Top 5 Problems Hyundai Santa Fe SUV 2nd Generation 2007-13

Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto. Today, we have a second generation Hyundai Santa Fe inside the studio. I wanna go over some of our top problems that we've found. Just to let you know right off the bat, every car has its own problems. These are just some of the problems that we found for this particular car.

So let's start off inside the car because I kind of feel like sitting down. We're gonna talk about the first problem and that's gonna to be a safety issue. You know me, that's just how I roll. For this particular car, it comes down to the crankshaft position sensor. What can typically happen which would make you think that you're having a problem with the crankshaft position sensor might be something as simple as a check engine light comes on your dash. That would be the least scary thing that might happen. Something else that might potentially happen if you're having an issue with your crank position sensor, would be your vehicle just stalls randomly while you're driving. All right. If you find that you're having this issue, one of the first things that I would do is obviously find myself a scanner so I can pull the code and confirm that it is actually an issue with the crankshaft position sensor. Once you've determined that it is actually an issue, if you don't have a higher-end scanner, you're not really gonna be able to graph it. Once you've confirmed that you wanna replace the crankshaft position sensor, it's gonna be located underneath your hood on your transmission bell housing underneath your cylinder head on the left side.

Okay, friends, so for our second problem on this car, we're gonna to talk about the automatic transmission. Typically what you're gonna notice for symptoms with an issue with your automatic transmission on this particular car would be a shiftability issue. What I mean by that is maybe you'd go to accelerate and you notice your RPMs go up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up slam, or maybe it just kind of seems erratic. You're driving down the road. Maybe you're even on flat level surface and the transmission just kind of seems like it shifts through gears on its own and you can't really figure out what's going on. For the transmission itself on this what you would wanna do is service the transmission typically. But before you go ahead and do that, you need to make sure you've been up to date on all your maintenance, because if you haven't done your transmission service in over a hundred thousand miles, and today's just the day that you think you're gonna do it, more than likely there could potentially be damaged to the transmission. So just kinda keep that in mind, if you check your transmission fluid and you see metal in the fluid, that kind of just means that your transmission is just wasted at this point. But typically what you can try to do is service the transmission on this. Essentially you'd wanna take down that pan or drain the fluid at least. And you're gonna replace that fluid with a specific Honda fluid, okay? You don't wanna use just regular ATF or anything like that. And also what would be best to do would be to make sure that you reset the adaptives for your transmission. That's not generally something that you're gonna be able to do on your own, but if you have a higher-end scanner or maybe a buddy, or you can bring it to the dealer, they can generally update that for you to the most current version. Now, after you've done all this, your transmission should be ready to go. You should be able to go on a nice drive. You wanna make sure that it shifts perfectly along the way. If it doesn't, after you've completed the service, get back out and check that transmission fluid, make sure it's completely full. You don't wanna go on all the way up the dipstick, but you do want it in between the hatch lines where it says the full line should be. If that looks good, hopefully your transmission works good as well. If it doesn't, more than likely you're just gonna have to replace that transmission.

All right, friends, for our third problem on this car, we're gonna talk about the fuel level sensor. That's gonna be located inside your fuel tank. So it's not something that you're gonna be able to see, generally speaking. I have something in my hand that I can show you. It's not the one for this particular car, but it is something that you have a nice opportunity to see. This right here is considered your fuel level bar right here. And it's got a little float. So every time you fill up that fuel tank, this comes up and then it comes across this gauge right here. And it essentially tells your computer in your car how much fuel you have. Typically what can happen with these is they get debris on them of some sort or even a buildup, or even they wear down and then essentially your fuel tank might be full. This is all the way up, like it's supposed to be, but it doesn't read that, there's an issue with the sensor right here. This is gonna be a very common issue. And typically when this happens, there's gonna be a couple of different symptoms that you might notice. It's not necessarily gonna be runnability issues. So you're not necessarily gonna feel something where bucking or anything like that. But what you might happen to see is a check engine light come on. That code might be a P0463. If you get that code, typically, it's gonna come down to this right here. Like I said, it's located inside of your fuel tank on your fuel pump module. So it's not necessarily something that you can just kind of check out. Another symptom that you might happen to find for this issue might be your fuel gauge on the dash it's acting erratically. Typically why this would happen is because, like I said, this little gauge right here, or the sensor right here, isn't acting properly. So it's sending information to the computer, which is sending information to the gauge to tell you approximately where your fuel level's at. Well, for some reason it starts acting erratic. Maybe just filled up the tank, but it's floating around 3/4 of the tank, 1/2 tank, 3/4 of a tank, full. You're driving home and you're like, "What's going on?" More than likely it comes down to this right here. Like I said, it's the fuel level sensor and it's located inside of your fuel tank.

All right, friends, for our fourth problem on this car, let's talk about the alternator. We're gonna come right along the front side of the engine on the passenger side, down along the bottom here, you're gonna be able to see the alternator. Of course, it's gonna have a belt running across it. What we really want to pay attention to is if it's dirty at all. Typically what happens is you'll get an oil leak. It'll run down along the engine here and it'll get into the actual alternator. And of course that's gonna cause an issue with generating electricity. If you can't generate electricity from your alternator, there's no way that your alternator is gonna be able to charge up that battery to make up for any load that might be potentially getting put on it such as maybe your headlights, your wiper blades or anything the like. Your battery is gonna need to be in tip-top shape, especially through the cold winter months or even the extreme heat of the summer. With that said, if the alternator's not functioning properly, you need to make sure you get that checked out. If you see that you have an oil leak on the alternator, what you could try to do would be to fix that oil leak, clean that alternator out and then of course, give it a try. If for some reason, the symptom seems to continue such as maybe you're just not charging your battery the way that you hoped you were, that tells you that you're gonna have to replace the alternator. Generally before people just go ahead and replace an alternator, they're gonna test the charging system because if your battery is completely dead, it might not be an alternator issue. It could actually potentially just be the battery is that bad.

Okay, friends, so stay with me. We have a fifth problem on this one, and it's gonna come down to the EGR valve, but it's gonna be specific to certain engine models. We're gonna to talk about the 2.7-liter V6 and the 2.4-liter four cylinder engine. Where we're gonna have for an issue on this is the EGR valve. The EGR valve on these has an issue where it actually gets clogged up with carbon. Carbon on this is gonna be a hard black substance that typically needs to be cleaned out/scraped out of the system. Generally, when this happens, you're gonna find that you have an erratic idle, maybe you're sitting on the side of the road or at a red light or whatever the case may be and you happen to see that your RPMs on your gauge cluster just start going [vocalization]. And you can maybe even feel a little bit of a shutter coming from your vehicle. Generally that's because your engine is finding that there's an issue with maintaining the proper RPMs. Essentially, like I said, it comes down to your EGR valve being cleaned up. This is gonna be a very common problem. So like I said, if you're finding that you have a runnability issue where your RPMs just kind of start going up and down, maybe even a check engine light, which is a little unlikely, but it could happen, it could typically come down to the EGR valve. Generally speaking, you can go ahead and clean these out, just go ahead and pop it off of there, clean out the inside of any of the black soot that you might happen to see, replace the gasket, of course, and then plug it back in, clear the code if you have a check engine light, and take it for a road test. If this doesn't fix the issue, of course, you're either gonna need to continue diagnosing or generally what people end up doing is just go ahead and replace that EGR valve.

Okay, friends, so these are some of the top problems that we've found for this particular car. Like I said before, every car has its own particular issues. Maybe you have one of these, maybe you've got problems of your own. Go ahead and leave them in the comment section below because I always love to hear from you. And if you liked the video smash on that like button for me, it would mean the world. Subscribe and ring the bell that way there you can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.