[Aditya]

Thanks to Jolly Joseph for sending this information in. Heartfelt gratitude for sharing it with other enthusiasts via this Team-BHP page!

It has been close to 5 months now that our vehicle - a Creta is in your Hyundai Authorised Service Centre. We, honestly, are not even sure if the vehicle is with you or it has been moved elsewhere. It has been months now and it is unfortunate to see no proper communication regarding our vehicle from your end.

No one is taking the responsibility or even reverting to our emails - just some random communication by telephone with no clarity on where the car is currently and what you are doing at your end to solve the problem that is actually a manufacturing defect.

There is no proper solution despite repeated requests. I have also been given to understand that the vehicle has been shifted to another location. I have not approved or given permission for any such movement of my vehicle and even now, there is no clarity on where my car is. Is it even in Bangalore? I am absolute disappointment due to the lack of official communication and negligence in handling my car.

Initially, there was an email sent stating that I have to pay Rs. 7 lakhs and get the car repaired. Then, after months, there was another email saying the amount has been reduced by Rs. 1.5 lakhs and recently, there was a telephonic conversation with Siddaramaiah from ASC, to reduce it by Rs. 3.5 lakhs (representative tagged in the email). I still don’t understand why I am being asked to pay for a faulty gearbox of an automatic car. I have brought the issue to Hyundai s notice from the time it had run 43,007 km. Thereafter, I have reported the issue several times, but no one has checked the concerned problem.

This is a serious concern. I will bring this matter to the notice of the public and take legal action for keeping me in the dark. It is unheard of to keep a car in one’s custody without proper official communication and without taking care of it. Waiting for a communication from you. I need the car fully repaired or the entire money of the car back.

Please find my earlier dated emails to the Hyundai Service Centre below

Mail Dated :Jan 18, 2021, 7:15 PM

Dear Sir,

This mail is with reference to the bad service experience and an extremely serious quality issue with my Hyundai Creta - KA 51 MH 7022. I am a Hyundai customer since 2006 with my Hyundai Santro, and I have told quite a few people to buy Hyundai vehicles. In my family, we have an i20 for my daughter and my brother owns a Verna. I request you to help me sort this problem out at the earliest.

Details of the vehicle:
Hyundai Creta SX - 1.6 Diesel Automatic
Purchase Date - 27 - 01- 2016
Mileage – 1,15,339 km

Problem in detail:
On 11 Nov 2020 (2 months back) I had an issue with the transmission, where there was a jerk during gear shifts. I took the vehicle to the ASC - Advaith Hyundai, Mahadevapura. They told me it was some minor transmission issue and shall be repaired soon. Today I received an email that states the gearbox assembly has completely gone and needs to be replaced, and I need to pay Rs. 7.1 lakhs for the same (with Rs. 1.5 lacs discount from the company).

Also automatic gearbox getting completely damaged in less than 5 years is not acceptable, when I have done all the periodic maintenance at the Hyundai Authorised Service Centre itself, always. If it was a manual gearbox, it can be possible due to my driving style, but in an automatic gearbox this cannot be human error. I drive mostly on highways, and I am a senior citizen who drives in a very prudent fashion.

Also, there have been persisting issues with the gearbox in the past. In Jun 2017, while I was driving to Coimbatore, there was an issue that I got fixed from the ASC (Hyundai Authorised Service Centre in Coimbatore). The car had only 43,007 km on the odo. I was told that it was a minor issue. Again in March 2020, the gear was not engaging and it had to be towed to the nearest Hyundai Authorised Service Centre. In both cases I got bills for service and some external lathe work. From all this, it’s evident that the problem is either
a. a pre-existing manufacturing defect in the gearbox (OR)
b. a faulty service from one of the ASCs which shot the gearbox.

If it was a mechanical issue with the gearbox associated with normal wear and tear, I am sure that that specific part can be replaced at a nominal cost. If the entire gearbox needs to be replaced, it cannot be accepted in the normal course of usage, it must be a problem with the gearbox, and I urge you to repair the vehicle at the company's cost, at the earliest.

For the past 2 months, I have not been given a satisfactory response on the issue or the solution. This is not the response I would expect from the ASC of a brand like Hyundai. Apart from that, the vehicle has been moved to some other location, and is not available at the service centre I dropped it at. I am suffering these days as I am having to travel in taxis and public transport. It is a huge risk I have had to take for more than 2 months, and it’s all because the ASC took 9 weeks to even give a response regarding the service required.

I am a 65 year old senior citizen and I am taking a huge risk by using these modes of transport, where I could have used my own car for safety. So, I request you to direct the ASC to provide me with a replacement vehicle for the period until I get my vehicle repaired, at the company's cost. I also want the ASC to compensate me for the travelling costs for the past 2 months and for the mental trauma I have had to go through.

Despite multiple calls to the service advisor and the service centre, I have not been given a proper response. So I request you to help me sort this issue out. If this doesn't work, I would be forced to go to the consumer court for suitable legal recourse.

P.S.: Please find the detailed service history attached herewith. You can see the past instances where the gearbox assembly had problems. It clearly shows that it is a pre-existing manufacturing defect. You cannot expect me to pay Rs. 5.6 lakhs for a manufacturing defect.

Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 5:46 PM Service ITPL <serviceitpl@advaithhyundai.com> wrote:

Dear Sir

With reference to your Creta Vehicle bearing Reg No KA51MH7022 reported on 11/11/2020 for gears not shifting after some km of driving. After thorough inspection, we found that the issue is inside the transmission Assy & needs to be replaced with a complete Assy. The cost of the New Auto transmission Assy is Rs. 7,10,121. Same thing has been updated to Hyundai & support requested for this vehicle. They agreed to support with Rs. 1,50,000. Therefore, kindly take a decision for the same and provide approval for ordering the parts.

Kindly do the needful on priority basis.

Mail Dated Feb 5, 2021, 10:50 AM

Good morning Team Hyundai,

The vehicle in discussion Hyundai Creta KA51 MH 7022 has been in the service centre for over a quarter of the year.

The issue with the vehicle was regarding the transmission system of an automatic vehicle.

We have only used official Hyundai Service Centres from the beginning from the purchase of this very vehicle.

This is to inform you that the issue had first appeared well before the one lakh km mark (43,007 km) and had been duly recorded in our vehicle history with Hyundai.

We have experienced similar issues since then and have brought the vehicle to the service centre multiple times which is also clearly shown in our vehicle history.

This only proves that the vehicle has experienced this issue well inside the warranty period.

This vehicle has cost me Rs. 18,00,000+. I have used it for 5 years, and now to further continue to repair my vehicle, I'm asked to bear almost all of the vehicle’s cost after depreciation for no fault of mine.

There are two things very apparent from your email.

The issue mentioned is normal wear and tear after one lakh km and it is expected of a customer to face this very issue as a Hyundai vehicle owner.

(Please note: We have already established that in our case, it has first appeared before that mark of one lakh km)

The cost of the parts and replacement in comparison to the vehicle cost is too high (almost equivalent to the depreciated value of the vehicle as of now).

I would like to get a written confirmation, if every Hyundai vehicle can expect similar issues due to normal wear and tear.

I suspect that the issue was not attended to well enough since our first reporting it. It was deliberately made to wait until the vehicle crossed the warranty mark to make this claim.

However, the history of the vehicle recorded will show us that the issue has been persistent for a long time now.

This is clearly therefore an error of Hyundai and I can almost surely confirm that it cannot be the fault of regular wear and tear after one lakh km since we established the fact that it has happened previously and has been recorded in our history.

This could either be a one-time issue only with my vehicle due to negligence from the Hyundai team OR this is an issue that will occur in all unsuspecting Hyundai vehicle owners.

If this is a case of negligence, I request you to rectify the entire issue at Hyundai's expense for the negligence, replacement of the part done immediately and vehicle delivered in working condition to me at the earliest.
If this is a regular issue to be expected after usage, then this information needs to be reported to other unsuspecting Hyundai vehicle owners.

If, as you say, the transmission is to fail and has to be replaced, then the customers ought to know the issues that may arise after 40,000 km of usage and will be considered null of warranty after one lakh km of usage.

Therefore, it is in my personal interest to spread this information about what has happened to me on social media accounts, so as to inform the vast majority of Hyundai users online regarding our proceedings.

It has been over 3 months now and I have had to use public transportation due to the issue and have been requesting this to be resolved for a long time now.

Please confirm your form of redressed of this issue by email immediately.

We will be using social media channels (Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Google , YouTube primarily) to fully disclose our issue with this vehicle clearly and our experience and service history with Hyundai Service Centres so as to inform the general public about the Hyundai cars.

This will only include facts and it is an act to convey genuine concerns as a Hyundai vehicle owner, to other owners or new buyers.

This information will be passed on to relevant portals/higher authorities / popular car reviewers, etc to gain maximum viewership.

Waiting for your favourable response to proceed further.

Regards,

Jessy Jolly &
Jolly Joseph

Unsatisfied Hyundai Customers

KA51MH7022.pdf

[Axe77]

WOW!! This is truly a serious lapse in quality and even worse, in customer service.

Its one thing for a vehicle to suffer a QC failure - to my mind the paramount saving grace in such situations is how the dealer / manufacturer respond in such situations.

Will follow this thread keenly to understand how Hyundai respond to this issue.

[xtremeshock]

Truly scary, even I have a Creta SX Automatic currently done 54,000 kms, it almost reaching the 5year mark and I do plan to keep this car for atleast another couple of years.

Will be watching this thread closely.

Kindly do keep updating us on the developments, this will definitely help us all.

[d3mon]

7 Lakhs for a Hyundai gearbox? Are they giving an i10 free with the repaired car as well?

Originally Posted by Aditya

In Jun 2017, while I was driving to Coimbatore, there was an issue that I got fixed from the ASC (Hyundai Authorised Service Centre in Coimbatore). The car had only 43,007 km on the odo. I was told that it was a minor issue. Again in March 2020, the gear was not engaging and it had to be towed to the nearest Hyundai Authorised Service Centre. In both cases I got bills for service and some external lathe work.

The external lathe work is fishy. If this was done by Hyundai ASC under warranty, then it's completely unacceptable and reeks of jugaad. Even if they didn't want to replace the gearbox at that point of time, the least they could have done was to replace the affected internal components during the gearbox overhaul, instead of machining them for whatever reasons. A gearbox repaired in this manner would have been highly likely to fail in the future and that is what could have happened here.

[itwasntme]

Very fishy and shocking coming from Hyundai. I would have expected this from Skoda 10 years back.

Please do not relent. This is unacceptable.

[VKumar]

Maybe it's my lack of knowledge, but in my entire life, I have never seen or heard of a torque converter gearbox failing. I have a few cars in my circle which do Delhi-Lucknow at least 3 to 4 times a month, a few of them have crossed even 3 lac km mark (All are Toyota or Mahindra, no other brand at all).

But as much I know, not a single car has faced any major engine or transmission issue till date. Just saw this thread, and called up a few guys whose cars have gone past 1.5 lac on odo, all are happy with the TC equipped cars.

In fact, I have been living in an impression that since TCs are robust and never overload the engine, hence the engine-gearbox combo is longest lasting with a TC. Have I been wrong till date?

Reading about this Creta, it has come as a surprise to me. Would request the experts to kindly enlighten. Till then, I would like to put my doubt on the service guys, probably they played the foul for some quick buck looking that the owner is a gentle senior citizen, maybe easier to fleece.

When the customer complained of an issue at 43,xxx kms, if the same problem persists, then this is a warranty issue. His past job cards must have a mention of the same. He can pick them up and take these people to task. Something is really wrong here. Who does lathe work on a TC gearbox?

Even VW and Skoda is better than Hyundai here. I have seen them replacing engines and gearboxes even under goodwill. They have done many past sins, but they simply go with replacements - not using these repair tricks on lathe work etc on gearboxes at least.

[racer_ash]

Originally Posted by d3mon

The external lathe work is fishy. If this was done by Hyundai ASC under warranty, then it's completely unacceptable and reeks of jugaad

This one point could work in the favour of the affected party. I mean why use a lathe on a critical component instead of replacement. I personally have seen Hyundai ASC being extremely happy to replace parts without any due diligence.

[vishy76]

Now that this thread has been created, I would like to shed some light on a sham practiced by manufacturers in order to advertise lower maintenance costs. It's called "sealed for life".

This might be a very unpopular opinion, but any fluid which lubricates moving parts and is subject to mechanical friction and heat is bound to wear out over time and lose its viscosity, thus lowering efficiency. This happened in the case of my Jetta. The transaxle started whining at low speeds while taking turns and i was really puzzled that the sound refused to go away even after changing the front bearings. Thankfully, the service advisor stepped in, consulted the workshop floor manager and came to the conclusion that the tranny oil (which VW very optimistically claims is "sealed" for life) needed changing. I got it changed for a paltry sum of 6K and it's working perfectly since then.

I am obviously not jumping to conclusions that your ATF has caused this incident. However, I genuinely think manufacturers should prescribe intervals to change ATF every 5-6 years if not earlier. I don't think Hyundai has one prescribed. The condition of the ATF can also be a good indicator of what is going on inside the torque converter unit with respect to mechanics. Torque converters failing is extremely rare as has been said before already, and I am suspecting it might be the old unchanged ATF. (Though it won't be prudent to conclude at this point)

I hope you eventually get the goodwill warranty you are demanding. 7L is very steep for a torque converter unit. I remember reading up a thread about a totalled Skoda Laura on this very forum where the DSG gearbox body had been damaged. The total cost of that came upto 7L. It's quite difficult to stomach these costs. As for Hyundai, they keep hitting new lows when it comes to QC and even their lackluster attitude in dealing with annihilated customers.

[a4anurag]

Sad that Hyundai is resorting to trouble the customer for no fault of his. Since the problem has been highlighted and some work was also carried out under the supervision of HASS, the customer actually has an upper hand here as there is clear evidence and not a sudden problem.

If in case Hyundai isn't helping out, I'll take the car out the ASC, go to scrap dealers in the city and get a gearbox replacement for the car. Will work out cheaper than paying 7.1 lakhs.

[sameerpatel90]

I am so disheartened by this news of this experience and this shows how big companies are so inhumane towards it's customers in our nation.

I still worry about the concern about the customer's voice (gear shifting jerk) is not addressed in the manner it must be done by the dealer as well as the company. There are ample of other options available with the manufacturer to send a factory technician and get checked and communicate with the technical team, at the same time dismantling the G.B and analyze the G.B control unit for what good reason this issue has raised in the first place for instance, if one of the actuators is causing the malfunction of this unit and get the control unit replaced under goodwill warranty. In this scenario, IMHO one of the best possible solution is that the OEM must find the root cause and get the replaced either procuring from existing warehouse or ship it from other parts of the world.

Over the years working in motor field, what I have seen is no manufacturer in India is willing to replace such complicated and sensitive components in the hands of dealer technicians (usually due to lack of technical training and monopoly of OEM's), instead the whole transmission is first replaced then, the faulty component is shipped to the plant, later it is repaired under their supervision of the teams from technical support and R&D. I'm not trying to over exaggerate about my career but was lucky enough to experience one such case with Renault CKD Koleos (out of warranty vehicle) which had similar gearbox issue.

I hope to see sunshine down the horizons and the client is benefited by all the means from Hyundai India or else once the trust lost may never be regained no matter whatsoever it is. "Fingers crossed".

[ashvek3141]

These are exactly the kinda stories which gives me shivers when I think about retaining my Hyundai Creta for 10 years.

To my bad luck, my Creta P MT car is already giving me headaches with the clutch issues and I don't see them ending soon. I just hope that I don't end up one day writing such articles on TBHP about my car.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...ml#post5033874 (Hyundai India - The occasional serious quality lapse and apathetic manufacturer response!)

I really love my car and want to retain it to the maximum possible; but these sub-standard Hyundai parts quality and their service is a real concern!

Anyway, I have now moved away from the Hyundai ASS and take my car to a FNG.

[androdev]

Is Hyundai planning to move its HQ to Germany?

I can accept some occasional part failures but why such absurd customer service response. Even the worst case scenario would be to take back the old transmission for remanufacturing/refurbishing and offer the customer a new transmission at a substantial discount. I have a feeling that Hyundai is ushering in a new era of.. skoda-ness.

[tsr_83]

I've narrowed down my options to torque converter automatic diesel Alcazar but with these issues popping up, really worried on the choice to pursue. I've been hearing that Hyundai charges a premium for their cars (sales & service) and expect it to be reliable as well.
In summary, now need to know from the community whether Creta automatic is good and chasing down Alcazar diesel automatic, a good move or not?

[TrackDay]

The reason one goes with the Torque Convertor despite it's low fuel efficiency is due to it's reliability and very long life. It is quite unheard of such failures so early in ownership. Hyundai should definitely look into this issue seriously since there are tons of cretas out there. Maybe this could be a one-off issue but still for a vehicle that is relatively less used and serviced only at Hyundai service, this is abandoning the customer in a kind of way. Also do gearboxes cost that much ? 7 lakhs for the gearbox for a vehicle that costs approx. 12-15 lakhs ?

I also shudder to think what one can do, if one is not so well versed in social media or knows how to use public platforms.

[audioholic]

Why can't companies be professional enough to give an analysis of the issue and justify why the entire transmission has to be replaced instead of a child part? Especially in this case, the dealer speaks to Hyundai and the company writes off some part of the money instantly. Instead, can't someone at the company analyse the issue and only repair the affected part? Or is it the case that the entire transmission is imported and there are no child parts? I can accept incompetency at the dealers end in repairing an AT. But when the company has intervened, I expect a better resolution.

I feel bad for the senior citizen. At his age he would be looking for a fuss free car ownership and not a chain of emails and escalation which is something more suitable for a younger population. I would dread to see my parents having to involve themselves in such matters. I hope they get a better resolution and maybe someone could offer help with taking the dealer and company to task.

Coming to the technical details, does anyone know what transmission is used by Hyundai? Is it their in house build or outsourced? And aren't child parts available through Mobis?