Shaky Head-Up Display Prompts First Service for Our Genesis G70

Two months after its purchase, Cars.com’s latest long-term test vehicle — the all-new 2019 Genesis G70 sports sedan we named our Best of 2019 car — had its first trip to the dealer. Our test car’s head-up display, a feature included in the Prestige trim level we own that projects vehicle speed and other essential information on the windshield in front of the driver, spurred the inaugural visit: On bumpy roads and even during vehicle startup, the projection vibrates noticeably, enough to appear blurry in some instances.

Related: Genesis Serviced Our G70 Without Us Going to the Dealership

Few other owners have evidently reported the same problem, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hadn’t posted any owner complaints or manufacturer communications on the G70 yet as of this writing. Then again, G70 sales have begun at a trickle, and the G70’s two lowest trims don’t offer the HUD, so it’s possible that few owners even have the feature.

Naturally, the problem gave us a chance to explore Genesis’ Service Valet (more on that in a separate story), which swapped our G70 for a Genesis G80 loaner at Cars.com’s downtown Chicago offices one chilly Friday morning.

The same afternoon, the dealership called with a diagnosis.

The service representative confirmed our observations — the G70’s HUD moves back and forth, especially over bumpy roads — but couldn’t alter anything to get it to stop. After driving several other G70s on the lot with HUDs that exhibited the same shimmying, he ruled it as an inherent characteristic of the car.

That prognosis didn’t align with Genesis’ explanation. Asked about the problem, spokesman Kevin Smith told Cars.com in an email that the shaky HUD “looks like the vendor had some issue with early production parts. Some retention clips were bent during HUD assembly. You cannot repair (bend the clips), so you will have to replace the complete HUD assembly.”

More From Cars.com:

• Best of 2019
• 2019 Genesis G70 Review: A Delightful Sports Sedan
• 2019 Genesis G70, G80, G90 Earn Top Safety Scores Under New Standards
• Genesis G70 Video: Get Over Your Biases, It Really Is That Good
• How the 2019 Genesis G70 Saves Date Night

We’ve observed the same problem in a preproduction example of the Kia Stinger, a platform sibling to the G70 (Kia and Genesis are both under Hyundai-Kia), but Kia officials told us at the time that it was a known issue and would be fixed by production time. In a production Stinger later on, we didn’t observe any shakiness.

Smith advised we send our G70 back to the dealer to get the HUD replaced, and we plan to do just that. Stay tuned.

Update: On March 1, 2019, our dealer fixed the head-up display in our G70. Go here to read more.

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