Clutch on Tucson and Tucson ultimate

[Flightcrew]

Both Tucsons I have owned smelled strongly of burning clutch material. On the slightest of slopes, or when reversing round corners, the smell is obvious and alarming.
The fault was reported to the dealer who did nothing but tell me “oh, they all smell like that.” Several months later, the vehicle literally ate its clutch, requiring a new clutch plate, clutch cover and master cylinder. I gather the flywheel needed to be skimmed as well.

Then, after owing a perfectly good For Galaxy with zero problems of any kind, I found myself with a Tucson Ultimate, and from day one, again, that hideous smell of burning clutch. I find, from various forums that this is a known issue. The dealer, naturally, doesn’t want to know, preferring to let it fail completely before doing anything. Hyundai, equally unsurprisingly don’t want to know.

This vehicle is leased, and when its lease expires next September, it will end my dealings with Hyundai. I think you get a clever car that does a lot of things for your money, but it has serious design issues. Unfortunately, using another supplier for a clutch plate isn’t possible yet, if it was, I would have replaced it at my own expense.

So….hyundai Tucson clutches…..thoughts?

[alan sh]

Not happened on mine.

[Saltcreek]

Never heard of this issue and I have been on various forums.

[GrumpyDad]

For the first week and a bit, the clutch on our NX4, 1.6 petrol, manual, would give off the occasional burning smell if it had any amount of work to do while it bedded in. But was absolutely fine after that. I was slightly surprised by how much the driving selector (Eco/Normal/Sport) affected clutch use, to the point that, especially at low speed it feels like driving completely different cars depending on the setting.

When you have a dealer tell you something that you know is BS (such as suggesting that all Tucson owners would put up with their car always having a strong smell of burning clutch, because they "Just smell that way"), you absolutely have to call them out on it and refuse to be fobbed off. Demand they do a test drive with you in the car so that you can ensure they gauge the problem and ensure they are not just ignoring it (I had to do this with a mechanic over a binding brake issue that I could feel on my old X-Trail, where he refused to believe it was a problem until I ran it for a couple of miles and then immediately invited him to touch the (then smoking) brake disc). Also bear in mind that from an individual vehicle mechanical fault point of view, Hyundai are unlikely to have any interest in the vehicle, because your contract of sale is with the dealership/lease agent, and they are the only entity that is responsible for your vehicle. Hyundai may get involved with a dealership giving bad service or advice, but Hyundai directly are not legally responsible for any fault (unless it become a recall issue) with your car. It is just the same as when you buy a TV from an electronics retailer, it is the shop that has to rectify faults, not the manufacturer (making the assumption you are a UK driver).

Now, I have seen suggestion that there was an inherent issue with the DMF and clutch on some diesel variants of the third generation Tucson. But we'd all be shooting into the dark because you haven't given us any information about the Tucson models you had/have. We'd really need the generation, engine and transmission type to have any hope of offering any opinion on potential 'Known' issues with your car(s).

Having said all of that, having two different Tucsons at two different periods of time, which I am going to presume (based on you saying the current one is a lease) are two different age vehicles, possibly different generations, and both having very similar clutch burning issues, it may be worth considering whether it is a driving technique issue. I know from the experience of a family member, whose driving, which didn't destroy the clutch on one car, killed the clutch on their next car in less than six months. Yes, the clutch on the second car was obviously more delicate than the first, but not to the point where the clutch was the real problem, they just refused to adjust their clutch technique to suit the new car.

[Indalo1]

Hyundai are unlikely to have any interest in the vehicle, because your contract of sale is with the dealership/lease agent, and they are the only entity that is responsible for your vehicle. Hyundai may get involved with a dealership giving bad service or advice, but Hyundai directly are not legally responsible for any fault (unless it become a recall issue) with your car. It is just the same as when you buy a TV from an electronics retailer, it is the shop that has to rectify faults, not the manufacturer (making the assumption you are a UK driver).

You have highlighted a major issue which I believe needs to be addressed by governments around the world. Carmakers, quite frankly, have been taking the proverbial for many years by providing warranties that fail to address clearly the Block Exemption Regulations which provide for independent garages to maintain vehicles, as an alternative to expensive network dealerships.

The carmakers would argue, of course, that they do permit certain non-network garages to maintain vehicles, providing they meet the specified criteria and produce invoices with every ‘I’ dotted and ’t’ crossed. It is well known - there are exceptions - that even when an owner has had his or her vehicle serviced by an independent garage business, Hyundai - as with many other brands - will do its damnedest to avoid paying for warranty claims and force owners to jump through various hoops over a lengthy time period, leaving owners in many cases without their sole means of transport.

Returning to your point about manufacturers generally having the ability to eschew responsibility for problems with an item; car, white goods, electrical or whatever, forcing consumers to deal with the seller, whether that be a shop, garage or any other sales outlet, has never sat easily with me. To quote the now much-hackneyed expression by the Knight of the realm currently occupying 10 Downing St, 'the relationship', in this case between manufacturers and end-users, 'needs to be reset.'

Perhaps manufacturers and retailers of their products need to be held by law to be 'jointly and severally' responsible in the after-sales period, at least for the duration of the warranty, Certainly, some means of regulation needs to be conceived to ensure that manufacturers, at least in the car industry, take responsibility for their franchised network of dealers. The current system is broken and customers are not being served well.

[Indalo1]

So….hyundai Tucson clutches…..thoughts?

Welcome to the forum, ‘Flightcrew’.

I switched over to Auto transmission cars several years ago and although, like anything mechanical, auto boxes can go wrong too. Having said that, I have never had the slightest problem with auto transmission.

With regard to manual transmission, I have heard no information to suggest that Hyundai clutches per se are problematic. Were it the case that they are, then I would have expected to read lots of posts complaining about the problem in both Hyundai and KIA forums. So far, I can’t recollect clutch failure figuring highly among the various complaints.