Team-BHP - Hyundai Santro : Official Review

Quote:

Originally Posted by Djay (Post 4601584)

Test drove the Santro AMT today. Though the engine is smooth and refined, I found a bit of lag with the AMT in first and second gear, probably due to lack of enough low-end torque. It's a bit lethargic for my tastes, but my wife who is a super sedate driver liked it. lol: I tried the manual mode and found the engine much peppier. It holds onto the gear and I would definitely prefer that mode. The fit and finish quality is top notch and it feels premium. Steering is super light and pretty lifeless. But quite effortless for city drives.

Hyundai has tuned the engine for mileage and given up low end torque which was the fun factor of xing. I found it bad even with manual variant. In xing it was too good even with AC on. After owning two xings I gave up on Hyundai due to this and switched to Tiago.

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Originally Posted by misquitas (Post 4596993)

I have a query: We are inclined towards the Santro AMT for our family (my wife is uncomfortable with manual gears), but I have read alarming posts on this forum about the unreliability of AMTs after some 20,000-odd kms. This issue has been reported in Maruti and Tata AMTs, but there has been no feedback about the Santro AMT as yet, as it is still early days. Do you think this AMT issue plaguing other cars may have been resolved in the Santro or is it a safer option to go in for the manual variant, if we want to keep the car for 9-10 years?

Thanks and regards.

Maruti's AMT Issue is mainly with its 3 cylinder cars like Celerio/Alto/Wagon R. The 4 cylinder based AMT cars like Swift/Ignis/Dzire do not face the issues.

Since, Hyundai Santro AMT is based on a 4 cylinder Petrol Engine - I would assume that it is safe and free from the AMT Issues.

I hate to be the bearer of the bad news.

My friends Hyundai Santro Sportz AMT broke down on the middle of the road with transmission problems.

Hyundai was too good with their on - road assistance and provided a tow in 45minutes.
The car was delivered to the nearest service center. The service technicians had no clue as to what could be the problem after 1 hour of inspection

The car has 7591kms on the odo meter. The car engine starts and remains running but on selecting drive mode you hear a noise and the car does not move forward on the drive mode and it does not respond on the manual mode as well.

His car stopped all of a sudden on a dual carriage way bridge and he had a huge traffic pile up after the incident.

The car is currently in the service center and he is expected to receive an update on Monday.

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Originally Posted by shadyrulez (Post 4608527)

I hate to be the bearer of the bad news.

My friends Hyundai Santro Sportz AMT broke down on the middle of the road with transmission problems.
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The car has 7591kms on the odo meter. The car engine starts and remains running but on selecting drive mode you hear a noise and the car does not move forward on the drive mode and it does not respond on the manual mode as well.

That is bad news indeed.

Could you please elaborate on what kind of a sound is heard on selecting drive and also was there any other complaints the owner had before the incident?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadyrulez (Post 4608527)

I hate to be the bearer of the bad news.

My friends Hyundai Santro Sportz AMT broke down on the middle of the road with transmission problems....The car has 7591kms on the odo meter ...

This is quite frightening to see new (7591kms) AMT breaking down in the middle of the road so early in service life without any warning.
Santro's AMT is considered to be smoothest unit of the lot and I have referred this version to couple of my acquaintances :eek:.
Hope this incident is just a one off defective unit and not a design issue with the AMT unit itself, overall I am having second thoughts on the the reliability of AMT's now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadyrulez (Post 4608527)

I hate to be the bearer of the bad news.

My friends Hyundai Santro Sportz AMT broke down on the middle of the road with transmission problems.

The car has 7591kms on the odo meter.

Firstly Big Thanks for posting this! This is indeed a very bad and worrying news for the future of cheap automatics in India. Hopefully this will be resolved soon and is a one-off incident.

Please keep us posted on updates.

Coincidentally I remember reading Hyundai having tested this unit over 7750 kms. The numbers seem wierdly similar.

:OT Maybe the future of automatics is electric.

Finally heard back from my friend.

Service engineer told him that the clutch has worn out and they offered a replacement under warranty. The service engineer himself was not able to understand why the clutch worn out at such an early stage.

Will update once he receives his car.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadyrulez (Post 4610105)

Is Hyundai losing quality? Never heard such things in Santro Xing Automatics of the time. My friend still drives his Xing Automatic which is 10+ years old. It was a single variant of that time.

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Originally Posted by rajivtelang (Post 4610287)

Is Hyundai losing quality? Never heard such things in Santro Xing Automatics of the time. My friend still drives his Xing Automatic which is 10+ years old. It was a single variant of that time.

I think it is down to the AMT tech that Hyundai is using in the Santro. Even Maruti and Tata vehicles have faced numerous such issues. On top of all this, Hyundai decided to develop its own AMT instead of buying it from Marelli. Though the initial review are good, but long term reliability is to be seen for this in-house developed unit.

This looks like a repeat of Tata-Mahindra-Suzuki AMT issues. Premature clutch disk failure by 15-20 k is the achilles heal of every AMT out there. Looks like the electronics is still not intelligent enough to baby the clutch like humans do. Earlier Santro automatic was a torque convertor gear box . Even at this point , I think a Grand i10 AT with its 4 speed TC is a better buy than a new gen Santro AMT.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadyrulez (Post 4610105)

Service engineer told him that the clutch has worn out and they offered a replacement under warranty. The service engineer himself was not able to understand why the clutch worn out at such an early stage.

Thanks for the update!

Would greatly appreciate if you could check with your friend whether there were any symptoms like juddering, jerks or vibrations during gear changes. These are some issues noticed with other AMTs indicating clutch wear. If not, then a direct breakdown with no prior indications at all is indeed scary.

Yesterday night, my friend's 9 month old Santro AMT broke down in Bangalore. He mentioned that he had just cleared a hump at low speed and lost all drive - The car was not moving to the front or rear. Being Bangalore, he had to wait for almost 3 hours in the rain till the tow truck arrived. He is still waiting for the issue to be diagnosed by the service center.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rajivtelang (Post 4610287)

Is Hyundai losing quality? Never heard such things in Santro Xing Automatics of the time. My friend still drives his Xing Automatic which is 10+ years old. It was a single variant of that time.

Santro Xing had a tried and tested torque converter gear box, so it's been reliable.

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Originally Posted by tarik.arora (Post 4610297)

Not only AMT we're seeing a slew of DCT's also from Hyundai/Kia and MG, with Ford India withdrawing the DCT and bringing the torque converter in it's Ecosport. It means that DCT's aren't suited to our bump and grind city traffic. I think CVT's or torque converter's are the best bet when it comes to reliability.

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Originally Posted by mtnrajdeep (Post 4635066)

If I remember correctly, this is the second breakdown reported for Santro AMT in our forum. Is it because of any major flaw in the AMT tech used in Santro? Hope it’s something not serious.

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Originally Posted by Durango Dude (Post 4635080)

Santro Xing had a tried and tested torque converter gear box, so it's been reliable.

Price cut with AMT vs. reliability; what should Hyundai choose here? I still remember the gear box of my manual Santro Xings. They were butter smooth and perfect to slot (even with 1 finger, something the autoportal and other reviewers mention now-a-days for new cars. That was already available in Xings and was really apparent) . They did not have cable shifting mechanism but still were amazing. I really miss that feeling in my Ertiga and Tiago.