NHTSA Complaint #11607876 — 2013 HYUNDAI SANTA FE

My wife was driving the vehicle and it was operating perfectly fine. As she was making a turn and accelerating the check engine light and other lights turned on. She started to experience loss of acceleration and was fortunate to get out of traffic where she turned off the vehicle. She let it sit for a little bit and then attempted to start it. It would not start so I came to try to help and when I attempted to start it, the engine would not turn over. We had it towed to our mechanic and he indicated that the engine was seized up. This vehicle is always serviced and babied by my wife. As I mentioned there was no warning, I.e. no rough idle, no loud noises, no leaking fluids,etc.. Prior to the catastrophic failure it was a very smooth and great driving vehicle. After searching this issue it appears that the 3.3 liter V6 that was in our vehicle has several recalls and accounts of similar failures. Had this happened on the highway it could have caused a serious accident. Given the number of complaints online and allegations, it is reasonable to assume that Hyundai was aware of an issue and they either failed to investigate it, or failed to communicate it. Had there been some sort of recall to address this issue we would’ve had it resolved, but there wasn’t anything tied to our VIN despite us having one of the plagued engines. Please help ensure that they are held responsible for this known liability so that the consumers aren’t. It is not only a financial matter, it is causing risk to safety for any owners that have this engine on the road.