I have contacted two dealerships and asked them if the 4 cylinder in my car needed to have the timing belt replaced periodically. One said yes and the other said no. So I called customer service and they said that they would look into it (another way of saying “I don’t know.”) and get back to me. There is nothing in the owner’s manual that I can see that says anything about the timing belt. This has been a great car and I would like to keep it that way. It would be a shame to have the belt snap, destroy the engine and then have Hyundai deny the warranty repair because I didn’t change the belt. Does anyone out there know?
If it is an “interference” engine, the safest bet is every 60K.
As far as I know the grand guru of complete timing belt knowledge is the Gates Corporation and their “Timing belt Replacement Guide”:
http://www.gates.com/brochure.cfm?brochure=2256&location_id=3487&go=TBHome
You can also verify at that site whether you do have an interference engine.
Any “official” intervals can be tricky though as some states apparently have laws about how soon a new car should need “major service” (timing belt counts). Often the “how soon” is legally defined as 100K or so. So a lot of mechanics will tell you 60-80K while a lot of manuals will tell you 105K.
Your Hyundai has a newer version of the 2.4L engine, that comes with a chain rather then a belt. Timing chains do not require replacement as preventative maintenance.
The www.gates.com site does NOT list a timing belt for your car. Therefore, it has a timing chain. http://www.gates.com/part_locator/index.cfm?location_id=3598 see?