- A Hyundai owner from Florida had to wait 9 months for her hybrid sedan to be fixed.
- Her 2015 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid required a battery replacement, which is notoriously hard to source due to supply issues.
- Hyundai provided their customer with a loaner car and offered to repurchase her vehicle, to which she declined.
Hybrids are becoming more and more popular these days, but it seems that not all issues with their maintenance have been streamlined. A woman from Florida had to wait more than nine months to find a replacement battery for her 2015 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid.
The problems for Kari Kind from Osceola County, started when the battery of her Hyundai went off unexpectedly. Speaking to News 6 she said: “It sounded like a pinball machine going off. It was banging and lights were going off”.
More: Is It Worth Replacing The Battery In An Older Hybrid Like The Toyota Camry?
When she took her 2015 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid to the dealership, they informed her that batteries for this model were notoriously hard to get due to supply issues. The initial estimate from the service department was a waiting period between one and six months, but things ended up being a lot worse than that.
Kind finally got her car back in July 2024, a full nine months after she dropped it at the dealership on October 2023. According to Hyundai, they provided their customer with a loaner car. They also offered to repurchase Kind’s vehicle “at the current Kelly Blue Book (KBB) price”, to which she declined.
News 6 reporters contacted Hyundai about the matter, and received the following response from Ira Gabriel, Senior Group Manager, Corporate and Marketing PR:
“Due to delay in getting raw materials from the supplier, we are experiencing a small number of back orders on certain battery components that impact the 2011-2015 Sonata Hybrids. We are aware of the concern and have significantly increased our ordering above demand to drive a sufficient parts supply. Hyundai is working directly with the impacted suppliers to facilitate the necessary flow of parts.”
