2023 Hyundai Tucson Pricing and Specs

When you consider the millions of bumps and jars a car endures in its lifetime of sometimes several hundred thousand kilometres, it’s a wonder they stay together at all. But a rattle somewhere in the dashboard can be a real irritation over time.

There are two steps to fixing this, the first being often the more difficult. And that is locating the source of the rattle. To do that, you may have to remove parts of the dashboard and the media screen itself. The idea is to then drive the car and see if the rattle has disappeared. If it has, you can narrow it down to the bits you removed. If not, you keep removing parts until the noise stops. The catch is, of course, that removing things like media screens may make the car undriveable or unsafe to drive as important safety systems cannot be accessed.

The alternative (recommended as a first step) is to drive the car on a surface that normally produces the rattle, and press down on various bits of trim and fittings to see if that stops the racket. If it does, you then need to pinpoint what’s loose and tighten it, or stuff a piece of foam rubber between the item in question and whatever it’s banging against.

The engine in a modern car has inbuilt protection where it won't rev beyond what is safe for it. So you needn't worry about that. But a vehicle that wants to hold gears too long can become tiring to drive, as well as using more fuel than it might if its shifted gears at lower engine speeds.

Your car has what are called drive modes which tailor the aggressiveness of the throttle and alter gearshift points to tailor the car's behaviour in different conditions. My suspicion is that your car is set on Sport which is what's making it feel a bit hyperactive. There's a switch on the centre console which will allow you to change the Drive mode to Comfort or Normal. Try that to see if it tames the gearbox's behaviour.

The engine in a modern car has inbuilt protection where it won't rev beyond what is safe for it. So you needn't worry about that. But a vehicle that wants to hold gears too long can become tiring to drive, as well as using more fuel than it might if its shifted gears at lower engine speeds.

Your car has what are called drive modes which tailor the aggressiveness of the throttle and alter gearshift points to tailor the car's behaviour in different conditions. My suspicion is that your car is set on Sport which is what's making it feel a bit hyperactive. There's a switch on the centre console which will allow you to change the Drive mode to Comfort or Normal. Try that to see if it tames the gearbox's behaviour.