When you buy a new car, it comes with a warranty that protects you against potential defects and failures. However, you have to hold up your end of the bargain by getting the car properly serviced during the warranty period. Many owners get this done at the dealership for convenience. However, sometimes a regular service can come with an unwelcome sticker price, as some Hyundai Ioniq 5 owners are finding out.
The matter came to our attention via a Facebook post shared on Twitter. It featured an Ioniq 5 owner asking about whether a $1,500 “Ion Flush” service was a legitimate thing for a dealership to perform. The post concerned his wife’s 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 with 30,000 miles on the clock. The owner had posted in an EV6 group for help given both cars are built on the E-GMP platform.
Right off the bat, this sounded suspicious—like someone using random battery terminology to justify a jumped-up service charge. The very name “ion flush” suggests something to do with flushing the battery, but there’s no way to flush the ions out of your car’s battery. The lithium ions in a conventional EV battery move between the cathode and anode and back again through the electrolyte. There’s no way to flush the electrolyte, or the ions themselves, out of the system, so it’s all nonsense, right?
brb gonna go call the local ford dealership and schedule an ion flush ???? pic.twitter.com/CmUqixWlau
— m*tt (@jffxns) January 20, 2024
Indeed, that seems to be what got the owner and many others questioning the matter. The reality is more complex, and it comes down to interesting engineering decisions on the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and a poor choice of terminology by the dealership. In any case, the owner told us he and his wife did pay $1,500 for this service. Was that an overcharge, or is it legitimate? Let’s explore.
It’s Special Coolant That Is Expensive And Has To Be Replaced Frequently
On the Hyundai Ioniq 5, there isn’t one cooling circuit, but two. While it’s not unusual for an EV to have multiple cooling circuits, which can sometimes be merged via valves, on the Ioniq 5, the two are completely separate. One cooling system is for the motors and inverter and other electronic components, and uses Hyundai’s regular pink coolant. The other coolant system is specifically for the high-voltage traction battery. It uses a special blue coolant which is formulated to have much lower electrical conductivity, and goes by the Hyundai part number 00232-19111 or 00232-19113. Sandy Munro has a video diving deep into the cooling system of the Ioniq 5 (see above), looking at the dual circuit setup.
Also interestingly, the initial formulation of Hyundai’s low-conductivity coolant was called BSC-1 (part number 00232-19091), and was the subject of some crystallization issues. It was later replaced by BSC-2 with the 00232-19111 part number.
This blue coolant needs to be changed at 35,000 miles as per official documents. Indeed, as the owner told us, the “Ion Flush” was referring to flushing this battery coolant. But how does a coolant flush come out to $1,500? Let’s learn more about the coolant, and what’s going on here.
Conventional wisdom is that the special coolant is a belt-and-braces protective measure, intended to prevent the risk of a battery fire in the event of an internal coolant leak. The idea being that a conductive coolant could cause a short between cells, heating the battery to the point of thermal runaway. That makes sense, but at the same time, there are a great number of EVs on the market that don’t use low-conductivity coolants. Indeed, like the Kia EV6—the sibling to the Ioniq 5 built on the same E-GMP platform. It uses a conventional coolant throughout. We’ve queried Hyundai on the specifics, but the industry scuttlebutt is that the Ioniq 5 was developed first between the two, and Hyundai wanted to be extra cautious with the launch of its important EV SUV. It’s also worth noting this coolant isn’t exclusive; it’s also used in the Hyundai Kona EV.
It’s this special blue coolant that is at the root of things. For the 2023 Ioniq 5, the official service schedule says to replace the low-conductivity coolant at 35,000 miles, or 36 months. For the 2022 model, it’s scheduled at 35,000 miles or 36 months in the manual, but 40,000 miles on the Hyundai website. In both cases, the owner’s manual notes that it can be changed early with other maintenance jobs for convenience. In contrast, the standard coolant used in the Ioniq 5 has a much longer life, lasting 120,000 miles.
I’ve got a theory as to the quicker change interval for the low conductivity coolant. One is that it loses its low conductivity in just a few years, even if its cooling capacity remains. Thus, to meet spec, it has to be changed regularly. Or it could be that it suffers degraded performance in multiple other ways that I’m just not thinking of at the moment. Regardless, The Autopian has reached out to Hyundai for comment on the matter.
So, at 35,000 miles, give or take, an Ioniq 5 needs its low-conductivity coolant replaced. Not checked, not inspected, but replaced. Depending on the model, it requires anywhere from 9.3 to 12.6 quarts of fluid for a full change. It bears noting that this is expensive coolant. Hyundai’s conventional coolant can be had for under $30 a gallon in single quantities, and dealerships are likely paying far less than that. In contrast, the special blue coolant sells for $60 and up in many cases. Over the border, it sells for $137.89 CAD at one online retailer, or roughly $102 USD. It bears noting that a full flush needs three or more likely four bottles, so you’re up for hundreds of dollars just to cover the coolant for the service.
The Coolant Flush Isn’t That Simple
Beyond that, changing the fluid is involved, too. As per Hyundai’s service instructions, getting to the drain plug involves removing the front bumper among other things. The coolant then has to be slowly added to the reservoir under the hood, before the electric water pump is activated via service tools to cycle fluid through the system. The initial activation turns the pump on for 30 minutes, as it can take quite some time to fill the battery and remove air from the system. Hyundai notes that several cycles may be required to fill the system completely. Reports from owners suggest they have been quoted 1.5 to 3 hours labor for the coolant replacement.
So, add up four bottles of coolant at $60 each, and three hours of labor at $130 each, and you’ve got $630. This is line-ball with reports from forums. One owner quotes $805 CAD in 2022, or roughly $600 USD, not counting 1.5 hours of labor, so figure it comes out somewhere between $700 and $800. Another owner quotes just $260, but the full procedure was not carried out, with the dealership instead just changing out one jug’s worth of coolant rather than fully replacing the fluid. Meanwhile, one Californian says he was quoted $849 by Norm Reeves Hyundai just last month, while Laguna Hyundai apparently quoted a similar full flush at just $289.
So, it seems there’s a great deal of variability. Varying costs clearly play a role—for the coolant, for labor rates, and the number of hours the shop is charging, which doesn’t always correlate with how long the job actually takes.
The $1,500 that the owner quoted, though, that got us on to this in the first place? That seems like a high figure. Perhaps calling it an “Ion Flush” is a strategy to help justify that figure. At this stage, the closest figure we’ve found to that is a Norwegian by the name of SpoonFC, who posted that the service cost the equivalent of $1350 USD back in 2022.
Update 02/07/2024: Hyundai responded to our queries regarding this story. The company noted that it estimates a typical cost of $720 for replacing the low-conductivity coolant in the Ioniq 5’s battery cooling loop. However, it notes that it’s not always straightforward, and that this is not an exact figure. “Hourly rates vary by dealership, and it may have taken the technician more than the recommended repair time to flush the coolant. This is where the price fluctuation could be coming from. Additional services may have been performed,” advised a Hyundai spokesperson.
As for the purpose of the coolant, the spokesperson explained that it was selected as an “extra level of protection and safety” for the high-voltage battery. As for the name of the service? “The term ‘Ion Flush’ is not a term associated with Hyundai Motor America. The shop manual calls it out as low conductivity and invertor coolant replacement,” said the spokesperson. Speculation suggests that this may have been service tech shorthand, writing “ION FLUSH” instead of something like “IONIQ 5 LOW-CONDUCTIVITY COOLANT FLUSH” which led to confusion.
Depending on your service situation, it could be a serious factor to consider before buying an Ioniq 5. This service is required every 3 years or 35,000 miles, and it’s not something you’d have to do if you bought a Kia EV6 instead. If you’ve got a dealership charging a few hundred bucks, it’s not so bad. If they’re charging $1,000, or $1,500? Or more? It’s really cutting into any savings you might have made by going with an EV. We’ve asked Hyundai itself for a representative price so owners can have a better idea of what the service should really set them back. However, the dealership model means that by and large, it’s out of the company’s hands.
In any case, there’s a few things to learn here. First up, using fancy confusing terms for regular service items doesn’t inspire trust. Indeed, the owner went straight to a Facebook group to see if he was being taken for a ride. Second, if a car has a weird point of difference that’s going to cost a customer money down the line, they’re hardly going to be jumping for joy when that comes up later on. As always, you’ve got to do your own research to get by, it seems.
Image credits: Hyundai, eBay
Came away disappointed. I read the headline as, “Electric Car Owner Pays $1,500 For Fake-Sounding ‘Ion Flush’ Sound. Here’s What That Is”
I wanted to know what the “Ion Flush Sound” sounded like. Bummer. I really want to know what an Ion Flush sounds like.
Holy PR fiasco! If corporate has any functioning brain cells, they will eat this cost, and make it 0$ to customers for the duration of the warranty period. It will be much less expensive/embarrassing than a class action if buyers were not informed at time of sale.
There was a quiet recall on H/K’s filled with BSC-1 from the factory. So some of us got ours as a freebie on the first one.
But yeah, I was never told about the battery coolant needing that regular of service. I was told that my first service other than checking brakes, tires, and cabin filter would be at 80k for the reduction gear oil change. This is going to blow up in someone’s face.
I’m pretty sure there’s no legal basis for a lawsuit because I’m pretty sure that there is no requirement for dealers to inform customers of all potential maintenance needs. I’m also really sure that there’s no basis for a lawsuit because this is written in the owners manual which the dealer supplies with each and every car sold.
Yeah, it’s maintenance, and it’s spelled out if you RTFM. This kind of sucks but neither the OEM or the dealer did anything shady by not calling it out when the car was sold.
It’s one of the reasons buying a first generation anything is a poor idea. Buy something after it’s been in the market for 3-4 years and you can read online if the real-life TCO and reliability are something you want to deal with.
Right? If you can’t google ‘Model xxx <year> common problems’, *you* will be the one discovering those common problems.
The coolant service on the 2nd gen volt runs about $1000 CDN as well. 3 loops, some specialized vacuum tools and a dealership quality scan tool are needed.
Every 5 years per the manual.
Where am I going to be able to get 00232-19111 in our Mad Max future? Will it be easier to get gasoline?
It’s ethyl glycol. In a mad max future, just toss whatever coolant you can find in there. If she burns she burns.
Do not, my friends, become addicted to coolant.
GUZZOLINE!
EMBITTERED
You’ll get a bottle full of sand, sucker!
If the service department is too lazy to type the entire name of the vehicle into their computer (IONiq), even if the missing two letters lead to predictable confusion, you should probably just go somewhere with more energetic and detail-oriented employees.
To an extent they care how much they’re paid to care. And they ain’t paid much.
The people writing up the services can do pretty damn well financially.
Even though that full labor rate isn’t passed on to the tech, I have to think they’re doing OK at a place that charges over $1000 for a coolant change.
“In any case, there’s a few things to learn here”
No, just one thing. EVs are more expensive, perhaps by design than you’d think.
“If you’ve got a dealership charging a few hundred bucks, it’s not so bad.”
Yes it is. There is no reason I see why this shouldn’t cost any more than an ICE coolant flush. There is also no reason this job couldn’t have been designed to be done at home by a noob. Shame on you Hyundai!
Is there no sensor to actually measure the conductivity of that coolant? Also no ion exchange filter? I’d have thought one of those could be put in to greatly extend the life of the coolant.
https://www.electronics-cooling.com/2015/12/tech-brief-low-electrical-conductivity-liquid-coolants-for-electronics-cooling/
This reads to me like another advertisement that Hyundai/Kia BEVs, while looking great at first, have some service/support issues and you’re still better off getting a Tesla.
Tesla is the last company to turn to if you want to avoid service and support issues.
Do tell
They are pretty well known for having long wait times, poor communication, and being very locked down so you don’t have other service options outside of Tesla.
Here’s Business Insider: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/tesla-lawsuit-alleges-long-waits-service-centers-high-repair-prices-2023-3%3famp
I was hoping for an actual owners testimonial, which I suppose you cannot give.
As far as being forced to get your car serviced by Tesla, I doubt you would be able to find a new EV on sale today that would not have it’s warranty voided if you took it to Jiffy Lube for a battery replacement.
Yeah I’m not touching them with a 100 foot pole.
Seems that way lol
I hate liquid coolant with a passion. Air cooled all the way.
Just think of all the joints in the coolant system where it can leak from even if all the hardware doesn’t fail.
So… by extension, you hate every new car being sold except the Nissan Leaf?
Yep for the US market at least, but even the Leaf has a liquid cooled motor and liquid cooled computer.
It’s more that I hate the leaf the least. I understand for ICE vehicles due to emissions regs and the high NOx emissions for air cooled engines, but there are plenty of modern BEVs that could be built with either passively but preferably actively air cooled battery packs.
Of course, you understand that due to its air-cooled battery, the Leaf has BY FAR the shortest battery lifespan of any modern EV. Seriously, batteries need liquid cooling for modern-car levels of performance.
This whole thing is a bad look for Hyundai, because they designed a car with a frequent service item and made it very hard to perform. Why didn’t they use the same approach as Kia?
Because of its PASSIVELY air cooled battery. Also in winter it’s one of the best performing EVs especially if you have to keep it outside.
Out of spec reviews did a test where he left it out overnight in below freezing temps with a low battery then went to charge it. It started taking a charge in minutes.
A Model 3 that underwent the same test took 45 minutes of preheating hooked up to a Tesla Supercharger before it started to take a charge.
The Leaf doesn’t have a massive amount of coolant to heat up in the winter to get the batteries to the optimal temp, unlike basically every other electric car. The summer is a different story however and hence is why I’m not advocating for passively cooled battery packs, I’m advocating for ACTIVELY air cooled battery packs for many (but not all) electric automobiles.
If the Leaf had NACS I’d buy the long range version tomorrow. In fact I’d buy 3 or more of them
I’ve thought way too hard about air cooled engines. The advantages seem so obvious: considerably less manufacturing cost, considerably simpler, considerably less maintenance, a bit less weight, a bit less parasitic drag because no water pump.
So if there’s so many advantages, why have there been no new air cooled designs in like literally 64 years, and none sold at all in almost 30 years(for US market at least)?
I thought maybe it was just not possible to build an air cooled engine that can cool enough for modern horsepower and weight. 400hp 911 Turbos and Tatra trucks disprove that. Lots of people say it’s emissions, which I really don’t buy.
I came to the conclusion that it’s because water cooling offers several less direct benefits. I think there’s a significant degree of noise and vibration reduction, and I think it’s considerably better at keeping the whole engine a consistent temperature. That in addition to the potentially better cooling and faster warmup(because you can’t put a thermostat on an air cooled engine). Actually that warmup time has a lot to do with emissions, so that makes sense.
From what I’ve read it’s NOx emissions, the same thing killing diesels. Funnily enough from what I’ve read naturally aspirated diesels are better on NOx due to the lower effective compression ratio which reduces the cylinder temps.
There are limits on cylinder displacement for traditional air cooled engines but there are ways around it.
I think that first it was tariffs that hurt the air cooled engine (Before the Chicken tax the VW Cargo Vans and Pickups were pretty successful in the US), then came MPG and emissions regs, the emissions being the ones that were very very hard for air cooled engine producers to make pass emissions.
Remember air cooled VWs were so successful it drove GM to make the Corvair, too bad they did a fairly bad job with the Corvair mechanically even though they look quite good.
You can put thermostats on air cooled engines, provided they have an oil cooler, and all air cooled car engines to my knowledge have oil coolers. It’s an oil thermostat instead of a coolant thermostat as air cooled automotive engines in reality are air and oil cooled.
Back when I was a pilot I was a big fan of aircraft engines without dedicated oil coolers, oil coolers can be pretty fragile just like radiators, and you don’t have to worry about wasps, bees, etc. making nests in your oil cooler when you don’t have one.
I think air cooled engines were killed off by regs before the tech could catch up. With electric fans becoming the standard you could improve warmup time drastically by not running the fans during warmup, 90’s era EFI would help quite a lot for warmup time, etc.
As far as BEVs are concerned their motors, computers, etc. hardly put out any waste heat. That’s a big issue in the winter when your car has been sitting out in the cold for a while and modern liquid cooled BEVs have a bad combination of a ton more coolant than an equivalent ICE vehicle while the efficient drivetrain hardly puts out any waste heat which is used for cabin heating.
The overwhelming majority of computers including servers use active air cooling for their components and drivetrain wise BEVs have a lot more in common with computers than ICE vehicles. I think a ton of automakers have forgotten about air cooling and only see things through the liquid cooling using anti-freeze based coolant. If you’ve watched any of Munro Live’s teardown videos of new BEVs and their coolant systems they are a massive mess except for Tesla and even Tesla has to have this “octovalve” system and such. Horribly complicated, pretty heavy, and tons of places for coolant to leak out of considering the whole underside of the car is a coolant reservoir, and then combine that with the generally low ground clearance of BEVs (for aerodynamics) and you’re in for a fun time.
For all the bad talking of the Nissan Leaf I’ve yet to find a single example of one experiencing a battery pack fire while all these liquid cooled ones have had several instances of battery pack fires. I don’t think it’s because liquid cooling is not good enough, but rather the automakers pick much less stable, more energy dense battery chemistries that NEED liquid cooling in order to maximize range and charging speeds, then when something goes wrong it leads to fires. The Leaf was designed from the beginning to be a simple, reliable, commuter car, and that’s what it is. I don’t need a performance car, and in general don’t want one. For equivalent HP and size the Leaf should be quicker to accelerate than an ICE equivalent I’d be interested in. The only reason now why I haven’t bought one is everything but NACS is going the way of the Dodo in the US and I’d want to drive my Leaf everywhere. If there are basically no public chargers I can use then I can’t practically drive my Leaf everywhere.
I’d prefer an actively air cooled drivetrain having BEV, but I’d settle for a Leaf with NACS, in fact I’d buy at least 3 Leafs (Leaves?).
Though if I could get them in the US I’d much rather have 3 eNV200 vans with NACS. They use the same drivetrain as the Leaf but they’re compact vans that would be awesome to turn into campers.
I don’t know that NOx emissions would be significantly different on air cooled vs water cooled, I believe nitrogen combustion is pretty proportional to combustion temperature which is pretty much the same as combustion pressure, which is why diesels and boosted engines would be worse.
I have heard people say that air cooled engines need to run a little richer to run cooler, thereby increasing hydrocarbon emissions, but I’m not buying that that’s necessarily the case.
90s EFI doesn’t seem to have saved air cooled engines, considering Porsche went water cooled in the 90s. Latin American market VW T2s also went water-cooled about then I think.
You’re right, water cooling for electric cars has a lot of issues and adds complexity, and that’s a good reason to have an air cooled Nissan Leaf. But the 60% battery degradation before 100k miles is bad enough that I’m willing to deal with quite a bit of complexity to avoid it. I don’t want a simple reliable commuter car that has 20 miles of range before it’s even that old.
That’s why the Leaf should have cooling fans.
Yeah but fans add complexity, air passages along the battery could take up quite a bit of volume, and it most likely still wouldn’t control temperature as finely as water cooling can.
I’m guessing there’s a reason why I have never heard of an electric car with an actively air cooled battery, and there aren’t many with a passively cooled battery either.
To add fans to the Leaf it wouldn’t take up much space at all and would drastically improve performance since it is normally passively cooled.
So why didn’t Nissan do it on either generation of Leaf? Did it take up too much space, draw too much power, add too much manufacturing cost, or fail too often for Nissan to include it?
My guess is they were selling Leafs (Leaves?) so why change it?
My idea for the fan for the Leaf would be intermittent like charging in hot weather, or the battery is getting too hot. If you’ve ever had a passively cooled laptop a little fan or two drastically improve its performance.
“…Yeah man, air-cooled all the way man…just think of all the joints…”
-Cheech & Chong, probably
If the EV6 uses normal cheaper coolant in its battery, could you replace the low conductivity fluid in the Ioniq 5 with that, or is the battery pack & coolant system design sufficiently different between the two to prevent the swap? Or, does it have some dumbass sensor that reports back to Hyundai corporate that remotely bricks the car if it detects you used a non-approved liquid?
I’m sure you could swap, and I’m sure it wouldn’t brick the car, but I’m also pretty sure that would void the warranty.
Anyone else getting TNG 6×28 “Baryon Sweep” vibes off this? Gotta remove those radioactive subatomic particles from your EV dontcha’ know.
Good point, did the service advisor look suspiciously like a non-vulcan Tuvok?
Just one more reason why I would only lease, and never buy, a new EV. I love EVs and I’ll never go back to owning gasoline powered vehicles (except perhaps as collectibles) but buying a new one is folly until the industry gets these kinds of issues ironed out. This particular situation is due to early development decisions made by Hyundai and is definitely an outlier and probably won’t be repeated, but it’s a good reminder that it’s early days yet for the EV industry.
It depends on the lease deal, how many thousands of extra dollars are you willing to spend to not own a car? If you can buy new for cheap money and trade it in 3 years when the tech improves, what’s difference? A you worried a 3 year old Ioniq 5 is going to be worth $0?
“It depends on the lease deal”
Well of course it does. But since you asked, here’s my answer.
I am paying $27,000 all-in for a 3 year lease on a 2023 dual-motor Polestar 2. If I had bought it for $56,000, and wanted to sell it after three years, would I be able to get $29,000 for it? Hell, I could barely get $35,000 for it right now and 2022 P2’s are selling for about $30,000. So no, I wouldn’t be able to get the residual back out of it if I were to sell it under even the best of circumstances.
Add to that the fact that by the time my lease is up, the majority of EVs sold in the US will probably have a NACS port (which I don’t), and with improvements to battery technology, my car will be woefully outdated in both range and charging speed. Will it be worth zero $? Well of course not, but it will be worth far, far less than I’d want to get back out of it.
Now, add to all that the Hyundai situation where you have weird and expensive maintenance that might be needed on the vehicle, or the possible need to replace a battery pack at some time in the future, and the situation’s even worse. Why would I want that kind of potential headache?
Given the circumstances, I’m extremely happy to be leasing for now, and there are even better-value leases currently available on BMW EVs (which I’m considering next) as well as other makes. Once the EV market has settled down and standardized a bit more, I may consider buying something for the long term, but for now I’ll keep playing the leasing game because IMHO it’s worth it to be able to drive a (currently) good quality EV.
Fair enough, the lease rates for the EVs I want are garbage so in my case the math is reversed.
Fords, perhaps? I looked at the Mach-E also and it’s almost like Ford doesn’t want people to lease them (LoL). IIRC, they had you paying 70% of the cost of the car over 3 years or something similarly awful. Between that and the fact that the Ford operating system is much, much worse than the Polestar Android Automotive system and it was a no-brainer for me.
Yep, I’m shopping the Lightning. Fingers crossed I’ll make a deal this week. The Polestar is awesome, there’s one in my neighborhood. I’m jealous. A small sedan doesn’t fit my needs, unfortunately, I wish I was 3 inches shorter and had an operational spine.
I wish you the best. I’ve got bad back issues also (2 totally ruptured lower-back discs, degenerating discs in the mid-back, etc.) but I’m only 6’ tall so I fit pretty nicely in the P2.
Sorry about the back, that sucks.
I’ve been smitten by Polestar since the very first one came out. They’re striking. How are they to drive?
My wife and I love it. If you’ve ever driven a modern (2010+) Volvo, it feels pretty much like that as far as safety and handling and wonderful, supportive Volvo seats. The amount of power available is ridiculously smile-inducing. Steering is a bit numb, like most modern cars, but it handles precisely enough for my tastes. All in all, it’s the best car I’ve ever had. In most areas, Polestar will bring one to your house for a test drive for the low, low price of free. I recommend doing that if you’re interested.
Wow that’s great to know, thank you.
What an odd design choice. Why do you need low electrical conductivity coolant when no one else does? I could maybe see that the conductivity of a coolant loop passing near circuitry could create some EM interference if the flow generated substantial charge with flow but.
Conspiracy theory Pat says Kia is throwing a bone to dealers to make sure that they get on board with the EV changeover. Feed the service department, keep the dealers happy.
“Conspiracy theory Pat says Kia is throwing a bone to dealers to make sure that they get on board with the EV changeover. Feed the service department, keep the dealers happy.”
The lack of a $ conductivity sensor to actively measure the coolant, the needlessly convoluted replacement procedure, the high markup of what probably cost less than store brand soda pop to make…
It all adds up to this.
Standard maintenance service items should not require the removal of the bumper cover. Tried to change the headlights in a second generation Prius years ago and broke the tiny plastic flange off the cover in the engine bay. Youtube videos showed the Toyota techs pulling the front bumper cover and removing the entire headlight assembly to replace the bulb. It’s insanity.
Been denied the pleasure of VAG servicing? Just about anything in engine bay, Step 1- remove front clip!
The last VAG product I owned was made in 1984 so I’d say yes.
I don’t think it’s the only one. The Volt requires a low-conductivity coolant and is pretty finicky about it (conductivity sensor that’ll trip), but it’s not anything special. Just premix Dexcool, though I’ve heard undiluted also works as long as you use deionized water with it.
There’s no excuse for the special elaborate flush process that requires partial disassembly, though.
Pure ethylene glycol is pretty expensive. Over the long term, it will start forming a skin jelly like substrate flowing through the system. Usually it takes multiple years (thinking 10 or so) for that to happen. In this case the system will need to be run with a detergent, then flushed multiple times with distilled water, and then pure ethylene glycol added to the system.
The coolant isn’t pure ethylene glycol though. The cost really goes down if you don’t need reagent or lab grade stuff. It also goes way down if you aren’t buying it 100 mil at a time.
I’ve never seen a trace of this skin you speak of in ICE engines. Is this actually a known problem in battery coolers or would the circulation pump constantly break up any such goo?
You usually see it in the storage tank for the system. However, during cleaning you’ll see much more that’s coated the system, you couldn’t see.
So is that a bad thing? What harm does it do?
It slows the pump’s flow down and starts clogging smaller cooling ports. Then heat rises, just way past car radiator/cooling system temps 🙂
So how about using propylene glycol (RV antifreeze) instead? It’s nearly as good as an antifreeze and as a bonus its non toxic.
It won’t work for what we used it for. Nowadays, we can use standard 50/50 antifreeze (like Peak)
Are you sure? Propylene glycol makes an excellent antifreeze. See pg 6:
https://www.dow.com/documents/180/180-01613-01-dispelling-the-myths-of-heat-transfer-fluids-presentation.pdf?iframe=true
The freezing point of a 50:50 mix of PG/water is about -33C vs about -37C for EG/water. Make it 55:45 or higher and that difference drops to about 2F.
note this chart goes by % by mass, not volume. The density of EG is 1.11 g/ml and PG is 1.04 g/ml so if you’re going by volume the difference is less.
For what we used 100% PG for, the freezing point is of no concern. It was the spec of the manufacture. Now they’ve which to standard everyday automotive antifreeze. Again, not do to freezing temps, but for cooling.
OK. I guess a flush once every decade or so ain’t such a terrible thing.
Do they have to remove the wiring harness and shake it to get out the dead electrons too ?
This should also be a maintenance requirement on old British cars.
They do that when they replace the smoke that came out
No, no, no. The sample has to stay IN! At least on my old TR8, things went bad when the smoke came out.
Pretty sure it’s a de facto requirement on old British cars.
I point out stuff like this when my wife is questioning my classic car parts budget. And my jalopies don’t have $500/month payments for 72 months.
Also shows why Hyundai and Kia dealers have such low customer satisfaction levels.
For real, they’re the absolute worst. I once had a Hyundai service manager call the police on me over a very minor disagreement over warranty coverage, which we both remained calm during the entire 5 min discussion. In a nutshell, they wanted me to sign something agreeing to pay for new a spark plug, the car had <5k miles and full warranty, I wasn’t signing anything.. they wouldn’t give me the keys to my car unless I signed. Huge headache. Police arrived, instructed them to give me keys, end scene. Warranty covered (1) new spark plug because: 1) bumper to bumper warranty 2) 100k mi power train warranty were active because I just bough the *new* car 3 months prior. My salesman was in disbelief, such an escalation for absolutely no reason. Cop said it was the 3rd time that week they were at the same dealer.
Sounds like a fun class action lawsuit in the making!
That would be the last time that particular service department ever saw my vehicle. Talk about penny wise, pound foolish.
The work performed was well under $100, and was indeed eventually covered under warranty. My car was stranded on highway 101 near Santa Barbara at 530am because a spark plug loosened. They covered towing, rental car, but took issue with the spark plug work for whatever reason. I had factory roadside coverage (something Hyundai used to include). I’d like to think they fired that clown, but I’ll never know because I never came back. Under different ownership completely these days.
Lube up the muffler bearings and change the blinker fluid while you’re at it. And don’t forget to change that kanutin valve!
Oh and don’t forget to inspect the sludge pump so it doesn’t get torqued out!
Also, never send a customer down the road with stale air in their tires.
$1500 is entirely too much for flushing a few ions, for that much they better be rerouting auxillary power through the secondary ODN conduits and replacing all six hydrocoptic marzlevanes to prevent side fumbling of the ambifacient lunar waneshaft!!!
Side fumbling was never an issue with the type of waneshaft they employ in the Ioniq 5. Replacing the marzlevanes is just something every quick-lube suggests, right after the EGR valve.
This is why, if I ever buy an electric car, I’m getting my own turbo-encabulator so I can save money in the long run and do it myself!
If they had just used self-sealing stem bolts this could all have been avoided.
Ooooo… I need to haul that crate of stem bolts out of the
basementcargo hold and call up Boeing to see if they might want to buy some!…Too soon? 😛
I’m sure Boeing will trade you a case of stem bolts for a picture behind Sisko’s desk and some yamok sauce.
And I’ve got some asparagus that might go well with the yamok sauce, so…
Meanwhile 99% of EVs require nothing but tire rotations and wiper replacements for the first 150k miles. I’ve owned EVs since 2012 and have done nothing beyond very basic wipers/tires in 12 years, no issues.
yeah, this is definitely a Hyundai/Kia thing. They also have “brake service” which can be a few hundred dollars where they take off the calipers and grease them. Why don’t other brands need this? Who knows, but it’s the little things like that that make me leery of owning another Hyundai/Kia
I’m never owning a Korean car again. I rolled the dice on an N and have been very satisfied with the car itself but the service/dealership experience has been very mediocre, I’ve barely missed several recalls, and I’ve literally incinerated a pile of money in depreciation.
My car was $36,000ish new in June of 2022. Even with my spotless service history it’s currently worth $23,000 as a trade in at 18 months of ownership and 12,000 miles. Fucking YIKES…if you don’t have a big downpayment you are going to be underwater on your Hyundai/Kia/Genesis at some point and good fucking luck reselling it down the road.
Thats a bummer, I owned new 3 Hyundais in the 2000-2010 and racked up 180k miles on each, all were sold with just basic maintenance (still had original clutches). 2010+ I read too much about shotty engines, never bough another.
The engine issues its what is going to kill them in this market. They’re doing everything in their power to get out of replacing the bad engines but they don’t realize that that’s a lost customer for life.
I laugh every time I read or hear “lost a customer for life”.
Simply put, they don’t care. There are now 8 billion of us on the planet. They only need to sell each of us 1 car in our life, ever. With this policy, they would never run out of customers to sell to in there life.
Did you listen when your Mother-in-law told you to NOT buy that Hyundai??? NOPE, no you didn’t. And so here we are.
I mean, that’s fair. People still buy Range Rovers so I guess it’s a moot point lol
Great example!!!!!
He referred to “this market”, which I assume is the US, and is about 332M, many of which cannot buy a Hyundai for whatever reasons (yes, that’s still a lot of people, though). Anyway, the argument for the Sasquatch’s point is the US market history that’s littered with the bones of companies who made garbage and treated customers like trash, be it that they no longer exist or they are no longer sold in the US. Hyundai isn’t selling bargain-basement Excels anymore (even if they’re acting like they are with the designed-in disposability and treatment of customers) and they don’t have the prestige to sell to people with 6 cars who don’t care if one is out of commission again because it looks cool when the trophy partner picks up the kids from private school or they bring it to the clubhouse. Of course, I can’t explain VW (Stelantis has had several bail outs and sales to big companies, plus they sell/sold some more desirable cars)—do they treat their customer well, maybe?
I totally agree. And, I was, and almost always am, being a bit sassy.
With that said, the US is even smaller still. I think I recall we have 300million cars in the US? Even less drivers. Probably around 50 million??? I’d still love to sell each and every one of those car drivers one stupid gimmicky car thing for $1 profit. Now imagine if that was more like $1000??? I’d argue the numbers still work in Hyundai’s favor.
The total market is somewhere between 15-18M cars, so that’s a good indicator of total available sales, though Hyundai/KIA don’t cover all price points or vehicle types, including one of the largest, that of the full size pickup. HK’s main problem is that even in their categories, they’re not the only player or one of two or three and they don’t really have anything all that special to stand out from the competitors with better reputations and likely better cars. When they were really cheap, sure, the savings and promise of the warranty (whether weaseled out of or not) were worth it, but they’re not that cheap compared to their competitors anymore and now they have higher insurance rates and much greater depreciation to work against. What I do think works in their favor, though, is that most of the companies have gone downhill in reliability, so the gulf between them isn’t as large as it should be and people who don’t mind being treated poorly at dealers probably aren’t up on their research.
Yeah, I’ve been absolutely disappointed by their customer service. Even at good dealerships, it’s Hyundai/Kia corporate that’s dropping the ball. I have almost 90k on a fully loaded 2020 Niro and my Android Auto has never worked.
Now that I’ve worked at a Subaru dealership, I honestly don’t know how Hyundai keeps getting away with how they treat customers. Subaru isn’t the best but at least they honor their warranties and work
My wife and I have owned 4 Subies now and are still impressed with most of their dealerships. Compared to Toyota/GM/Isuzu/Mitz dealerships I’ve dealt with in the past Subaru is in a class of its own in terms of service.
Well… both of the Subaru dealerships my Outback visits have informed me that I have a daytime running lamp out when I’ve had it in for some service or other. All lights magically work when I turn the car on in the pickup line 30 seconds later. Go figure.
I like Subaru, but it doesn’t mean that they’re 100% immune from shennanigans.
I was shopping for a Hyundai Elantra Touring (the i30 Wagon), and the ones I found that were in decent condition were all rather expensive. The problem was that most of them didn’t look to have been maintained at all, and even on the good ones the interiors looked and felt very tired. Little things like half of the chrome having rubbed off everywhere, just generally shabby feeling.
Not sure if this is due to how they’re made, how people treat them, or because of crappy dealers, but I might get an older Prius instead.
Tbf buying new AND trading in are the two best ways to burn a big pile of dough.
On one hand, they’re correct that all brakes should be greased periodically, but its a cheap/easy DIY thing and shouldn’t cost more than $50 at a brake shop. In reality, this is a once every 5 year thing, and mostly if you live in the rust belt. EVs use regen for 90% of braking, and its common for pads to outlast the cars, but they do rust. Dealer inspected them for free and said they were fine, but I greased mine (at home) at 100k miles and 8-10 years to sleep better at night.
My Subarus and Hondas have this as an annual service, in the service manual at least, where they check and relube the slider pins and pad sliders. I don’t think i heard of any dealer doing this service anyway.
Occasional brake service is a good idea on EVs and ICE alike. In both cases, it will prevent premature lining failure due to seized parts, thus extending the life of the brakes and ultimately saving you money.
Axles that see light braking duty can be more prone to parts seizure, and EV brakes see lighter duty than their ICE counterparts.
I fully agree with your sentiment thoigh, that Hyundai service departments have a well deserved poor reputation. That plus their dealer reputation also scares me off of doing business with them.
Apologies if I was unclear, Hyundai/Kia wants this service on ALL cars that they make every 20k miles. The service actually does make sense on the electrified offerings but they somewhat fell into that circumstance lol
I feel like its a similar service interval on my Toyota. 20k miles sounds fairly reasonable.
The good news is that at least in theory, properly serviced EV brakes should last many times longer than their ICE counterpart.
1). I’ve been told repeatedly by stans that EVs are way more reliable, require less maintenance, and will have much lower ownership costs. A lot of the data from early adopters that’s coming in seems to suggest that that isn’t always the case.
2). Leave it to Hyundai dealerships to pull these shenanigans. Everyone talks about the gubment needing to regulate all the sales price gouging but IMHO service departments making shit up to charge an arm and a leg is as widespread of a problem, if not more.
Whenever my wife has to get her Honda serviced I always have to call in and go over all the shit they try to tell her needs to be done and compare it to the actual factory service instructions and what we’ve already had done. Every single time the techs try to tell her she needs some $500+ plus service.
The most recent, most egregious one was them telling her she needed to have her transmission fluid changed 5,000 miles after they’d already done it. Factory intervals are every 60k on her car. Like…what? What kind of fool do you take us for? She likes the routine of taking it to the local Honda dealership but we’re probably going to switch to an indie shop because they’re fucking cretins.
So far the Hyundai dealership I get the N serviced at has been sort of okay but they definitely didn’t rotate the tires one of the times they said they did (I’d just gotten new tires 1,000 miles earlier, so it wasn’t a big deal, but still. Don’t put it on the damn CarFax if you didn’t do it). I also get out ahead of their shit and schedule all the individual services myself so they don’t usually try to sneak any shit on me.
Although they did try to tell me to wait on my oil change last weekend against factory recommendations…which is dumb, and especially dumb for a super high stress engine like mine. You know…honestly I can just say fuck dealerships forever and always and call it a day at this stage of my ramblings…
I think Hyundai is an outlier here, my maintenance cost over 12 years is literally just wipers.
I saw your comment as soon as I posted mine…although the data from Consumer Reports has shown that EVs are having way more issues than their ICE counterparts. I’m sure things will even out once the technology is better sorted, but there have been a lot of problems so far.
I’ll have to look at the data, from years of lingering in EV forums I’d disagree strongly, but of course that’s slightly anecdotal. From vague memory I recall reading something that says repairs are more likely to leave the car stranded and severely expensive, but its far less likely to happen vs ICE. Shoot me a link if you have one.
Are the “issues” were broken out by infotainment things vs everything else? Since the dawn of the screen age all the satisfaction rankings seem skewed by the software quality.
ICE dealeships are horrible with women too. When my wife took her vehicle to the Dodge dealer we purchased it from, they were constantly trying to sell her engine and transmission flushes (when they were already changing the engine oil) plus all kinds of additives. I finally went in and told the service adviser to put a note in our file to never ever upsell my wife on any of these things again, showing her the owner’s manual that explicitly says Dodge does not recommend any additives. I said if it ever happened again I would contact corporate and report them. They never tried it again.
There is a special circle in hell for assholes that try to upsell people whom may be otherwise intelligent on things they don’t know ow about, Especially when the upseller Know Damn well what they are suggesting is 100% bullshit.
I 100% agree this is intentionally misleading a client who’s coming to your shop Because they trust your expertise and judgement.
As my father would say “any time you are intentionally misleading… you are lying”; if such activity isn’t already illegal, it should be
I can only speak from my own experience, but my 2014 Volt had no issues from year 3 (when I bought it) to year 8 (when I sold), other than a broken window regulator that was fixed under warranty. Maintenance costs were a set of tires, coolant flush (about $500 for the 3 loops), and an oil change every 2 years (which I did myself). Brakes were still over 50% on the pads at 80,000 miles. My used 330e hasn’t had any issues yet in the 8 months I’ve had it, except that I had to put new tires on it already at only 18,500 miles. The backs were at 2/32 and 3/32. The fronts were at 5/32, but one had a sidewall bulge. I did not put the same crappy OEM run-flats back on, and I swapped to some standard Michelins with an actual tread warranty and stuff. My other recent ICE cars have been pretty trouble free too though, other than my RAM truck which has had it’s share of recalls and issues.
To your point, I think in general, the maintenance on a BEV is probably less frequent than an ICE (less trips to the dealer), but the maintenance costs of a BEV are probably similar to an ICE, especially if you can do stuff like oil changes yourself.
> fuck dealerships forever and always
Wise words to live by
Dealers gonna dealer.
Jiffy Lube is adapting to the EV era 😛
Now that the ions and flux capacitor are rinsed clean, does this mean it’s now safe to get it up to 88mph?
Sorry, It’s only time travel capable. Gotta read the fine print. You can take it up to 88mph but you have to keep you hands on the wheel and remain fully aware of your current time continuum. Full Time Travel will be available next year as a $35,000 OTA update. You just bought the hardware, in advance, that may or may not allow Full Time Travel.
BTW there is a great Bill and Ted easter egg. If you go to the menu where you would normally adjust the direction of the air vents and press and long hold Max Defog if will say “party on Dudes” every time you try to use the brake pedal.
In case you can’t find the air vent controls it’s mainmenu>settings>controls>userexperience>hvac>cooling>user>vents>controls>adjustments>ventdirection
The TimeTravel (TM) feature is available through subscription only, and it automatically expires every time you use it, which might leave you stranded sometime.
Is IOn Flush related to AEon Flux?
$1500 seems really high. When I had my first gen Volt, the coolant flush was around $500 and was an every 5 year thing. Similar set-up with 3 coolant loops and the procedure took a few hours and wasn’t DIY friendly. But $1500 every 30,000 miles is much more of a wallet flush than a coolant flush.