A major disappointment
7-10-2025 Update Regarding
Persistent Problems in my 2025 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid Limited
My name is Lloyd Marks. My email address is LMarks1950@gmail.com. My phone number is 908-347-2662. On May 5,2025 I purchased a 2025 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid Limited at Courtesy Hyundai in Tampa. The VIN is KM8JEDD10SU323732. I thought that the vehicle had an excellent, well thought out user interface, nice features and excellent performance, so I decided to buy it over the competition. However, the car has serious problems that remain unresolved despite at least 6 visits to the service department at Courtesy Hyundai of Tampa. I saw Rudolfo once, Jordan Pate 3-4 times, had a conversation with Jesus Valiente, the head of the service department, who then had me see the head service advisor, Rassiel Medina, who then had the car thoroughly checked out by their most experienced technician, Tom. Initially I thought that they were dismissing my concerns when they simply returned the car to me telling me that there were no problems. But eventually I came to understand that these folks started taking my concerns seriously. But it seems that when they perform a diagnostic procedure that the system is somehow reset, so they are unable to reproduce the problems. After having the car returned to me over and over again with a diagnosis of “there are no problems,” I filed a complaint with Hyundai. The Hyundai Case Management Number is 40884481. I no longer think that the technicians at Courtesy Hyundai are deficient. I am convinced that this is a defective car and that it cannot be fixed. Fortunately, yesterday, 7-2-25, I was able to bring the car to Courtesy Hyundai and left the engine running while Rassiel observed and documented on his own iPad, the multiple media disconnections including disconnection n of Carplay even though the Bluetooth settings on the phone indicated that the Hyundai was still connected. Today it happened again, and I noticed that it had also reset the clock and turned off daylight savings time. Click on the hyperlink to observe. I finally received a call from Rassiel yesterday. He told me that even though he personally observed and documented the failures Hyundai would not authorize a repair. He said that they told him that the problem was caused by my iPhone. So, I called Apple. They ran a full diagnostic on my iPhone 16 pro and said that it was functioning normally. My son, who is visiting until tomorrow, also has an iPhone 16 pro so I deleted my phone from the car and paired his. It worked for about 40 minutes but then the Carplay was disconnected from the car, just like my phone. When I conveyed that information to Courtesy Hyundai, they told me that the only way Hyundai would authorize a repair is if one of their technicians using a different iPhone could duplicate it. But it can work for a while, just like it did for my son today, before it crashes. I doubt that they will assign a technician to drive my car for hours until a malfunction occurs.
Here are descriptions of the recurrent problems.
Media and Carplay Disconnections:
• The system frequently drops phone calls, media being watched (such as maps) or listened to (such as streaming music). First, the media usually gets silent for about 5-10 seconds. Then it completely disappears from the display and the screen changes to the “Select Media” screen. It usually stays on that screen for about 10 seconds and then sometimes, but not always, returns to the media. I have had to stop driving the car on multiple occasions to reestablish important phone conversations.
• This disconnection happens as frequently as every 15-30 seconds but sometimes as infrequently as every hour or so. In fact, one day this week it did not happen although it did the day before and the day after. When Tom examined the car, he drove it for over an hour and did not experience any media disconnects. Then, when he returned it to me, we drove together for about an hour and there were no media disconnects. But the following day, it started up again with disconnects happening several time per minute. I had to turn it off as it was becoming a dangerous distraction. I made videos that clearly demonstrate the problem. In the first one you can witness 5 disconnects over 2.5 minutes. In the second video, you can see two disconnects in one minute. The video files are large, so I’ve provided links to them on my Google Drive. Click on the above hyperlinks to see the videos. You may have to download the videos to watch them. Watch them from beginning to end and I think you’ll get a sense of just how frustrating this is.
• Sometimes when the media is kicked off, it returns to the “select media” screen, but CarPlay is no longer present. Instead, it says “phone projection” (see photo on the left). When I click on “Phone Projection” it says, “Please Connect a Phone” (next photo). But, when I look at my Bluetooth settings (see below), it clearly shows that the Tucson is still connected.
Then I have to “Forget this car,” delete the phone and add it back as if it were a completely new phone. This process took me about 15 minutes, making me late for a doctor’s appointment. This complete disconnect requiring forgetting and re-pairing the iPhone (16 pro) has occurred more than 40 times since owning the car and more than 10 times in the last 2 days. As I mentioned above, this malfunction was witnessed and documented by the service manager, Rassiel Medina but Hyundai still will not act until one of their technicians can duplicate the problem with a different iPhone. This would require their technician drive the car until a crash occurs. This could take hours. Hyundai should be obligated to provide a vehicle that works with my normal iPhone.
• These problems occur regardless of whether the iPhone is connected by Bluetooth or with a wired USB connection
• My Hyundai case manager, Namiya, seemed genuinely concerned. In fact, last week, she reached out to me by phone to ask how things were going and I appreciated that. When I first spoke with her, she asked me to contact 1-800-BLUELINK, which I did. An attentive representative spent about an hour with me and told me that it was almost certainly a hardware problem. Namiya called me about 2 days ago to inform me that Hyundai would do absolutely nothing for me unless these intermittent problems were observed at the dealership. Fortunately the media disconnections happened yesterday and I brought the care to the dealership and left it running until Rassiel could come out and see it for himself. He observed the disconnections and documented them with his tablet. Still Hyundai will not fix this car.
• This has become a safety hazard. One minute I’m following a map and the next minute it disappears. If it drops an important call I have to promptly find a place to pull off the highway to reconnect.
Faulty air conditioning
• When you get into the car, if the A/C is directed at the legs and chest at the same time, it does not provide any noticeable cooling for about 10 minutes.
• To get cooling you have to aim the air flow upward toward the chest only. You also have to set the temperature to “Lo” and the fan to high. I measured the temperature coming out of the vents – it was in the 60’s. When I went for the test drive with Tom, however, the temperature dropped into the 40’s after about 5-10 minutes. But then, the next day it stopped working again. Perhaps it was because it was a hotter day.
• One time almost no air was coming out of the vents. Then I saw that the car had, on its own, turned on the front window deicer/defogger and was actually heating the car. I have never, not even once, turned on the front window deicer/defogger.
• The A/C frequently turns off when I park the car and has to be restarted the next time I drive. This does not happen all of the time and it has never happened in any other car I’ve ever owned.
• Today, 7-10-25 when I got in the car, the A?C was set on Lo with the fan set at maximum, and the air directed directly at my body. It produced slightly cool air for about 8 minutes and the it started producing cooler air but not cold. It was very uncomfortable in the car as the temperature outside was 90 degrees.
The Traction Control System turns off frequently when I park the car and I have to restart it manually the next time I drive when I see the warning indicator on the dashboard. I consider this to be a safety hazard. It happened earlier today, and I made a video showing it. You can see the video here. It has occurred 3 more times over the last week.
Defective Wireless Charging Plate – My phone charges normally from every wireless charger I have ever used it with. In my Hyundai, the charging plate works on some phones but not on others. When I place my iPhone 16 Pro on the charging plate, the 3 green bars light up and the zigzag charging icon on the phone appears. However, the phone not only doesn’t charge, but it discharges. This happens whether the phone’s case is on or off. The same thing happens with my wife’s iPhone, as well as my friend’s. When Tom took me for the test ride, the phone actually did charge a little; I think it increased by 1% over a half hour. But today it discharged while on the charging plate.
Possible Power Supply or Battery Defect
• I’ve received three “low battery” alerts from the car.
Driver Alertness Warning System
The driver alertness warning system does not work properly at night when I’m wearing glasses. It issues false alarms, tells me to drink coffee, and even shut the car off twice; unbelievably, it actually turned off the motor twice while I was driving on highways! Very dangerous! So, when I drive at night now I have to drive without glasses. The service advisor at Courtesy Hyundai told me that nothing can be done about it as all the user accessible switches had already been turned off. It happened again this week and I had to remove my glasses while driving.
Faulty Crash Detection
A few days ago, I was driving in a heavy rainstorm, and the car must have interpreted the rain as a vehicle because the car issued a loud alert and put the brakes on. I could easily have been rear ended by the car behind me. A symbol of two cars crashing and another symbol danger, a yellow triangle appeared on the dashboard. Here is a picture of the dashboard.
Malfunction of Windshield Wipers
Yesterday, for the first time I tried to use the intermittent windshield wipers during a light rainstorm. I have subsequently been told that the Hyundai doesn’t have intermittent wiper settings but, rather, has “automatic” wiper settings (slow, medium and fast) which respond to changes in precipitation. It was raining but not hard enough to put on the continuous wipers. So, of course, I wanted intermittent wiping. But regardless of the speed setting (slow, medium or fast), they wiped a single time after they were turned on and then did not wipe again for over a minute. By that time, enough rain had accumulated on the window so that it was becoming unsafe to drive. Now I just use the continuous wipers.
Malfunction of Door Handle
Earlier this week while it was raining, the car would not open when I tried to open it with the driver’s door handle. It took about ten attempts until I could get it open.
SUMMARY:
I’ve given Hyundai many opportunities to fix this long of intermittent problems but, even though the technicians have failed to duplicate all of them, they return within a day or two. Finally, yesterday, the service manager, Rassiel Medina, witnessed and documented at least one of the problems, the media disconnects. Yet they still refuse to admit that there is a problem with this car. And the technicians will not be able to observe the DAWS problem unless they go travelling with me at night or the problems that occurred in the rain unless they test drive the car in a heavy rainstorm.
This car is defective. I want to return it and get a full refund.
I have photos and videos documenting these problem but this form does not have a provision for posting them. They were sent to my Hyundai case manager,
Lloyd Marks, MD, MBA, FACC, FAIMBE
Verified Owner
