[Xaos636]

My Venue DCT passed the 10,000 kms mark with flying colors earlier this month. It has been a pretty decent journey and I haven't made any visits to the service center apart from normal services and the left door rattle which the dealer wasn't able to fix and I had to do it as a DIY(documented earlier in this thread).

Did the wheel alignment and road force balancing at Madhus Tyre Centre at 5,000kms and then again at 10,000kms and did the tyre rotation too, as per the machine calculations. In the last 10k kms, I observed that Hyundai Cars don't usually come to Madhus(or any other alignment centre's) for alignment and balancing compared to the other manufacturer cars. Are Hyundai providing really good alignment and balancing at service centre's?

The new machine at Madhus. This gives a clear idea on what to work on. The CEAT Securagrip's were really good so far and I look to continue with the same. The first one in the list is my car.









Wheel balance summary. Before and after the service.


The Silent Recall and 10k Service.

Hitting 10,000 on the meter means a pic for the records.


So the completion of 10k kms also meant it was time for a detailed service, which included oil and oil filter change, a first for the car.
This time though, after a not-so good experience with the Apco Hyundai Service Centre in Calicut, Kerala at 1000kms service, I decided to try out KVR Hyundai. I gave a call to the KVR Hyundai service manager a few days before completing 10k kms and he was more than accommodating and his words gave a positive feeling about the total service centre.

The customer lounge was fairly empty.


The KVR workspace is huge compared to the cramped Apco service(the bigger Apco is too far for me) and they can work on multiple cars at the same time, without not much rush. I enquired with the service manager about the availability of 5w30 oil, oil filter, air filter etc. before visiting. I did this because Maruti(non-Nexa) never used to stock 5W30 for my Baleno RS and hence I did not want to go for the service and come back without actually doing it(or the ASC using a different grade oil than recommended). He replied positively that they have everything in stock and are good to go.

So one issue with Venue was the silent recall which Hyundai issued to replace a rubber part of the Fuel Pump. This part is usually sent to the showroom where I purchased the car and they will call us to come and get it fixed. Surprisingly enough, the Apco Hyundai(from where I bought the car) never called me once. It has been several months since the recall was issued and I haven't got any calls and the Venue owner's group across Facebook did say that Hyundai have advised dealers to silently replace the part during periodic service's and wont inform the owner about the same, unless the owner asks about the extra entry on the bill! Talk about silent recall's! Surprisingly though, much media did not report this recall at all.

Anyway, my 10k service at a different service center would either mean that the 2 dealers needs to speak about the recall part, or my car has to get the part destined for another car, or they have abundance of recall part(highly unlikely) and they can provide me a part anytime.
The service manager asked me 2 days to procure this recall part(unsure how he did it) and he kept his word. The official time required for this exercise is a maximum of 2 hours, but the great work force at KVR Hyundai has done the work in under an hour.

Talking generally about the service, I was assigned an SA named Mr. Akhil Kumar and what a guy he was! I usually don't praise SA's because most lack attention to details and are generally busy to attend all of the customers in a quick-go. This guy was something else. Compared to Apco Hyundai's service advisor who called door damping as utter useless and waste of money, this person here was super calm and willing to hear me out and was interested in the little mods I had done with the car. He loved how I was maintaining the car and he has been working with Hyundai for 5 years after a stint with Volkswagen. I took my sweet time explaining the gearbox shift patterns, how the engine produces more grunt in midrange etc. and he heard me out completely and guess what, he also agreed that I can watch my car getting serviced.

This was cherry on top of the cake and I happily accepted the offer and I was in and out of the service center inside 2 hours. I would have been out even earlier if it was not for the recall. So Mr. Akhil Kumar, if you are reading this, it has been a pleasure to meet you and hope to do business with you in the future as well. The total service cost has been Rs.3680 out of which around Rs.3000 was for Servo FS engine oil. Replaced the air filter as it was super dirty. The cabin filter was clean though. The other parts are cheaper compared to rivals, especially the oil filter which is around Rs.80 where the one on my Baleno RS used to cost north of Rs.700. No fancy add on charges, no unnecessary additives, polish or any other fancy gismos that usually Service advisor's dump on our head. I headed for service, I came back doing just that. More than happy with this one, perhaps more happy than the Maruti days. Hope this continues well too.

The Final Bill.


The return drive to Kerala. Heat is catching up and the trees already look dry. A view from Muthanga Forest, Waynad.


Spotting the big one.


The Waynad Ghats(Thamarassery Churam) strengthening work is ongoing, where one side of the road caved in during work. Only small vehicles are allowed through this path now and road work meant kilometer's of chocoblock traffic. Easily took 2-3 hours to complete the 12km ghat section. Everyone maintained lane discipline though.


Some parting shots.




Cheers!

[amitwiz1]

Hi Xaos636 - Congrats on the 10k kms milestone. Has the DCT box given you any trouble until now?

[drive1987]

Hey there, Xaos636!

Thanks for keeping us posted with your updates and we're loving it!. Your reviews and crisp short updates are pleasure to read. Thank you!

So, on the way back to Kerala, as you've mentioned about ghat sections and kilometers of slow moving traffic. Have you ever faced the warning of transmission overheating? If yes, how are you dealing with it?

[dhruvritzed]

Originally Posted by Xaos636

My Venue DCT passed the 10,000 kms mark with flying colors earlier this month. It has been a pretty decent journey and I haven't made any visits to the service center apart from normal services and the left door rattle which the dealer wasn't able to fix and I had to do it as a DIY(documented earlier in this thread).

Cheers!

Hi, great seeing you munch miles on the Venue.May it continue the same way.
Just wanted to ask as to why the tax percentage is 19, when GST is charged at 18% for most car based items, some are at 28% i realise but 19 is a very odd percentage or is it a new scam or something?

Curious to know the same.


Thanks.

Mod Note : Please quote ONLY the relevant bits of a post. Quoting a full, long post inconveniences our mobile readers.

Also, please punctuate where required.

Thanks!

[matchvan]

Hi,
You get an express service of your steed with exceptional care and the cherry is, you get to spot the big one! This happens only in my dreams.

Hope the service centre continues to be the same way in future too. Happy motoring. Stay Safe.

[karan0009]

Originally Posted by dhruvritzed

Just wanted to ask as to why the tax percentage is 19, when GST is charged at 18% for most car based items, some are at 28% i realise but 19 is a very odd percentage or is it a new scam or something?
Curious to know the same

Good catch, since OP got his car serviced in Kerala State, there is an additional 1% flood cess charged on services over and above GST. So in this case it's 18% GST + 1% Flood Cess = 19% Tax.

[Xaos636]

Originally Posted by amitwiz1

Hi Xaos636 - Congrats on the 10k kms milestone. Has the DCT box given you any trouble until now?

Thanks a lot Amit. The DCT has been trouble free so far. It has been the same way since day 1.

Originally Posted by drive1987

Hey there, Xaos636!
Thanks for keeping us posted with your updates and we're loving it!. Your reviews and crisp short updates are pleasure to read. Thank you!
So, on the way back to Kerala, as you've mentioned about ghat sections and kilometers of slow moving traffic. Have you ever faced the warning of transmission overheating? If yes, how are you dealing with it?

Hi there, Arun. Thanks a lot for those words. Hope to continue this write up. Next would be 'chime delete', as I want to delete/reduce the annoying 'beep' at 80kph. 80kph is usually my sweet spot and it gets really irritating when you have to keep the pace at 75-85 regularly and for some reason, Hyundai's 'beep' is the loudest of them all.
On the second part, no I haven't yet faced any overheating issue yet. I have been once on a worse traffic scenario with 4 heavy people on board for around 2 hours and yet the overheat sign did not come up. But yeah, I always shifted to 'N' whenever possible, though not sure if that had helped or not. To be honest, I did expect the overheat sign to pop-up on more than one occasion when traffic was really bad, so that I could learn the work around for that too. But it did not happen yet, hopefully it doesn't happen at all.

The user's manual does say that even if clutch 1 overheats, the car will try to avoid shifting to 1st gear and move continuously on 2nd gear alone even in bumper to bumper traffic. So you can keep an eye on the meter and see if the car is on 2nd gear even at a stop, which means that the clutch 1 with odd number gear's have overheated and you can chose to park it somewhere for 5 minutes in 'N' or 'P' and let the clutch cool down.

Now, imagine the warning does come ON when both clutches have overheated, it does not fail there immediately and leave you stranded(This info is as per a few owner's from the FB ownership thread, all of which happened in 2019). The car will still run and the warning on the console will suggest to park the car with engine 'ON' for 2 minutes to 10 minutes at an average to cool down the transmission. Once cooled, it will show a display that the transmission is cooled and safe to continue the journey. I have seen this in 2019 first batch vehicles, but haven't heard of it happening lately.

Originally Posted by dhruvritzed

Hi, great seeing you munch miles on the Venue.May it continue the same way.
Just wanted to ask as to why the tax percentage is 19, when GST is charged at 18% for most car based items, some are at 28% i realise but 19 is a very odd percentage or is it a new scam or something?
Curious to know the same
Thanks

Thank you Dhruv. Actually in Kerala, they charge 1% flood cess extra on almost everything, hence the usual 18% becomes 19% here

Originally Posted by matchvan

Hi,
You get an express service of your steed with exceptional care and the cherry is, you get to spot the big one! This happens only in my dreams.

Hope the service centre continues to be the same way in future too. Happy motoring. Stay Safe.

Thank you for that. I hope the service experience continues the same way in the future too. Finger's crossed on that. A good service center gives a lot of mental peace.

Cheers!

[Xaos636]

It has been quite a while that I have been thinking to remove the speed warning chimes at 80kph and 120kph. I have no issues with the continuous chime at 120kph, but the 80kph one was super irritating when on the highway. I usually do 75-85kph considering a safe journey, as our roads has the tendency to surprise us more than often. The bell rings once when the speedo touches 80kph and imagine you slowdown to 78kph and the return to 80 again, it rings again. It gets very irritating at night when the general noise levels are low and the alert itself is quite loud in the Venue.

During the last service, I specifically asked the service team if there is any way to remove the speed alert warning from the service center itself. But the responses were negative as expected and then I tried to do it with a friend who runs an automobile workshop in the name of 'Zero 6 Customs' in Calicut, Kerala. We did not plan to do it before and I never spoke to him regarding the same, a surprise weekend visit to his shop and a casual talk about the chime inspired us to try and see where the buzzer is and if its separate for speed alerts and other general alerts.

So there were a few plans in place.
1. If the speed alert warning has a separate buzzer with wiring, then its easier. Just unplug it.
2. Remove the buzzer completely if its soldered on to the meter.(warranty issue if something goes wrong?)
3. If there is only 1 buzzer for all the alerts, then its a tricky situation as removing the buzzer removes all the warning sounds from the car, which includes reverse parking sensor warning, door not shut warning, and other error warnings. Though I can manage this, my wife usually does depend on the sound of the rear parking sensors along with rear camera, just to be on the safer side.

So the work starts. We removed the top cover of the meter by gently pulling it towards the driver and it came out without a fuss. All clips here, make sure you don't break it.


Remove the top two screws you see above the meter and pull the top of the meter towards you. Then you have to unplug the 2 wirings that goes into the meter and gently pull out the meter. Bottom side of the meter is held by 3 clips.


The back side view of the meter. The circle in red is the buzzer. We were surprised on how loud it is once it was out of the meter console area. Could be easily the loudest among all cars. Bad news here is that there is only one buzzer for all alarms.


First try. We masked it to check if sound is reduced. Yes, around 30% of the alarm sound has been reduced which was a really positive sign for me. This was just a try before removing the meter back cover. The manufacturer is Continental and I did call my friend who works at Continental to ask how difficult is to put another buzzer for speed alerts. She was like it was a client requirement and they just wanted to incorporate everything into one as adding another buzzer means more money spend. Yes, the manufacturers try to save even Rs.1 on spares.


Without the back cover and you can see the buzzer in its full glory. To remove this buzzer, you have to remove the front side of the meter and the buzzer is fixed with a few screws. So it shouldn't be a worry to get it out.


Now the problem. Removing the buzzer means you lose all the warning sounds. Yes, everything from door open warning to rear parking sensor warning is incorporated into this single buzzer. The speed alert warning sound is slightly different from the reverse parking sensor warning. So I guess that they have incorporated a few different chimes into one buzzer. I was suddenly not ready to remove the buzzer altogether for the same reason I explained above. My wife too uses the car occasionally and she might forget that there are no more alerts on the car, which could turn into a catastrophe if not careful. Hence the idea of masking the buzzer came into light.

We masked it like this with a simple vinyl sticker usually used to mask holes by accessory shops.


Checking if all the functions are working before putting the top cover back.


The result.
95% of the speed alert is inaudible now to the driver. If you carefully listen to it at 80kph, you can hear it. If not, you wont even notice that there is an alert at 80kph.The meter will still display 'reduce speed' once the speedo touches 80kph. Now mind you, 95% could be a huge number for many. You don't hear the chimes unless you listen keenly. The positive side to this is that the front seat passenger is 100% free from alerts now. They, along with rear seat occupants cannot hear any kind of warnings now, except the 'reverse parking sensor' warning, seat belt warning and 'car not turned off in 'P' mode' warning. I believe these 3 are a bit more audible than other warnings and hence the driver wont miss these by any chance. But yeah, this has been a really good workaround for me as I peacefully enjoy the 80kph mark now. I bet the service centers also would be surprised when they notice this. If anyone wants to try this, this will work on almost all Hyundai's as the meters are manufactured by Continental and they incorporate the same buzzer for all the cars. This is as per my friend who works for the supplier. If you think that you cannot hear any alerts at all after this procedure, then you can reduce the size of the sticker that's put on the buzzer to let a small amount of warning sound to reach you.

Cheers!

[bpapache]

Hi Xaos636,

This is a great ownership thread. I've been following this from quite some time.

I got home my Venue SX(o) IMT in Jan 2021. Christened "Phoenix".

Have covered 3000Kms and enjoying the car totally.
Just like you did, I'm facing the annoying vibrations from door panels due to bass from sound sytem. Since I'm from Bangalore, I thought I'll try the 3M route for sound dampening service. Do you think its worth it? If not, do you know anywhere in Bangalore to get similar solution like you have got?
Thanks in advance.

Here's a snap of my car.

[Xaos636]

Originally Posted by bpapache

Hi Xaos636,

This is a great ownership thread. I've been following this from quite some time.

I got home my Venue SX(o) IMT in Jan 2021. Christened "Phoenix".

Just like you did, I'm facing the annoying vibrations from door panels due to bass from sound system. Since I'm from Bangalore, I thought I'll try the 3M route for sound dampening service. Do you think its worth it? If not, do you know anywhere in Bangalore to get similar solution like you have got?
Thanks in advance.

Here's a snap of my car.

Hello there and thank you. Congrats on the Phoenix and she is beautiful in that color.
3M damping is really decent, you can go ahead with the same as I am not sure of other reputed dealers in Bangalore doing the damping works in a decent way. All the noices would be reduced and you will have an even quieter cabin is what I can guarantee. The issue with vibration from speaker is that the speaker itself vibrates with or without damping. But this is noticeable only in high bass songs after damping. If you can get the speakers swapped to some reputed ones, that should reduce the speaker vibes to zero! Hope that helps.

[deepjaju]

Originally Posted by Xaos636

So there were a few plans in place.
1. If the speed alert warning has a separate buzzer with wiring, then its easier. Just unplug it.
2. Remove the buzzer completely if its soldered on to the meter.(warranty issue if something goes wrong?)
3. If there is only 1 buzzer for all the alerts, then its a tricky situation as removing the buzzer removes all the warning sounds from the car, which includes reverse parking sensor warning, door not shut warning, and other error warnings. Though I can manage this, my wife usually does depend on the sound of the rear parking sensors along with rear camera, just to be on the safer side.

Nice idea for reducing the 80/120 beep sound. Isn't there a way of completely coding it out ?
I have the launch gen Venue, also I would like to add the factory fitted TPMS to it. Anyone with experience knows if this is possible ?

[Xaos636]

Originally Posted by deepjaju

Nice idea for reducing the 80/120 beep sound. Isn't there a way of completely coding it out ?
I have the launch gen Venue, also I would like to add the factory fitted TPMS to it. Anyone with experience knows if this is possible ?

I have checked with a few coders and they said as of now they haven't found a solution for the same on Hyundai cars. This is the reason why I gave a shot at this method.
I would really suggest you to get aftermarket TPMS rather than company one. This is a lowline one and just shows the tire puncture warning on the console and doesn't show the exact pressure of each tire. And if you fit the factory TPMS too, there might be some coding required to calibrate the sensors to the meter console. Not sure if its easily possible. Hope it helps

[Xaos636]

Completed 13,000 kms recently. Lockdown has taken a toll on the odometer where most of us were stuck at home with minimal travel. I have been starting the car once or twice every week and also made mandatory washes every weekend for the entirety of lockdown. Also drove her through the small roads in front of my home just to keep her engaged during lockdown

Just as lockdown was eased, I had to go to Bigwing Cochin to collect a few spares for my CBR650F and took the car out finally after a long time. Bhpian @krishnaprasadgg joined me as he wanted to get a few stuffs for his R1 back home as well from Cochin. As soon as the weekend lockdown ends, we do plan to hit Cochin again for some pending works for my motorcycle, so probably that would be a ride than a drive.

The car so far has been flawless so far, with me being in love with the manual mode of the DCT. Getting more matured with time and knowing that gradual acceleration is much better than total 'pedal to the metal' where gearbox behaves really good to acceleration inputs even in D mode. This was something I figured out over time. The fuel efficiency has been hovering around 11-12 in city and 15-18 on highways, so far. Again, cruise control at 90-100 over highways will give me 20+, but that is going to be plane jane boring.

Some pics from the trip.










The trip. Almost 11 hours and an average speed of 40kph. The mileage the MID showed was 15.3kpl, this was 80% highways and 20% bumper to bumper traffic.


Both my fellows together!

[Xaos636]

A major upgrade in my books was completed on the car a couple of days back. When Hyundai did not care to give a top end variant for the automatic variant, what was missed was 6 airbags and the rear wiper. While 6 airbags is still a concern, I decided to take things into my own hands regarding the rear wiper. The continuous rains in Kerala and Bangalore for past few weeks made me understand that the rear wiper has to be perhaps one of the most important safety feature to have on any car as you got no clue on what is happening behind you, and this remains a concern for people like me who was so used to using the rear wipers on other cars, but for this one Hyundai did not think it wasn’t a good idea to give rear wiper and washer!
For me, even base model should have rear wiper as default as it helps massively in heavy rains. Period.

More to follow on this. We did a test and it works as expected. But now need to do proper routing etc.
The fuse for rear wiper is already present in the fuse box with current in it, which further implies that Hyundai just doesn’t care about their customers. For now, 2 pics with final look. The blank look is long gone I shall update everything in detail soon. Stay safe everyone.

[Xaos636]

Hello everyone. Sorry for the delay in publishing the details of rear wiper fitment. This is a pretty straightforward installation if you have all the parts handy and this can be done easily on any variant of any car as far as the respective car's top end model came with a rear wiper because in most cases, you will need the rear glass of the specific model with the hole to fit the wiper motor and the wiper.

I would rate the difficulty as medium since I am a noob in electronics, electricals and its working. I had tested it as DIY with the help of a friend and we confirmed the wiper motor working before changing the rear glass. I had to give to an expert for proper routing of wires since I did not want to damage any stock fitments. For them, this was just an hour's job. All you need to do is find the right connector if you do not want to slice wires, an area to get current to the stalks(can be taken from anywhere) and a wire connection from the stalk to the wiper motor and that's it. Works like a charm.

NOTE : My version of Venue(SX+ DCT) had the rear defogger as stock and that made it a whole lot easier. Lower variants which do not have this have to purchase the defoggers separately.

The parts diagram, courtesy of a local Hyundai showroom. You can avoid using connectors if you get the entire wiring system of this particular area, but comes at a cost of 17.5k, which is definitely eye-watering.


The parts arrived in a weeks time.


The old stalk


The connectors of the old stalk. 6 of them. All for front wiper and washer.


In Venue, you can order both stalks separately and here we need only the left control stalk from SX(O) manual variant.


The pins of the new stalk. An extra number 4 pins compared to stock. The first was current coming into the stalk and the next 2 is current out and earth. For the rear washer to come back to the original position, there has to be current always in the motor circuit and this was taken from the fuse box using a connector and we avoided the rear washer piping altogether as I intend to use this setup in rainy season only(I guess most do!). This was primarily done to avoid drilling on the spoiler. You need a separate part to be fixed into the front washer reservoir and extra hoses to connect from it. Yes this works too and many have done it already on Creta base variants.


The tail gate wiring has to be procured too. This includes a coupler for the rear wiper motor. The left side is the new one and right side was stock.


This is how we tested in in-house. We might have blown a fuse or two in attempting it(lucky we did not), but I desperately wanted to try it at home before changing the rear glass. You can see the 6 stock wires starting from orange and ending in black. These controls the various actions for the front washer and wiper. We took a current from the front wiper(from the wire next to green. Light brown is it?) and gave it to first one of the 4 new pins. And took an out from 2 pins next to it and wiper motor started working. This was when we saw light at the end of the tunnel. The original switches worked when current was given this way. Now we needed expert hands to route the wiring along with the stock wiring and also wanted to use connectors and a separate fuse for rear wiper alone. I knew I couldn't do it alone and sought the help of a local shop dealing with electricals and electronics of automobiles.


Here you can see the 4 pins on the bottom and the last pin was left out.


The final look of the coupler to the stalk. Neat isn't it? That's what experts could do and I couldn't(Laziness did not allow me to )


The other side of the same


The fuse box. The extra fuse is accessible and the red thing in the background is the connector.


And does all these help? You can bet on it. What a relief it has been in the torrential rains for the past month here down south.


And last, the parts needed. Everything except the sealant for the rear glass is listed here. Prices are approximate, with 90% accuracy. I had fixed the glass at Hyundai itself as I have a trusted SA here


I will try to answer if there are any clarifications. If I cannot, I can try out to reach to the expert who did the wiring on my car.

Thanks everyone. Happy motoring !