You May Want to Take Your Hyundai to the Dealer if It Has a Dual-Clutch Transmission

Image: Hyundai

What’s going on Hyundai? You OK, bro? It seems like the South Korean brand can’t catch a break lately. From recalls of its hottest models because they might burst into flames, oil consumption issues for millions of engines (replace my engine Hyundai!), a theft issue that’s probably going to get worse, and now this. Autoweek reports that Hyundai has issued a recall and issued a stop sale over certain models equipped with its eight-speed dual clutch transmission.

The recall/stop sale affects six of Hyundai’s most popular and newest models: 2021-2022 Sonata, Santa Fe, 2022 Veloster N, Elantra N, Kona N, and Santa Cruz. The problem is a high-pressure oil pump. This can cause the car to throw a code. This in turn will cause the clutch to disengage to protect the transmission, which will then cause the car to enter “fail-safe mode” and then lose power entirely 30 seconds later.

This problem is affecting 61,861 models manufactured in either Hyundai’s plant in South Korea or Alabama. According to Hyundai, the fix sounds simple enough: “All owners of the subject vehicles will be notified by first-class mail with instructions to bring their vehicles to a Hyundai dealer to inspect the transmission and replace it, if necessary. Dealers will also reprogram the transmission control unit with updated software that provides proper ‘failsafe’ driving capability.”

So, remember, if you were in the market for any of these vehicles, you can’t buy them. Whatever is going on at Hyundai these problems better stop coming up. Sooner or later the company is going to undo all the brand-building they’ve done over the past 10-15 years.