BHPian Sangwan recently shared this with other enthusiasts: Wow, a year has passed since I last updated this thread. So, both the Santa Fes “were” doing great but then again old age showed its ugly head and I have been spending money which could have been used elsewhere. At the moment, both of them have been fixed but I would need to top-up the coolant in the Blue one. Let’s look at them one by one. Blue: So, the Blue is at 207239 Kms or more (depending on when this post will come out) and it’s been expensive. In the last post, I already had the brake pads replaced and thought its all going to fine now and it did for a while, but then in the middle of August, my wife, kid and I were at a furniture shop to grab a queen sized bed for one of the bedroom in our apartment and the seats were folded, and for some reason I ducked and saw underneath the car, to my horror, the right rear tyre was wearing out and it was a surprise because I had rotated the tires on time, did the alignment, the car was not being used roughly and was only used on city roads. Although, it was used on multiple single day road trips but those were on highways and good roads, so it didn’t make sense and so naturally I went to a local Tire shop and got the wheel alignment done again. $168 or INR 10,080 for wheel alignment! The technician told me that he has torqued everything to maximum setting but that’s not enough and parts need to be changed to get it sorted, the tyre will wear but slowly now. So, this $168 was a waste. In Canada, the car parts are expensive, I use RockAuto to order parts and the parts costed CA$ 400 almost to get. I got the following parts in the first round: 1. Rear Left Lower control arm. 2. Rear Right Lower control arm. 3. 2 Rear lower forward control arm. After getting these fixed, again the alignment was done but there was no success. Turns out another part needed to be changed. The part is called Lateral Arm or Lower Control Arm and I ordered 2 of those. Another $285 hit to the pocket (Ouch). Finally, I got it fixed. The alignment done again and so it is all sorted for now. I was checking the engine bay and found out that the coolant is at low level. Will top it up. Hope these are parts are sufficient and no new issue crops up. I bought the car when it was at 168,000 Kms and now its on 207,XXX KMs, so 39K KMs are done, and these are 2019 tires. I will have them changed soon in a year or two. Black: The black one was also not doing so great. In the last post, I mentioned about the wiper hitting the windshield, the crack now really long, but its not hindering my view in anyway and I will leave it as it is for now. When the car is stationary or between 1-30 Kmph the steering would make this creaking noise, as if its straight from a horror movie where a door is opening slowly and no matter what the country is, but when you’re at a mechanic’s shop the sound goes away, and it happened with me too. But as I was reversing my way out, the sound came back, and the mechanic checked for long and in the end said I will need to replace the front control arms. I am not sure if he was able to dissect the problem but that’s what happened. The control arm was replaced in the first round of parts with Blue and the sound has gone. It has been more than 20K on the new tires and I got them rotated. I got the alignment and oil change done. Hopefully no return to mechanic until the next oil change. The road ahead: Both the cars’ parts and the labor costed me a whooping $1700 approximately. And I really hope no new issues crop up soon. Things are changing in personal life. My wife got a work from home position, and I am going to Surrey Downtown everyday with my current job, there is going to be a new metro line from Langley (where I live) to Surrey (where I work) so a lot of construction is going on and so I am using public transport to go to work. The parking cost is insane at my workplace, its CA$ 250 or INR 15000. I am planning to use my Motorcycle once the spring arrives. At present, both my cars are listed on Autotrader and FB Marketplace. As I live in an apartment, I have only one parking spot and one visitor pass, so I am rotating these two cars on weekly basis, and keeping them running which means I am paying for insurance too when I am not using the cars much. I am not in the mood to put one in hibernation as that will only lead to more issues when I will start using it again, so better to keep them both running. I went to a couple of dealerships and found out that these are old and have more thank 200k KMs on them so they will go on wholesale price from the dealers for $4500 (for both combined) which is not an option for me, so it might takes weeks/months before I get rid of these and just keep one car and one motorcycle for now. Leaving you with few pics. These have become a common things in the morning but better than the freezing cold in other parts of Canada : Random pics taken during the year: Blue on its first drive to Washington, USA: Blue after a much needed thorough wash: Thank you so much for reading. Cheers, Sangwan Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
