Hyundai Sonata Sales Halted and 1,300 Cars Recalled

The 2011 Hyundai Sonata has already made many people consider it as an option even before reaching showroom floors. Unfortunately, it seems that it has tripped a bit while making its first steps: Hyundai was forced to pause Sonata sales due to a potential fault in the front-door latches that could affect 5,000 units, as autoblog reports.

Hyundai acted quickly to cushion the Sonata’s fall. Here’s what the company had to say, according to the aforementioned source:

"The (Sonata's) front doors incorporate a convenience feature that allows a locked door to be unlocked and opened by pulling the inside door release handle without first unlocking the door with the inside door lock switch. If a front inside door lock switch is held in the locked position while the inside door handle is pulled to open the door, the door latch may malfunction. If this occurs, the inside door handle will not return to its normal, stowed position and the door latch will remain in the unlatched position when attempting to close the door."

The company’s dealers will replace the faulty parts (the estimated servicing time for this operation is one hour) and the sales will be resumed. However, around 1300 Sonatas are already on the roads - Hyundai said that it will collaborate with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to recall those vehicles.

Hyundai expects the new Sonata to be a sales champion and thus has high expectations from the model. Last year, Hyundai was the only volume carmaker to post a sales increase in the difficult U.S. market.