AtWhatMileage
Transmission · 11 owner reports

Other powertrain problem on the 2006 Hyundai Sonata

Only 7 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 11
With an odometer reading 7
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 14%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $400–$4,500
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 22nd

When other powertrain problem gets reported

There are 11 reports of other powertrain problem on the 2006 Hyundai Sonata, 7 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 22nd most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 7 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 75,720 miles — —

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Putting it right typically runs $400–$4,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 24 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 105,000 miles.

By volume the 2011 carries the most reports, with 121; the 2006 has 11. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

Median
  1. 1996 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1997 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  3. 1998 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 41k
  4. 1999 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 69k
  5. 2000 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 64k
  6. 2001 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 72k
  7. 2002 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 76k
  8. 2003 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 5k
  9. 2004 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 35k
  10. 2005 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 60k
  11. 2006 (this one) 76k
  12. 2007 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 53k
  13. 2008 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 105k
  14. 2009 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 35k
  15. 2010 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 30k
  16. 2011 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 49k
  17. 2012 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 88k
  18. 2013 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 47k
  19. 2014 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 50k
  20. 2015 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 53k
  21. 2016 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 57k
  22. 2017 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 48k
  23. 2018 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 42k
  24. 2019 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  25. 2020 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 3k
  26. 2021 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 22k
  27. 2022 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 9k
  28. 2023 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  29. 2024 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  30. 2025 Hyundai Sonata other powertrain problem 38k

Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

09v122000-I have taken my car to the dealership and they have refused to fix the car as they have not started their campaign yet. My car has no brake lights and the ABS/esc light is on in the dash along with the check engine light. I cannot shift out of gear without depressing the shift release button. *tr

60,000 miles NHTSA complaint 718372 filed 2009-04-30

Tl* the contact owns a 2006 hyundai sonata. The contact stated the steering wheel became very difficult to steer while turning right. The contact stated that the failure occurred twice. The contact spoke with the dealer and was informed that water got onto the steering belt and caused the failure. The contact felt that there was more of an issue because they were unable to shift the vehicle out of drive and into park when they attempted to park. The failure and current mileages were 25,651... Updated 08/15/12 *bf the consumer stated the battery light illuminated as well. Updated 08/21/12

25,651 miles NHTSA complaint 927648 filed 2012-07-12

First of all the time and mileage are approximate. We experienced difficulty in turning off the parking/dashboard lights in our 2006 hyundai sonata. Flicking the stalk back and forth a few times would eventually turn them off. I asked my mechanic and called 2 local hyundai dealers and all agreed the only solution is to replace the entire fuse/relay box. After consulting a few hyundai forums I learned that this was a problem affecting some 2006 and 2007 hyundias and that owners were paying between $700 to $1200 to replace the faulty part. Many owners are upset that hyundai does not issue a recall. On monday, january 27, 2014 the stalk stopped working. A call to hyundai north america not only resulted in no help in finding out which fuse would disable the lights but also assured me that hyundai seems to expect the life of such parts to last just past the warranty expiration date. I decided to pull out the relay located under the dashboard which turned off the lights (among other things). The next day when my wife left work after inserting the relay back in, she couldn't get out of first gear and slowly things started to stop working…

60,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1036087 filed 2014-02-02

Also reported on the 2006 Hyundai Sonata

Other visibility problem

176 reports median 64k

Seat belt or retractor failure

91 reports median 75k

Other body or interior problem

45 reports median 55k

Other brake problem

42 reports median 60k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 11 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 11 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does other powertrain problem happen on the 2006 Hyundai Sonata?

Across 7 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other powertrain problem on the 2006 Hyundai Sonata?

11 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed