2010 Hyundai Santa Fe
This year drew an ordinary 257 complaints for a Hyundai Santa Fe — the model's median is 216. What they were about is the unusual part: 28.4% of them mention transmission, against 1.7% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 1 of the Hyundai Santa Fe, which began in 2007 and ran to 2012. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 257 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 216 |
| Involving a crash | 8 |
| Involving a fire | 6 |
| Recalls | 3 |
| EPA combined | 23 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- transmission — 28.4% of this year's complaints, against 1.7% across the other years of this generation (17.1×).
- gear — 28.8% of this year's complaints, against 7.8% across the other years of this generation (3.7×). Owners wrote it as: gear, bang, shifting, 2nd.
- hard — 12.5% of this year's complaints, against 2.8% across the other years of this generation (4.5×). Owners wrote it as: hard, bangs, feel like, transmission shifts.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
MY 2010 HYUNDAI SANTE FE GLS TRANSMISSION PERIODICALLY SLIPS AND THEN CLUNKS INTO THE NEXT HIGHEST GEAR WITH A FORCE THAT SHAKES THE CAR. THIS FORCE TRANSLATES INTO A BANGING SOUND. EACH INCIDENT HAPPENED AT SPEEDS OF 20-25 MPH AND SHIFTING FROM 2ND TO 3RD GEA…
TRANSMISSION HARD SHIFTS DOWN WHEN TRYING TO MERGE ONTO HIGHWAY CAUSING LOSS OF POWER. I FEEL LIKE I'M GOING TO GET KILLED BY CAUSING AN ACCIDENT. THIS HAPPENS MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY. CONSTANT SLIPPAGE BETWEEN GEARS WHILE MOVING, CAUSING LOUD HARD BANGING NOISES…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 11E040000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
- 13V113000 EXTERIOR LIGHTING Fixed free of charge.
- 11V261000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Hyundai Santa Fe was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2010 Hyundai Santa Fe? What happened to yours?
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