2002 Hyundai Sante Fe Transmission

Vehicle was having hard time shifting, took it the dealer and said transmission was bad. 2002 105,000 miles, garage kept.
Dealer had vehicle for 3 months finding right used transmission and replaced both CV boots
Test drove and check engine light came on - dealer forgot to plug in O2 sensor
2 days, batter dies (4 year old battery, it’s understandable. - dealer forgot to secure battery,
New battery and vehicle started to rev high again and lost brakes, had to use emergency breaks to stop.
Towed car to dealership and dealer said it was a bad cruise control cable - car lost cruise control 3 years ago
Dealer removed cable
Next day vehicle ideals at 6K rpm in park
Dealer said bad o2 flow sensor - replaced it - Car running okay
2 weeks later, Ball joint comes off
Dealer states non of this is related, hard to make assumptions but if the mechanic is not detailed enough to plug in a co2 sensor and mount a battery, I struggle with doing a good job replacing a transmission.
Are thoughts or suggestions I can go back to dealer with? I think this is there mistake.

You want Legal Talk not Car Talk.Your dealer is incompetent. Find a good independent shop. This car is too old for a dealer.

Ball joint is not related to the transmission… it is 22 years old with 100K miles. Things will break. And things will keep breaking on a car this old. And parts will get harder and harder to find.

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A Hyundai new car dealer installed a used transmission in a 2002 model anything???

This sounds a lot like a used car dealer maybe even a tote the note lot doing the work… I know mechanics are getting hard to find, but not that hard…

In order to remove the (FWD) transmission and or axles, you typically either seperate the lower ball joint stud from the steering knuckle (in your case) or the lower strut mount bolts from the steering knuckle, if separating the ball joint (my preferred method) from the knuckle, then you can stress the lower ball joint ball and socket a bit, but if the lower ball joint separates from itself shortly after, then it was not long for this world anyway… meaning it was going to break in a short mater of time anyway… so should they have caught a worn out probably loose bad ball joint, probably, was it their fault, probably not…

My thoughts, find another shop with good word of mouth and or reviews to work on your vehicles from now on…

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We actually tried legal, can’t prove liability and too low of a payout. My wife always felt better going to the dealer, thought better care… It’s (was) a great car, I have 04 suburban with 250K miles and only replaced water pump, U joint and AC. Runs great!

Thank you for the feedback!

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Thank you for the detailed info. We think it was a faulty O2 flow sensor to begin with and nothing wrong with the transmission because of Hyundai’s 100K/10yr transmission warranty, hard to know or prove. It’s painful to hear, but agree and much appreciate the feedback from this group.
It may sound strange, but it is hard for wife to see something she babied for 22 years, spend $6000 and crumble so quickly. Felt taken advantage of.
Thank you!

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Wondering if they had to disassemble part of the front suspension system system to replace the transmission? Usually that wouldn’t be necessary, but it depends on the car’s configuration.

One of the primary steps in the procedure is to remove the drive axles, how would you do that without disconnecting some part of the front suspension?

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YES George, they had to disassemble part of the front suspension as I had already explained…

Instead of speed posting and skipping over post, you might try reading them every now and then… I think I explained it pretty well to the OP… And you might LEARN something…

How many times have you removed your Corolla axles without disassembling part of the front end???

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