Hyundai: Tiburon, bumper to bumper warranty, powertrain warranty


Question
My daughter, age 23, is considering a used Tiburon.Maybe '96-'98. It looks stylish, great price, and an impressive warranty. My concern is unknown track record for reliability and the low price. "You get what you pay for". Is this car a safe bet or will it be cheap in the short term but expensive and problem-ridden in the long term? Would appreciate your opinion and also any other resources that might provide some insight.
Thanks!  

Answer
Cool, another posssible Tiburon owner.  I bought my 98 Tiburon when I was 19 and I've had it for about 2 and a half years.  So far I have around 36,000 miles.

The only warranty items I've had with it were...

- A misfire on the #2 cylinder which was promptly fixed by the dealer.

- A broken driver's side sun visor which was also fixed.

- A broken map light switch, fixed.

Other than that I haven't had any other major problems.  Also, you may want to look into the warranty issue. All Hyundais pre-99 came with a 3yr/36,000ml bumper-to-bumper warranty and a 5yr/60,000ml powertrain warranty.

However, starting with the 99 model year Hyundai upped the bumper-to-bumper warranty to 5yrs/60k miles and the powertrain warranty was raised to 10yrs/100,000 miles.  But I think the powertrain warranty is non-transferrable unless the person you buy it from is a family member, whereas, the pre-99 powertrain warranty is transferrable as far as I can tell.

For what I paid being a 19 year old at the time I can't complain one bit.  I've done quite a few high power performance changes to the engine, and have yet to break anything.

I can't really comment on the long term reliabality of the car because of my relativley low mileage, however, it is not uncommon for the cars to go above and beyond 100,000 miles.  Most people either wreck them or sell them before that point.

There aren't many resources available online for Hyundais.  There is an online service manual at www.hmaservice.com/webtech which you'll need Internet Explorer 5.0 and low security settings to use.  The site www.t-h-c.org is a popular owners site with it's own consumer advocacy representative (not an official Hyundai representative though).  Those are probably the two most informative sites you'll find.

Of course, you can always try mine www.fxtreme.org but it's geared more towards performance.

Good Luck
Chris