2010 Hyundai Sonata
This year drew an ordinary 345 complaints for a Hyundai Sonata — the model's median is 425. What they were about is the unusual part: 52.5% of them mention door, against 3.1% across the other years of this generation.
Last year of its generation. This Hyundai Sonata ran from 2006 to 2010, so it had the whole run for its faults to be found and fixed. Last years are usually the most sorted of a generation.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 345 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 425 |
| Involving a crash | 19 |
| Involving a fire | 3 |
| Recalls | 2 |
| EPA combined | 25 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- door — 52.5% of this year's complaints, against 3.1% across the other years of this generation (17×).
- handles — 32.2% of this year's complaints, against 0.9% across the other years of this generation (35.4×). Owners wrote it as: handles, door handles, handles broken, handles broke.
- handle — 35.1% of this year's complaints, against 1.5% across the other years of this generation (23.9×).
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
BOTH REAR DOOR HANDLES BROKE OFF. BOTH HANDLES BROKE IN THE SAME PLACE WEEKS APART FROM EACH OTHER. THE CAR WAS IN PARK. I WAS OPENING THE DOOR LIKE NORMAL WITH NO EXCESSIVE FORCE ON BOTH HANDLES. HOW CAN I GET MY CHILDREN OUT OF THE CAR IN AN EMERGENCY WHEN T…
I HAVE HAD NUMEROUS ISSUES OF CONTINUALLY BROKEN DOOR HANDLES FOR MY 2010 HYUNDAI SONATA. THREE OF THE FOUR HANDLES HAVE BROKEN SINCE 2012 AND ONE HAS BROKEN TWICE. *TR TO DATE I HAVE VISITED TWO DEALERSHIPS AT 8 TIMES IN TOTAL FOR THESE HANDLES BREAKING. I WA…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 13V113000 EXTERIOR LIGHTING Fixed free of charge.
- 13V354000 SUSPENSION
How this was worked out
Every year of the Hyundai Sonata 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 Sonata? What happened to yours?
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