Most recalls are pretty boring. I sift through a large number of recall reports for my job here at The Autopian, and many of them—these days, at least—are software-related bugs that can be fixed with a simple update.
Sometimes, though, recalls can be a fascinating window into the world of car design. Faults or malfunctions that no one could have anticipated are uncovered due to a combination of parts that no one ever thought to test together.
That’s exactly what’s happened here, going by this recall from Genesis. The company’s big-boy G90 sedan has been recalled due to a phantom braking fault in its assisted driving software. But the problem only occurs in cars painted a specific shade of silver.
It’s All In the Reflections
Hyundai, Genesis’ parent company, began tracking this issue earlier this year when it started getting reports of phantom braking from owners. Specifically, the car was hitting the brakes on its own when the driver tried to get the car to change lanes at low speeds, even if there wasn’t a car in the adjacent lane. From the report:
The subject vehicles are equipped with Highway Drive Assist (“HDA”), an advanced driving assistance system that allows semi-autonomous driving on limited-access highways with continuous, direct supervision by the driver. The vehicles may falsely detect another vehicle entering its lane of travel and apply the brakes without warning when HDA is enabled at speeds below approximately 12mph or when HDA is enabled along with the Lane Change Assist (“LCA”) feature, activated by the driver moving the turn signal lever to the desired direction to change lanes.
Even at 12 mph, a sudden application of the brakes still creates a dangerous situation. Not only is it jarring for the driver, but the unexpected stoppage of movement in traffic could cause a rear-end collision from the car behind.
It wasn’t a faulty sensor or rogue software that was causing the issue, as is the case with a lot of these phantom braking incidents. Hyundai soon discovered that the aluminum used in its Savile Silver paint was screwing up the radars in its front bumper:
For vehicles in the Savile Silver exterior color, the front corner radar signals may reflect off the Aluminum content in the silver bumper cover paint and pass through the front bumper beam. These signals may be registered as an object in the opposing lane and can potentially affect Highway Driving Assist (HDA) operation.
In the grand scheme of recalls, this is pretty funny. This is basically the equivalent of an animal seeing itself in the mirror and scaring the bejeezus out of itself.
So What’s The Fix?
Replacing the paint with a version that’s not mixed with aluminum is the most obvious answer, but it’s definitely not cheap. You can’t just repaint the bumper cover, because it would look different than the rest of the car without that aluminum flake. So you’d have to repaint the entire car.
Instead, Hyundai is taking a more clever approach. Affected models will have their bumper beams—that is, the metal bars that hide beneath the painted bumper covers—replaced with a version that’s been “sealed to prevent radar transmission through the structure.”
Once Hyundai learned the Savile Silver paint was the issue, it stopped using it on production cars (the paint is available on much of its lineup). But once this new sealed bumper beam is incorporated into production, it’ll restart. So if your silver G90 on order is delayed, now you know why. Current owners should be getting notified about the fix at the end of next month.
Thankfully, there have been no reported crashes or injuries related to this issue. It would be pretty embarrassing to have to tell your body shop the car scared itself into getting rear-ended.
Top graphic image: Genesis
I think we now need a test to see if the Savile Silver cars are readable by police radar guns
There’s an obvious fix here: car bra! Cheap and classy solve.
Anyone who says cars need more electronic crap can take a long walk off a short pier.
Aluminum is often used as Chaff to distract missiles. I guess this particular blend of paint, if sprayed, could help shake an S-300 off you…
Not on my list of top 100 things to look at to solve the mystery. I give a lot of credit to the investigative engineer who sat back, looked at the problem, and went ‘ah shit, it’s the paint’.
I guaranty there’s been at least 1 engineer screaming for months or years that that paint would break the radars but nobody would listen to them.
Silver cars should be recalled because it’s a stupid color LOL
Only good thing about it is that it sort of hides to-the-metal scratches, unless the metal starts rusting
Like how Premier Cruise Lines used to paint their hulls red to hide rust streaks
Hides dirt better than white or black, in my experience, and certainly more pleasant to look at than some greys.
Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t have more colorful cars out there.
So blinders, just like a horse. How ironic.
that’s an interesting fix, surprised they could not filter out false positives via a software update.
It reminds me of the early days of developing an industrial autonomous vehicle (yard hostler) and resolving false hits due to lighting. At work, the AV would not back to the trailer to connect to the kingpin and reported a stop for an obstacle. Ends up, it was a lighting issue – the sun was hitting the LIDAR from a low angle and all I had to do was stand in the sun to create a shadow on the LIDAR and the AV moved on its own again. LIDAR hit filtering via SW was the long term fix on that one.
Being a H/K product, I was honestly expecting the fix to be a can of black spray paint. But real name brand Rustoleum, not the generic stuff, because it’s a luxury car.
Somehow, I was expecting some sort of vinyl appliqué in a strategic spot that would end up looking like eye black
Or some bolt-on item from the pep boys accessory aisle.
That’s what I came to say. I’ll see myself out.
I was thinking they’d just give your car back with an unpainted black eBay bumper cover. Befitting of Hyundai-Kia indeed…
Yet another reason to distrust tech that takes the wheel out of your hands.
Ever have a girlfriend on shrooms? Yeah, same effect.
Stopping silver? Oh no I hope they don’t have to paint cars actual colors now.
Where does this rank in the list of weirdest reasons for a recall?
…Somewhere behind the mazda spiders recall. The one where webs in the gas tank would cause spillage and fires.