Hyundai Elantra Gt
Problems & Worst Years

Door latches, not the engine, are what set the 2017 Hyundai Elantra GT apart from every other year in this file. That model year pulls in 387 complaints — more than four times any other Elantra GT year — and the top three problem titles all describe the same basic failure in different words: doors that won't unlock or open (104 reports), latch malfunctions (87 reports), and driver or rear doors that simply refuse to open (66 reports), two of which carry NHTSA's safety-severity tag. Engine stalling during operation adds another 51 reports to that same year, also flagged for safety, with electrical faults affecting headlights and brake lights contributing 28 more.

Earlier and later years tell a more familiar Hyundai story: an engine that stalls at idle or under load. The 2015 model (78 complaints) mixes stop-start-related stalling with an unintended acceleration and airbag deployment complaint carrying a safety flag. The 2016 model is the year with the highest safety-severity count relative to its size — 4 of 11 logged problems — driven by oil consumption serious enough to cause engine failure (19 reports) and knocking paired with misfire (17 reports), both rated safety-critical, plus an airbag malfunction (10 reports). By 2019, with 105 complaints, the pattern shifts toward electrical rather than mechanical failure: high beam headlights not working accounts for 36 reports on its own, though engine stalling and oil-related seizure still show up repeatedly. The most recent year in this data, 2020, drops to 89 complaints spread more evenly across stalling, transmission failure during driving (12 reports), and a smaller suspension failure complaint tied to loss of control (6 reports).

No recall campaigns appear anywhere in this model's data, across any of the five years tracked, so nothing here comes with a manufacturer-issued fix already in place. Given how concentrated the 2017 door-latch problem is, that year deserves the closest scrutiny of any latch mechanism and door operation during a test drive. As always, these are complaints owners chose to file, not a lab-measured failure rate, and a car's actual condition depends far more on its service history and a mechanic's inspection than on which year it happens to carry.