Assist problems of the 2025 Hyundai Santa Fe

I am submitting a second and more urgent safety complaint regarding the driver monitoring and driver assistance systems in my vehicle. I previously reported this same core defect: the system falsely fails to recognize my face, sounds repeated warnings, and disables driving assistance while the vehicle is moving. Despite that prior complaint, the defect remains, and the seriousness of the danger has clearly not been recognized or addressed. This defect has now placed my life in immediate danger. While I was driving, the system falsely determined that it could not properly see my face. It sounded repeated warnings and then abruptly disabled driving assistance. That sudden withdrawal of assistance created a near-crash situation. I was attentive and was not experiencing a medical emergency. The danger was created by the system’s false detection and defective response. A safety system should reduce danger. This system detected a supposed problem and made the situation more dangerous by removing the assistance that was helping keep the vehicle under control. Had this occurred beside a concrete barrier, near stopped traffic, in a construction zone, on a curve, or next to a large truck, the result could have been a fatal collision. I could have been killed because of this system defect. When a driver cannot be verified, the vehicle should maintain lane control, reduce speed, activate hazard warnings, and perform a controlled safe stop. It should never abruptly withdraw assistance and create a more dangerous condition. I request that NHTSA investigate why a previously reported life-threatening defect remains unresolved and require Hyundai to correct this system logic before someone is seriously injured or killed.

The driver assistance warning system continuosly goes into shutdown mode. Eye monitoring system always states that you are not keeping your eyes on the road. I have tried using different glasses or no glasses. Changing the steering wheel settings also seem to have no effect. This is very dangerous as it will start decelerating and stopping in the middle of a freeway in heavy traffic when this warning is activated. This only happens with the lane keeping assistance and adaptive cruise control are on. Hyundai issued technical service bulletin 25-gi-001h, but they did not solve the problem.

The “consider taking a break” warning comes on far too much and has almost made me wreck twice due to being startled.

Consistently after 10-20 minutes of driving with steering assist or immediately upon driving on cold days (under 50f), the steering wheel generates loud squeaking noises with the steering wheel stiffening and becoming harder to turn, creating a potential safety issue. The change is gradual but required a full stop of the car, shutdown, and restart to remedy. This issue has persisted for months and other Hyundai owners have shared the issue on various forums with Hyundai’s solution to replace the full steering column in some instances. Many owners seem to not be able to get help as dealers are not able to easily replicate this issue without lengthy drives.