Hyundai recalls first batch of 2011 Sonata over front door lock malfunction

That didn’t take long, did it?

Hyundai’s 2011 Sonata – a car that has only been on sale in the US for two weeks – has received its first recall after complaints started pouring in regarding a malfunction on the front door lock mechanisms.

It’s not really the kind of start Hyundai is expecting with their biggest volume vehicle but after the company began receiving complaints from passengers that the hinge on the front doors of the 2011 Sonata can get stuck in an open position, which would then make them impossible to close. While the likelihood of this happening is extremely rare – one would have to pull the door latch while holding the ‘lock button’, which would then be counterintuitive to common sense – it was serious enough for Hyundai to do some damage control.

According to Hyundai spokesman Miles Johnson, "Anything to do with door latches warrants a recall. New parts are arriving in dealerships now, and the fix should not take more than an hour.”

All in all, over 47,300 Sonatas have been recalled with most of them occurring in the brand’s home country of South Korea. In the US, all the 1,300 Sonatas that have been sold since they came out two weeks ago are also being recalled.

It certainly doesn’t help Hyundai to be receiving this problem soon after the Sonata went on sale, but at least the South Korean brand is moving fast in rectifying the situation.