The main reason im here is because there is a really simple solution. This applies to ALL year Tiburons from 2003-2008. 2.0L or 2.7. To start, Hyundai made it so the Tiburon would be easy for newbie clutch users. It has a slight, "delay" on every shift. This delay significantly wears the clutch friction disc, which in turn wipes the clutch out prematurely. Doesn't matter if you are a long time manual driver or not. The reason my Tiburon only got 98K on the clock before a clutch failure, is because at 20K ( got the car when it was a year and a half old), I inspected my clutch thinking something was off, in that the clutch felt "Lazy".. like it was taking too long to engage. I've driven a half dozen cars with manual transmissions that never engaged like this. What I discovered, is there is this tiny little, (round, with a small hole in it) $6.00 part, along with a spring inside the clutch slave cylinder. They are pretty easy to remove, and it changes the clutch attitude completely. The clutch action becomes INSTANT, no slipping whatsoever, improves acceleration and makes the car more fun to drive. And more importantly, far more reliable. The problem is solvable early on, but if the car has the delay valve and spring left in for too long, the clutch becomes irreparably damaged due to the massive slipping. If you have to replace the clutch, REMOVE THE DELAY VALVE and SPRING out of the clutch slave cylinder and your clutch will last a long time! Had I bought the car new, Id have pulled those 2 parts out, and im pretty sure Id be driving on the original clutch today. Car is currently at 142K with 44K on the new clutch. No issues.

At about 28,000 miles the clutch started acting up and got progressively worst. Now at 32,000 miles very difficult to get the car into the gears. 28,000 miles seems to be low mileage for clutch problems. I spoke with other Tiburon owners and they are having similar problems. My Hyundai dealer said that it must be the way the car is driven and quoted me $2,200 to fix it. It they put the same parts in it I am afraid I will have the same problem again. This problem seems to me to be a defect in design that should be taken care of by Hyundai. Another problem is the paint on the plastic parts. They are either phased of the paint is flaking off like from the spoiler, bumber and side exterior vents.

I also had problems with the clutch slipping but it was not a problem that was noticed gradually. I drove the car the night before and everything was fine. The next morning I left and the clutch began slipping with moderate acceleration. You could baby the accelerator and work through the gears normally but with the slightest bit of push the clutch would slip in every gear. I have a 5 speed. The dealer tried to say that it was not covered under warranty but they ended up covering the replacement after much discussion. There is no reason why this should have occurred but I have had no problems since then. I now just crossed 60,000 miles and everything has been great. The only other repairs I have had is a MAF sensor and now the ECM today actually. If you notice a slight hesitation while at a steady speed, occurring very rarely, you may need to have your ECM checked.