Commenters suggest the tow truck driving yanked hard instead of a gradual pull. Regardless, the failed welds speak for themselves.
Should Hyundai Genesis G70 owners be concerned? According to photos and a customer complaint shared by a Genesis parts department worker, a Genesis G70 owner, stuck in the snow, attached his stock tow hook per the owner’s manual’s instructions and, when the tow driver attempted to tow their G70 out, yanked where the tow hook threads into clear from the front frame.
Check out the shocking photos for yourself below
“Must be faulty welds on the Genesis’ parts, guys!” he captioned his photos. “Totally didn’t incorrectly tow the vehicle like a slingshot.”
A quick glance of the photos reveals what looks like that aforementioned failed weld area.
“Was stuck in the back alley,” the customer complaint reads. ” So, did the car guide booklet thing? (sic) That showed you have a tow place for the Genesis and was back in the trunk. Screwed it into the front end for a tow, and the whole thing ripped right out.”
In other words, the customer did exactly what his owner’s manual wanted him to do and used the stock tow hook, threaded into the right place, to tow his stuck G70 out.
The customer is right, for once? It seems so.
While, given a strong enough yank, any tow hook will rip right off the frame, that’s not the point here.
As many in the posts comments point out, “the parent metal should fail before the welds.”
Honestly, I’m not sure exactly why that’s the case but, according to a quick search on Reddit, since the weld metals are often stronger than what’s car frames are made of, the welds themselves have stronger properties than the material on which it’s applied to.
A search on NHTSA’s website show’s no G70 tow-hook related recalls and searches on Car Complaints and the most popular Genesis forums brings up similar results, or the lack thereof so, at first glance, this looks like an isolated incident.
Regardless, it’s worth a blog post and for future reference if another Genesis owner comes up on a similar issue.
Worrying about half the front end of your car shearing off when towing your car out should be the least of your worries when you’re stuck.
Do you think this Genesis just came with spotty welding from the factory, or is something else to blame?
Let me know your .02 in the comments below.
