#TimingCoverOilLeak

Piston Slap: Leaking Like A…Santa Fe?

Luke writes:

I have an ’09 Hyundai Santa Fe, 3.3L, with 117,000 km (73,000 miles). It’s losing oil from a leaking timing chain cover gasket at a rate of one litre per 1,400 km or so. The repair is estimated to be around $1,500. We have this vehicle because we have three young children (ages 4, 2, and 6 months) and the Santa Fe is one of the few that fit three car seats across one row safely and easily, and was within our budget.

I’ve only owned the vehicle for a year. What do you think I should do? Pay for the repair, just keep adding oil, or look for a different vehicle?

Sajeev Mehta Feb 22, 2019

148

Recent Comments

Jeanbaptiste At home with Level 2. I've used the supercharger network a few times on a single roadtrip without issue. Planned charging around food and if anything it usually charges before we're done eating. I typically do not even look for charging when out and about. With a 90% charge every night (~250 miles), there's never a need to seek out a charger during normal driving.
Redapple2 I think it s a nice looking car.
Kwik_Shift I'm glad that my wife's 2021 has the proven and reliable 2.5L 4 cyl. Great mpg, good power and no issues at 45,000 miles. Personally, the new 1.5 3 cyl turbo with VC is not yet proven. With that complexity, it may be costly to repair.
Redapple2 Good riddance to bad rubbish. Flawed from day 1.
Art Vandelay Mostly at home. Mine only does level 2 charging but very rarely do I actually use the 240v outlet…typically only if I'm home for a bit and heading back out. The office I go to a couple of times a week has 4 chargers…2 normal level 2 and 2 Tesla Destination chargers. After using them both I typically use the Tesla ones with an adapter cable. The standard chargers are in pretty bad shape with frayed cables (1 is currently broken). Other than that there is one at a library on the way home I can hit if I need a splash and go to get to the house which I have a couple of times. 20 minutes is enough there. I did solar on the house but I haven’t installed a battery yet so I don’t think much of that goes to the car since the majority of its home charging is at night (it does run the F150’s battery tender so I guess it technically charges a vehicle battery).it is something I put way less thought into than I thought I would prior to the purchase. You just need to match the vehicle to your use case. As there is much talk of golf carts on here, my club car charges 100 percent at home when it isn’t hauling logs about the yard.

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Piston Slap: Leaking Like A…Santa Fe?

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