What, you folks never got the memo that it was leap leap leap leap leap leap… year?
Well, first we need to see if it goes to 10. Just because the digit is blank doesn’t mean the internal state is the same. Based on that article you linked, it would make sense to me that 160 would be the point where the front half of the byte flips back around, not 140. (159 would be F9 or 11111001).
Annnd… it didn’t. It went back to the half-zero again this week.
When you say “half-zero”, do you mean a small zero in the top of the display, what I called the degree symbol?
What happened to the numerals? Did they change at all?
Yes, the [sup]0[/sup] character (or degree symbol). It was the left character for a few weeks after FEB 99 then changed to blank a week or so ago and now it’s back. The right digit just continues looping around from 0 to 9.
I assume it changed to [sup]0[/sup] when the digit changed from 9 to 0?
Bumping this “zombie” thread that’s more like a Leap Year Cicada, since Feb 29 (30, 31, … 99, … o.0), 2016 is not all that far off on the horizon…
Shoeless, did you ever contact Hyundai about this? What did they say?
I was talking about this with my kids earlier today, as my daughter who’s in high school is taking an intro programming class and this was a very early, simple exercise to do (writing code to check if a given year is a leap year). It occurred to me it might not have been a problem with all 2003 Hyundais with this part in it, but somehow a problem with your unit - such a simple program as date countering might not be worth soft-loading, but circuit-printed as a small embedded system. In which case something may simply have shorted out in a weird way due to heat melting glue on a circuit board, or I don’t know, the haze of sweat coming off of your sunglasses or something.
The first page or so of this thread is one of the greatest of all time, BTW. The very idea of a calendar display going from FEB 29 to FEB 30 and then 31 is funny enough, but then 32? 99? AND WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?! I was literally LOL’ing all over again rereading it all 
I’m just enjoying the fact that clicking on Shoeless’ links gives me the opportunity to turn the picture of the Feb 99 display into…a calendar!
Shoeless may not even own the car anymore. Looking at his profile it appears that he was active on the board this morning, so hopefully he’ll post in this thread.
Interesting timing on the bumping of this thread… Just last week a coworker and I were heading to lunch and talking about the date display in the Santa Fe (yes I’m still driving it!) and how leap year was coming up again. I haven’t read back through the whole thread yet but what I remember is that once it got past 99 it started displaying some odd non-numeric symbols and got into a fairly regular loop. And then at some point I had to take my car into the shop for something and the battery got disconnected and the date display reset. I’m looking forward to Feb 99 again in 2016 and may even run it by the local Hyundai dealer this time just to show them.
So they never replied, did they? Hmm
I sent it to a couple of tech type who, like us, got a big laugh out of it. As far as what would Hyundai do about it, the car has been out of warranty longer than it was in warranty.
Frankly, I would be surprised at this point if a replacement part were even available.
Even if a replacement part were available, odds are that it would have the same problem since this is more than likely a design flaw.
I’ve actually heard of this before, in real life I mean. I believe the calendar was programmed to go from Feb 28th to March 1st on regular years and 28 to 29 for leap years, but they forgot to program it to go from Feb 29 to Mar 1. Every leap year it just keeps going without rolling over into march.
So the tech guys I shared this with were both LOOOOOONG time Hyundai technical people, so between myself, the tech guys, and a couple of of my long term techs we had somewhere over 100 years of Hyundai experience. None of us had ever heard of this happening.
If it were a design flaw, it would have happened to every or nearly every 2000-2006 Hyundai Santa Fe. At the time of the OP, I was the service manager of the largest Hyundai Dealer in the Western United States. If any Santa Fe’s had rolled in with this problem I would have heard about it.
Yet nothing. None of us had ever heard of this. Now despite Hyundai selling about 1.6 jillion of this model from 2000-2006 none of us had ever heard of this.
And then you come along, and on the basis on one, count it one, report on the internet you have, using your super powers of diagnosis, determined that the failure was do to a design defect. This despite no one from Hyundai ever hearing of this before, and the part in question being 9 years old, you FUCKING KNOW that it is a design defect.
Really.
Would you care to share with us mortals how you have done a failure analysis and determined that this this is a design flaw using nothing more than a post on a message board?
Also since you say it is a design defect, where are the other 1.599999999 jillion cars with this defect? How come they have not come flooding into the dealerships?
Inquiring minds want to know.
I got news for you, every part on every car ever built has a 100% failure rate. Drive it far enough or long enough every part will fail. Just ask guys that drive and restore classic cars. Just because a part fails, this does not necessarily indicate a design defect. Hyundai covered the car for defects in design and workmanship for 5 years / 60,000 miles. After that, it is no longer the car maker’s responsibility.
This car was 9 years old when this thread started, and is 13 years old now. If the OP were to change the clock today, in another 9 years it will be 2025 when the next failure occurs. The car will be 22 years old. Do you really see this as a problem? How many 22 year old cars do you see on a daily basis?
Particularly since the OP refers to the calendar as “The most useless accessory in my car…” I highly doubt they will try to source a new one.
I love armchair EX-Spurts. :dubious:
How many people do you think would bother going to the dealer with something like this? They’d either ignore it, reset the date, or not even notice it. This sounds like it is obviously a software bug, something I do know about.
And you know what? I don’t have the experience and sources you have, so I was giving my educated opinion based on the information available to me.
Could it somehow be a hardware defect in this one unit? Of course.
But whatever. This is just a fun thread. Relax. You’re taking my remarks way too seriously. I wasn’t attacking you or Hyundai or anyone else.
You would be amazed at what people complain about, and how long after the car was built they complain. I know of a court case claiming a defect in design on a 35+ year old car.
Here let me clean up the rest of your post:
And you know what? I don’t have the experience and sources you have, so I was giving my **un-**educated [del]opinion[/del] wild ass guess based on the very close to zero information[del] available to me[/del].
Could it somehow be a hardware defect in this one unit? [del]Of course.[/del] Without a doubt it is, since there are not tons of these complaints.
But whatever. This is just a fun thread. Relax. I’m talking out of my ass about a subject I know nothing about, and I was just trying to make the car company look bad. [del]You’re taking my remarks way too seriously.[/del] I was [del]n’t[/del] attacking you [del]or[/del] and Hyundai [del]or anyone else.[/del] just for shits and giggles.
There I fixed that for you.
This is all completely uncalled for and insulting. This is a warning. Don’t visit a thread if it’s going to make you so mad (as this one did) that you have to make two long posts that insult another poster this way for just giving their 2 cents.
Yeah, i think it was unnecessarily vicious. In context it should be obvious he meant “design defect” as “OEM programming bug” here, not “safety recall / lawsuit material”, and his second post said as much. Programmers consider software algorithms “design” too, it’s not a purely structural or mechanical term. And obviously a date counter error going off the rails approximately every 4 years would just get reset and not taken up with Hyundai.
I do wonder whether this was a problem specific to the unit or a design problem with the unit, because if it was just this one, it would be a really unlikely physical flaw leading to so subtle and specific a behavior. Almost as funny as the result. “Aha, this short right here changed a 1 to a 0, which means this embedded subroutine’s condition is always false, …”
Most likely it is a programming bug, in which case, has anyone else with a similar vintage Hyundai ever noticed it? Heck, if i ordered the OEM part could I reproduce it? LOL!