The company that keeps on taking...
Took our ix20 to Hyundai in Morecambe to have sporadic dashboard warning lights looked at, paying a £144 diagnostics fee. Having had other places look at the problem four times without a solution, we fully expected Hyundai to know the cause and solution. They didn’t. They suggested replacing the ECU for starters, then see how things went quoting £1527.60. To add insult to injury there was a “add to basket” option for the £1527.60 spend, as if I was adding a tin of peas to a supermarket trolley.
An ECU is a component that is widely expected to last the life of the vehicle. As the quote was so high to replace it, and the Hyundai garage could not guarantee a fix after replacement, I contacted Hyundai for support. Hyundai’s response was unbelievable:
“An ECU is a robust component and often lasts the life of a vehicle, but no car part is unbreakable. On a 2014 model it is realistic to expect age related risks, particularly as you have only owned the car for two years and we cannot know how previous owners may have treated or maintained it.”
Well, it didn’t break in the first year of ownership so the previous owners were obviously careful with the car during their meagre 27500 miles of driving. So, I asked Hyundai “Kindly explain what maintenance over the years should have been carried out on the ECU to ensure that it lasted the life of the vehicle, regardless of who owned the car.” Another surprising answer winged its way to us:
“We recommend referring to the owner’s manual for details on the routine maintenance your vehicle requires. Failures can occur due to age, environmental factors, or previous usage.”
Guess what? the owner’s manual doesn’t say what routine maintenance the ECU requires either. What’s more, there are cars older than ours, with a happy ECU, so what’s the problem with a low mileage 2014 Hyundai car? I’ve already said that the previous owners are in the clear, despite Hyundai wanting them held to account. I also feel that we can be excused for using the vehicle in the UK with its changeable weather patterns and tarmac roads (not ideal for a car), as when Hyundai told us via their TV adverts, that we were all pronouncing their name wrong, they didn’t say anything about their cars not being suitable for use in the UK. Hence, environmental factors can’t really be blamed in this instance either. Sorry Hyundai, you need to try harder.
Either way, Hyundai clearly expect that you might wish to scrap your Hyundai car once it gets to a certain quite young age. They certainly don’t expect you to drive a Hyundai very far, or often. I don’t know if we should have applied factor 20 sunscreen to the car during the summer, and an umbrella over it when it rained, but sadly we didn’t, and although I can’t be sure, I’m guessing the previous owners, for their sins, didn’t either. The result is now a car that nobody including Hyundai knows for certain, how to fix.
Thanks, Hyundai, for all your help and advice as to what we may have done wrong. You’re obviously not to blame for our faulty Hyundai ix20 which you manufactured and sold in the UK, and which we’ll have to sell cheaply due to parts that should last but clearly don’t, and customer service that simply isn’t your forte.
17 november 2025
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