I was driving my wife's2003 Elantra this past Saturday on the freeway. I was traveling at 70 mph with the cruise control on. Suddenly the cruise control turned itself off. I turned to my wife to ask her if that had ever happened to her before and she said no. So, I turned the cruise control back on and set it at 70 mph once again. About 5 miles later the car jerked as though I sternly pumped the brakes. I continued driving and went to turn on the radio and it wouldn't come on. At that point my wife noticed that her clock was off as well. Roughly 2 minutes later I felt a cold blast of air from the air conditioner and noticed that the radio and the clock had come back on. They stayed on for about a minute and then the car jerked again as it did before. I decided to take it to the local Auto Zone as I thought the battery was dying. We didn't quite make it to the Auto Zone as the car completely died. I tried to restart it and it wouldn't turn over. At this point I started to wonder if it might be the alternator.

We ended up jumping it off and driving it to a local NTB because they work on alternators. NTB called me today and said that the battery was fine. It just needed to be charged. They checked the alternator and said that it's getting a charge and that it is fine. They decided to let the car run to see if they could figure out what was wrong and noticed that the battery's power was being drained at a very high rate. The mechanic advised me to take it to the dealership as he is not sure what is wrong with it. He thinks it's mechanical but doesn't have experience in that area.

Has anyone experienced this or any situation like this? Or possibly, know what my problem might be? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

Take it to the dealer if it's still under warranty. If it was my car w/no warranty, I'd replace the battery ($50 at Walmart) and the alternator ($40 used from eBay). Good luck.

 

Thanks for responding.

They tested the battery and the alternator for us and everything checked out. They think the problem is electrical. I called the local Hyundai dealership and they want $90 to run a diagnostic test on it. Does anyone know of another option? I really need to figure out what is wrong with the car as I don't know if it will make it to the delearship and I can't afford to tow it to them.

 

Most electrical items are controlled by integrated circuitry that is sensitive to relatively small voltage drops caused by corroded battery cables and connectors. See http://jerrystout.us/sonata/tsb/volt..._diagnosis.pdf. This TSB is from a Sonata site, but pertains to all Hyundai models including the Elantra.

 

[align=left]Well if it's like that, then just take it to Walmart and have them replace the battery. I think they install for free when you buy their battery. If it's the original battery, then it's already 5 years old, and overdue. I'd do that even if I wasn't having any problems.