Lexicon amplifier replaced - cannot activate/transfer XM??

[sarge]

Unbelievable.
So, opening a case with Consumer Affairs didn't do much for you, huh?
I get the feeling that it's going to be the exact same case for me as well.
I haven't heard back from the 'appropriate personnel' since last Wednesday.
I even called them this Tuesday, only to hear that there's no update.

What do we do in this kind of f-cked up situation?
Should I look for an attorney?

Dan

It is possible that my situation is unique. My former boss decided on a Genesis after riding in/driving mine. His TPMS light began comming on anytime his headlights and wipers were on at the same time. After three attempts to repair, HMC bought his car back from him. No problems, no issues. So - he had a bad light on the dash, new car. I have no radio/nav/etc for 8 months, I get nothing.


Consider carefully before getting an attorney. In North Carolina (and almost certainly in your state as well), a new car buyer agrees to binding arbitration as part of the purchase agreement. Take a look at your owners manual warranty addendum - look up your state. I suspect you'll find that you can't actually sue Hyundai. In that case, the only value in having an attorney ( I have one) is that they have a working relationship with the manufacturers Customer Service/Warranty folks. My attorney has so far refused to file suit, in spite of the ridiculously long delay. She gets a third of any cash settlement - and has encouraged me to accept a settlement that equals less than 2 car payments. If it all goes to court, she does considerably more work for commensurately less compensation.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd have followed the stipulations of the warranty agreement to the letter - three attempts to fix, then a "final effort" registered letter to Hyundai, then binding arbitration. It's a risk - you may get stuck with no relief except continued efforts at repair, or you may get a buy-back immediately.

In the begining of the process, before it became evident that Hyundai just wanted me to go away, I simply wanted my car repaired. The Genesis is a fine car, considering cost/feature balance.

 

[nearwater]

It is possible that my situation is unique. My former boss decided on a Genesis after riding in/driving mine. His TPMS light began comming on anytime his headlights and wipers were on at the same time. After three attempts to repair, HMC bought his car back from him. No problems, no issues. So - he had a bad light on the dash, new car. I have no radio/nav/etc for 8 months, I get nothing.


Consider carefully before getting an attorney. In North Carolina (and almost certainly in your state as well), a new car buyer agrees to binding arbitration as part of the purchase agreement. Take a look at your owners manual warranty addendum - look up your state. I suspect you'll find that you can't actually sue Hyundai. In that case, the only value in having an attorney ( I have one) is that they have a working relationship with the manufacturers Customer Service/Warranty folks. My attorney has so far refused to file suit, in spite of the ridiculously long delay. She gets a third of any cash settlement - and has encouraged me to accept a settlement that equals less than 2 car payments. If it all goes to court, she does considerably more work for commensurately less compensation.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd have followed the stipulations of the warranty agreement to the letter - three attempts to fix, then a "final effort" registered letter to Hyundai, then binding arbitration. It's a risk - you may get stuck with no relief except continued efforts at repair, or you may get a buy-back immediately.

In the begining of the process, before it became evident that Hyundai just wanted me to go away, I simply wanted my car repaired. The Genesis is a fine car, considering cost/feature balance.

I understand how TPMS can be a bigger problem, since federal law requires it to be a mandatory safety system on vehicles produced after 2008.
But even when it's a non-safety related issue like ours, are we supposed to just suck it up when the manufacturer can't fix it???
Where the hell is customer rights to demand a fully functional product that we paid $40k for??

This is just ridiculous.

 

[sarge]

I understand how TPMS can be a bigger problem, since federal law requires it to be a mandatory safety system on vehicles produced after 2008.
But even when it's a non-safety related issue like ours, are we supposed to just suck it up when the manufacturer can't fix it???
Where the hell is customer rights to demand a fully functional product that we paid $40k for??

This is just ridiculous.

This car has been the single bigest product disapointment of my consumer career. Unfortunately, I am one buyer. Hyundai only cares about my satisfaction to the extent that I can bring some pressure to bear on them.

If I had it all to do again, I'd go straight to arbitration. If I had some presure to bring to the table, I'd have a refund by now. As it is, I'm stuck in a $40K vehicle that has intermitent problems with the DIS. It is annoying, no doubt. As soon as I reach a settlement with HMC, I'll trade the car and chalk it all up to experience. It's an expensive lesson - I put about half down on the car, and will lose a substantial chunk of that equity on trade.

If I win the lottery (hard to do, since I don't play), I'll start an aggressive advertising campaign to hit my Hyundai dealership in the wallet!

 

[nearwater]

UPDATE

HMA and their field engineer along with my dealership FINALLY fixed the XM problem.
Apparently, it was the amplifier.
They installed 4 different amplifiers(all refurbished) in my car and non of them worked.
They replaced the HU off of a car they had in stock(which of course had the XM working), and still no XM.
Now they replaced the amplifier from that vehicle, and it worked!
So Hyundai overnighted a 'pre-programmed ampfliier' to the dealership and the XM started working but not the NavTraffic.
They also had to reprogram the whole DIS system through a 'third party company' which I assume is Map n' Soft, for $150.
The service manager paid out of his own pocket and Hyundai is going to reimburse him.
All I can say is, great customer service from my dealer, and HORRIBLE customer support from Hyundai. Shame on them.

I had to file an official BBB complaint in order to make Hyundai move their lazy a$$.
I'm very happy to have my Genesis back again. Hopefully this issue is fixed for good, as I cannot take another problem like this any more.

Dan

 

[kayroe]

Does anyone happen to know how much a replacement Lexicon amp costs? I'm considering extending the warranty because after 36 months the coverage runs out on some items on the car.

 

[nearwater]

Does anyone happen to know how much a replacement Lexicon amp costs? I'm considering extending the warranty because after 36 months the coverage runs out on some items on the car.

Yeah, the warranty on the Lexicon system/DIS system expires after 36 months.
I think I read somewhere that an amp costs $3300 to replace.
I should've asked my dealer when they were working on it.

Dan

 

[sarge]

Does anyone happen to know how much a replacement Lexicon amp costs? I'm considering extending the warranty because after 36 months the coverage runs out on some items on the car.

My dealer charged Hyundai about $2100 for each of the four amps it replaced in my car. The Head Unit was more than $4000.

 

[ASHDUMP]

If the amp or the head unit goes after my warrenty I'll be driving around with earbuds in...

 

[gregmg]

I recently experienced the same exact problem as described at the top of this thread. Due to occasional audio problems the service manager changed out the amplifier, but after that I wasn't able to resync with XM. I tried sending the XM refresh signal dozens of times, but it never worked.

Initially the service manager directed me to XM's help line, but that didn't accomplish anything, so I did a little investigating online and stumbled into this thread. I forwarded a link to this thread to the service manager, told him that I wasn't having any luck with the folks at XM, and he went to bat for me with his management. They insisted that the amplifier could not possibly impact the ability of XM to resync, but agreed to install a new amp.

I just got the new (2nd) amp installed today, and the XM radio validated the refresh code beamed through the satellite on the first try.

It's interesting to note that the XM radio ID changes each time the amp is changed. I'd really like to understand what's happening on these systems when XM tries to validate the refresh code.

Anyway, thanks much to the earlier posters for sharing their experiences and knowledge. This kept my aggravation with XM and Hyundai to a minimum.

Greg G.

 

[gregmg]

Had another conversation today with the service manager and he mentioned that the first new amp that they put in was actually a reman unit. It seems then that reman units are associated with this peculiar problem. I would suggest then that one of the two following issues is the root cause:

• The reman units are not being put through the same test and configuration process as the new units, leaving them improperly configured for XM compatibility.
• The XM radio ID (which comes from the amp) associated with the reman units have previously been registered with another customer and due to some sort of theft prevention policy in the XM system, these units can no longer be properly registered.

Anyway, those are my theories.

Greg G.

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[DesMarteau]

I got my amp replaced twice...XM and Navtraffic all worked with a lot of dealer time. Now Navtraffic is off. For some reason it no longer works with the 2009 Genesis. It only lists the 2010 as the proper hardware. Stupid. I've spent hours on the phone with XM...all wasted time.

 

[dpsunshine]

I too have been having a lot of problems with the Hyundai dealer/XM in regards to my NavTraffic not working. I was experiencing some intermittent audio problems and mentioned it to Hyundai service. They offered to replace my radio. I am not sure of the exact part that was replaced, but they put in a refurbished radio. Ever since then, the NavTraffic function has not worked (I have a 2009 Genesis). They have replaced the radio two more times with refurbished radios and none of them have working NavTraffic. XM has also been involved and have said that they believe it to be a hardware issue. I am now trying to get the dealership to replace the radio with a new radio instead of a refurbished one, in the hopes that this will fix the problem, but am having a difficult time convincing them to buy a new one. The XM radio works perfectly fine - it is only the NavTraffic that I am missing (which is a sorely missed function here in ATL).

For those of you who had the NavTraffic issue, did you ever get it fixed? If so, how?

 

[dpsunshine]

A quick update to my post just a couple of days ago. I heard from the dealership and they think they have figured out what is causing the NavTraffic to not work. Apparently, it has to do with the fact that my Genesis is an '09 and the NavTraffic function will not work in the refurbished radios when placed in an '09. They have ordered a brand new radio and will be putting it into my car next week. They said that Lexicon is working on a software patch to fix the issue in the future, but at this time the only thing that will work is a brand new radio. I will update as to whether or not this "fix" works so that anyone else having this problem in the future won't go through months of hassle like I did.

 

[dpsunshine]

A quick update to my post just a couple of days ago. I heard from the dealership and they think they have figured out what is causing the NavTraffic to not work. Apparently, it has to do with the fact that my Genesis is an '09 and the NavTraffic function will not work in the refurbished radios when placed in an '09. They have ordered a brand new radio and will be putting it into my car next week. They said that Lexicon is working on a software patch to fix the issue in the future, but at this time the only thing that will work is a brand new radio. I will update as to whether or not this "fix" works so that anyone else having this problem in the future won't go through months of hassle like I did.

Final update. The NavTraffic problem is fixed! They had to replace both the radio and the amp with brand new ones - not refurbished. The refurbished equipment will not work in the 2009 Genesis. I was lucky that it was still under warranty!