Greetings, and thanks for having me!

I'm trying to help my Mom out with her 1996 Hyundai Accent. She's been having serious issues with it not starting. A mechanic who is local to her replaced the solenoid and proclaimed it fixed. It ran four days, then hasn't started since. Since Mom's eyes were going bad (cataracts) at the time as well, the car has sat for a few months.

Now, though, she is getting her eyes repaired. One cataract has already been removed, the other will be done in a few weeks. We're trying to get her car up and running because dear lord does the woman need her independence!, but the budget for doing so is quite tiny. Throwing incorrect parts at it is not an option.

We're thinking starter, but I've read a couple of threads the search I did on the forum recommended I read, and I've seen that the crankshaft position sensor has a tendency to die on these cars, and seems to mimic dead starters. Rodney, my mechanic, will read codes as soon as he gets the car on Wednesday night, and we'll have a clearer picture then.

In the meantime, I was trying to research parts and prices on the sensor and starter so we can have an idea what Mom will likely have to spend for parts. I'm paying for towing and labor, but Mom will have to buy the parts. Living on that tiny fixed income, it has taken her months to save up $200, so I need to get this right the first time.

For my own car, a 2003 Sable, I was able to find places to tell me what information my VIN holds. The enthusiast forum I found was monumentally helpful to me in finding links and good places to buy parts, and a whole slew of other info. In fact, if I hadn't found the site and read myself silly, I would likely have toasted my engine the first month I had the car, because the camshaft synchronizer was going bad. If I hadn't had the heads up the forum provided, I would not have known what that chirping was until the motor had been starved of oil and had become a giant doorstop. That's why I'm here, at an enthusiast forum. It's my hope that this forum will be as much help with Mom's Accent as the other forum was for my Sable.

Right now I'm looking for a good VIN decoder to tell me about Mom's motor and such, among other things. (My VIN tells me that I have a 3.0 single OHV Vulcan engine, and the tranny is a AX4N, and so forth. This info has been invaluable to me in learning my car, diagnosing issues, and getting the right parts.) I'm having trouble finding a place to do the same with Mom's VIN. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Also, when shopping parts, I have no idea who makes original Hyundai parts. I need to know this, as most of the time it is best to use OEM and not aftermarket stuff that sometimes doesn't work out or last very long.



Any help doing a crash course on this Accent will be immensely appreciated. Thank you so much!

Gypsy

 

Most, if not all, of the information you are looking for can be found at:

http://www.hmaservice.com/

which is the Hyundai tech service site. The site is free and available for public use, but you do have to register. Site requires IE6+, will not work properly with Firefox or other browsers. Also requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, Flash and SVG Viewer. The SVG Viewer is no longer supported by Adobe, but can be downloaded here:

http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/

VIN information is usually found under the "General" information catagory under the "Shop" menu option.

Yes, crankshaft position sensors do out on these engines, but a bad CKPS doesn't mimic a bad starter. The starter will run, engage and simply crank the motor over until the battery is dead. The CKPS can simply go dead, but more often they have a lingering death. Work fine when the motor is cold, but fail once warmed up to operating temperature for a short period. The sensor will do this repeatedly until it finally goes out competely. Given what you describe and the solonoid replacement, I'd start by having the condition of the battery checked and strongly suggest you inspect, perhaps replace the battery cables. Bad cables and battery connections are often over looked. That is especially true for the ground cable that folks think is there for decoration.

 

I lied, there is no "General" information section listed for the early X3 Accent models. Such is often the case for older models that predate the development of the website. There is a VIN decoder for U.S. Hyundai models under the TSB section that should cover these years. Go to:

http://www.hmaservice.com/files/331/...-GI-002pdf.pdf

There is still a gob of technical info available for your mom's Accent on the site.

 

Thank you, Ken99! Following link, as well as sending it to Mom now.

Honestly, her car has been down for months, and so my memory of *exactly* what happened has gotten extremely fuzzy. I'll have to ask her to detail it so I can type it up and refer to it, as well as give it to the mechanic.

Sorry I didn't get back here last night. I pull 12 hour shifts on my main job on weekends, and by the time I got home I was loathe to boot a computer. (I sit at one all day). I'll probably get more research done tonight and tomorrow night, since they're only 8 hour days.

Glad you mentioned the site doesn't work with Firefox. I'll copy and paste the link into IE. And now I'm off to the VIN decoder...

Gypsy