mph in a 60 mph zone. I had just passed into the 60 mph zone. I thought the speed limit was 70 mph. I was wrong, as the policeman sternly reminded me.

“You need to pay attention to the speed limit signs.”

My mountain bike was mounted on the hitch rack for an after work ride. I was a little worried the policeman would say something about the bike. He didn’t even mention it. Some police don’t like that a bike rack and bike block the view of the rear plate. A few months ago, a village policeman followed me home from church just to let me know about that little tidbit.

Since that day, I have strictly followed the tollway speed limit. My morning commute takes an extra 10-15 minutes, but I’m not risking getting another ticket. One benefit of driving slower is my Subaru is getting 4-5 miles per gallon better gas mileage. It will take a while to make up for the $164 speeding ticket, but I have to think positive. Right? I find myself wishing all those speed demons, the ones who passed me when I was driving faster and who are now blowing by me on both sides, would get pulled over. I am amazed at how many drivers ignore the speed limit, but also am surprised at how many also drive right along with me at the speed limit. Often, though, I am driving all by my lonesome.

I wonder how long I will continue my new driving habits. Only time will tell.

Accidental WFH

Tags

blog, coffee, life, personal

“Aren’t you driving to work this morning? I didn’t hear your alarm go off.” My wife sleepily roused me from some dream where I was trying to navigate a maze that required me to move and dance the correct way at each station before I could move on. It felt like the dream had been looping through my head forever, and I was glad she woke me. I needed to be rescued from that maze.

I rolled over, grabbed my cell phone from the nightstand. There was faint light shining through the bedroom doorway, so I knew it was past the time I could get to work on time. One glance at my phone confirmed that. It was 6:25 AM, ninety minutes past my wake time and almost an hour past when I leave for work. When I commute to the office, it’s 70 miles, so I give myself plenty of time to get to work before the 7 AM start to my shift. The commute was not going to happen this morning. Thank goodness for work from home options. Rather than stress out, I resigned to work from home, slunk downstairs for my coffee and oatmeal before returning to my loft office to log in. I had to retrieve my backpack from my car, there because I am a planner. Before I went to bed last night, the work laptop and catalogs were packed up and placed in the back seat of my car. A saucepan filled with a cup of water was on the stove, a bowl, spoon, knife, banana, and honey next to the stove so I could add that half cup of oatmeal to the saucepan in the morning. My coffee cup was waiting on the Keurig, a few packets of Splenda in the cup and a fresh pod of dark roast coffee loaded in the coffee maker. Clothes, shoes, and medicine waited in the bathroom. All for naught. When I work from home, it’s shorts and tee shirt, no shower.

I did put on a hat and shave. Lisa also worked from home today. When we lived in our condo, it was not great for us to work from home on the same day. Now, we have a house that is large enough that we barely know the other is home. My home office is upstairs in our loft. Lisa works part of the time from the large overstuffed sectional on the main level, then retreats to our basement and her multi screen set up when she has meetings. We even take our lunch break at different times. Lisa needs quiet time for lunch, comes up and says hello and gives me a kiss, then retreats to sun herself on the patio.

I both like and dislike the idea of working from home 100 percent of the time. A large part of me loves the convenience and comfort of working from home. As it stands, company policy is work from home 50% of the time. My boss really doesn’t care how often I come to the office, as long as I am doing my job. That’s never going to be a problem from me. My metrics improve when I work from home, the distractions actually less at home than when I am in the office. I also need to see my coworkers now and then. I’m an extrovert, and I need to be around people. In addition, my title ends with ‘senior’ and I was hired with that title, the idea being that my age and experience would add stability to my team. I need to be an example, which means I need to honor the 50% work from home policy. My team is the best it has been in a long, long time and I would like to think I have contributed to that success by example. Our team currently has a 98% accuracy rate, is knocking our team metrics out of the park, and has remained a complete team for over a year. The rest of the company is responding with a trust that wasn’t there five years ago, when I was hired. We are getting noticed, and it’s pretty cool to see. Our boss is by far the best boss I have ever had, is technically proficient, is as genuine a person as I have ever met, and his own example is fueling our team success. Our company is on the verge of cracking the two billion dollar plateau, and our team is ready for the added responsibility a growing company provides.

With all this work talk, I am reminded that retirement is looming on the near horizon. My wife is less than two years from retirement. I am likely 4-5 years from that milestone. We’re beginning to prepare for what retirement life will be like, am trying to get a glimpse of what we are facing. It’s both exciting and scary. Before we know it, work from home will be 100%!!!!