[filthyPierre]

Hi there,

Looking for comments or similar experience:

TL;DR - After experiencing bad misfire when driving my 2021 PD3 Nline, local hyundai dealer has told me not to use 98RON petrol, only 95 or 91, saying that "Hyundai recommends it". I know this to be false (see below).

Long version:

Background:

The other friday I was driving home late, the car had been parked for a few hours so was fully cold when started. I was about 9 klicks from home, and twice on the way within the first 2 klicks or so, when upshifting there was this shuddering and accompanying noise that I hadn't experienced before. The DCT does have its own nuances that I've gotten used to but this was nothing like normal operation.
Anyway, it stopped happening after those two times and didn't happen again the next day or the following day (Sunday).
On Monday I drove to work in the morning and experienced the probelm a couple more times. And again on the way home. This time happening regualrly.
Tuesday I had the day off to run some errands, and it was not only happening on the upshift but pretty much all the time - coughing, shuddering and eventually felt like it was running on 3 cylinders (or sometimes even two it was that bad).

I rang the dealer who I bought it from and where I usually get it serviced. "I'm sorry sir, there is a six week waiting list". "It doesn't run, I'm not asking for service, it's an emergency, I can't drive the car at all. Not even sure I can drive it to you." (I'm about 4 klicks from the dealer). "Well, you can drop it off and we can see if we can fit it in sometime, but no guarantees".
F#ck me.
So I take it down there coughing the whole way (the car, not me), and the service advisor (as they call them nowadays) is much nicer than the person I spoke to on the phone, and she says she will get a technician to come take it for a drive with me. Eventually a dude comes out with an OBD-port analyser and we sit in the car while he runs the diags. It finds that cylinder #2 has been misfiring regularly, and #4 has also had random misfires. So he starts the car and it coughs and splutters and he declares he doesn't need to take it for a drive, he can see the problem. He says it's probably a spark plug coil or injector and they likely don't have those in stock. So I leave it with them and Uber it home.

Next morning, just as I'm about to jump in an Uber to go pick up a loan vehicle from HMCA, the dealer calls me back. They've fixed it by cleaning the plugs and inform me that I should not be using 98 RON in the car, only 95 or 91. I'm speechless.
I go down to pick it up and she again tells me no 98, only 95 or 91. And says that Hyundai have issued a notice to not use 98 in the Gamma 1.6 Turbo (G4FJ). I asked about the i30N as my son has one. She says same for that. Hmm, don't Ns *have* to run on 98?  But I tell her I'm grateful that they looked at it so quickly. And to cap it off, didn't charge me anything even though they said the day before if it was something not covered by warranty (spark plugs aren't), there would be a minimum $99 charge.

Now, I have a close relative that works for HMCA. She had organised a spare vehicle for me as the dealer didn't have one, but in the end I didn't need it. I explain to her what happened and ask if she'd heard anything about 98 in the 1.6 Gamma turbo. Nope, but she'll ask the state service manager. Fast forward 24 hours. Nope, he has no idea where that came from, i.e. *not* an official HMCA bulletin or position and that 98 should be fine. He calls the national service manager who also says nope, not an offical HMCA edict. BUT, he does find a job card from a dealer where they've recommended to only use 95, not 98 in an Nline. He's looking into why and trying to get to the bottom of why dealers are telling people that. So that's as far as it goes for the time being.

I asked the girl at the dealer if I should put better (hotter?) plugs in so I can run 98. She said if I wanted to, they would do it for me (at cost to me of course). But no indication whether that would work or not.

So, anyone else on here heard about not using 98 in the Gamma 1.6 turbo? Anyone used different plugs than the standard ones that come with the N-line?

I'll update once I've heard back from my relative.

Cheers,

FP

It’s possible Hyundai could have changed timing or something else in the NLine.
Keep using 95 for a while and see if the issue returns again, typically 98ron needs more advanced timing and more compression, you’ll get a better burn with the 95ron in a car that’s not tuned for the denser 98ron fuel.

[filthyPierre]

Thanks for your reply Craig. I plan to stay on 95 for a while, at least until I get a proper answer from HMCA. And dunno about WA but 98 has just gone over the $2.00 per litre mark here, while I paid $1.93 for 95, so that'll save me a couple of bucks a tank 

Cheers,

Pete

Yes the fuel prices are crazy here to, $1.96 for the 95 ron which I'm using in the bike and car though the car sits around a lot these days as I get much better mileage on the bike.

[AlanHo]

In our area in the UK typical E95 prices today are the equivalent of $2.63 at Shell, BP and Texaco stations and $2.55 at supermarkets. However they continue to go up at an alarming rate.

[filthyPierre]

E95 prices today are the equivalent of $2.63 at Shell, BP and Texaco stations and $2.55 at supermarkets. However they continue to go up at an alarming rate.

Yikes! I believe the prices are still going up because Russia and the arab countries are limiting output to drive prices up, as the poor sods lost a lot when Covid first hit as there was a worldwide excess when everyone stayed home, so prices fell. My heart bleeds

Near me in central Scotland, 99RON at Shell is £1.63 ($3.02AUD) a litre, and 95RON isn't much better at £1.40 ($2.58AUD).

This is partially because of a self-inflicted 'fuel crisis' a few weeks ago, but regardless the price of fuel is getting to insane levels.

I reckon we should all be getting it for what Venezuela pays for fuel    Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

[The Gonz]

I reckon we should all be getting it for what Venezuela pays for fuel    Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Cool. Just order it online. Who'd like to buddy up and save on postage?

[Lee H]

Mate I have a 2021 N line PD4V  also in Brisbane,   I run mine on  E10 which is 95 from memory.   I also have a bad Misfire on cylinders 2 and 4,  it's been back twice and they can't find the fault, it has three misfire error codes,  they now tell me the spark plug gap maybe a little bit so they have to contact Hyundai to replace plugs under warranty,  haven't heard back for 4 weeks.   With mine the misfire is very intermittent and random, so not all the time, but if I turn off the engine and restart the misfire disappears.