Hi All,
More of an FYI/what not to do than anything and this relates to a company pool/fleet car, not my own car!
I was recently tasked with driving to our head office which is a good 5 hour drive. I picked one of the cars in our fleet loan pool, a 2016 i30. I was 1.5 hours in to my journey, traveling through a major arterial route in Sydney when I slowed down as a car in front of me was turning right. I went to hit the accelerator to get back up to the speed limit and....nothing. My first thought was it was a gearbox problem so I threw it in to neutral for a few seconds and then back in to drive. Tried hitting the accelerator again...nothing. No noises, no warning chimes or lights. It was like the engine didn't want to rev. At this point I was coasting on a slight down-hill section and started to see smoke come out the back of the car from my rear view mirror.
I pulled in to a side street and got out, and the exhaust pipe was like a smoke machine on the side of the stage at a Metallica concert! Switched it off and popped the bonnet to check the oil. Yes it still had plenty but it was black as buggery. Rang fleet roadside and whilst waiting for them, thought I might as well check the car's service history. The car had 70,000klms on it and had done less than 300klm since the last service (the car had been serviced a month earlier and had barely been used for the past 5 months). Prior to this service, the last service was at 30,000klm. Prior to that, the previous service was at 1500klm. The person who used to drive this car (who left earlier this year) had never bothered getting it serviced regularly and had been driving it since new!!
Had the car towed to a nearby Hyundai dealership and made alternative arrangements to get to head office. Heard back from the fleet manager at our head office a few days ago that the engine completely seized and needs to be replaced. Apparetly Hyundai won't be covering it under warranty due to gaps in the car's service history and because of sludge found in the sump. He suspects he'll be lucky to get $1000 for the car.
Management are now in the process of checking service history for ALL of our remaining cars (13 or so) in the fleet. On a side note, the car drove pretty well for a 1.8 6spd auto, at least up until that point.
The lesson learned here is ALWAYS check the service history for ex-fleet cars before you consider buying one!
