What do you do when the brakes on your brand-new SUV — the one you bought to keep your family safe — suddenly stop working, not once, but twice? And the model also happens to be facing a massive recall triggered by a child’s shocking death?
Last October, a dad near Peterborough, Ont., sold his sporty Mercedes to purchase one of the most highly rated SUVs on the market: the 2026 Hyundai Palisade Hybrid Ultimate Calligraphy, which was widely promoted as a “top safety pick” for its advanced technology and 10 airbags.
The idea that this vehicle would protect his wife and four-year-old child took the sting out of the lease agreement, which totalled more than $75,000.
That confidence faded within just a few months.
“My wife has trauma,” Zvonimir Petak told me in a phone call on April 7. “She cannot drive that car. She tried. She’s scared. And I don’t want her to.”
The Problem: Brake failures, a tragic recall and a wall of red tape
In January, the Petaks had taken their new car to Costco for a grocery run when the rear power-folding seats crushed part of their haul.
That same month, the braking system failed.
“The brake pedal was fully pressed, but there was no response and the vehicle did not slow down,” Petak explained in an April 6 email. “To avoid a collision, I was forced to steer into a snowbank to stop.”
Peterborough Hyundai, which sold Petak the vehicle, arranged a rental while it investigated.
When the family picked up their Palisade following the repairs, they remained nervous.
Just three days earlier, on March 13, Hyundai Motor North America issued an urgent “stop sale” and safety recall for more than 69,000 Palisade models in the U.S. and Canada, specifically the Limited and Calligraphy trims, which have power-folding rear seats.
The manufacturer’s statement acknowledged a “tragic incident” that claimed a child’s life and noted the vehicles’ second- and third-row seats “may not adequately detect contact with an occupant or object as intended.”
On March 7, in Akron, Ohio, a two-year-old girl died while sitting in the vehicle’s third row when a touch button activated the seat’s power-folding function. The vehicle was parked outside a shopping outlet. Another child and an adult were in the SUV at the time. Unlike a garage door that stops and reverses when it detects an object, the Palisade model’s “ultrasonic” sensors did not detect the child’s weight or signal the seat to stop folding in on itself.
Petak said the dealership returned his vehicle as “safe,” but when he typed his car’s VIN number into the manufacturer’s website to check its recall status, the software update required for this problem was listed as “incomplete.”
The family’s concerns peaked when the brakes failed a second time while his wife was pulling up to their son’s daycare for drop-off in late March.
A tow truck brought the Palisade back to the dealership.
When Petak reached out to me on April 6, he said the Palisade had been out of service for more than 60 days.
Petak’s pleas to the federal regulator and the Canadian Motor Vehicle Arbitration Plan (CAMVAP) — the industry-funded arbitration body — hit a wall.
An agent with CAMVAP told Petak there were “two reasons” they couldn’t help.
“We cannot accept a claim when the vehicle has an open recall of ANY KIND, relating to the defect or not,” the agent’s email stated. “Once the recalls have been completed and you still have the same defect, you can then reapply.”
The agent’s email added: “The vehicle is repaired and you have open recalls, and therefore at this time you do not qualify for CAMVAP.”
The organization’s most recent annual report suggests its arbitration proceedings favour consumers, but I’ll take a closer look at CAMVAP’s data in a future column.
Transport Canada acknowledged receipt of a complaint Petak filed in early March about the SUV’s braking system. The government’s emailed reply included a confirmation number and a warning that he most likely wouldn’t hear back from anyone as it fielded a high volume of complaints.
The Star steps in: ‘I think I’m really stuck,’ dad says in plea for help
One of the big questions I ask consumers who need help is this: What’s your goal, your best-cast scenario?
You’d be surprised how difficult it is for some people to articulate this, but Petak’s answer came quickly.
“Make everybody safe.”
Nice, but think less Canadian, I urged.
He was five months into a lease contract that obligated him to pay roughly $530 biweekly for five years. At an annualized lease rate of 6.99 per cent, that’s a huge financial drain for a car neither he nor his wife felt safe driving.
While CAMVAP has the legal authority to order manufacturers that participate in its program (Hyundai included) to buy back new and leased vehicles in Ontario, such orders are infrequent.
Hyundai Canada did not respond to my request for comment on whether the company had advised dealerships to offer buybacks to Palisade customers impacted by the recall.
A Hyundai Motor North America spokesperson’s April 20 email noted the company “finalized the remedy” for its recall with a software update “designed to improve operational logic and enhance occupant and object detection.” The stop-sale order has been lifted in vehicles that have received this update but the recall remains in effect and Hyundai has updated its owners’ manual to explain the changes.
When Petak reached out to me, he was still trying to get a complete set of records from the dealership detailing the work performed on the Palisade and an explanation for why staff were telling him the recalls were cleared when the manufacturer’s website clearly stated the opposite.
“I think I’m really stuck and I don’t know how to proceed,” Petak said during a call with me on April 7.
I reached out to the dealership’s general manager by email, looking for answers and a way forward.
The resolution: ‘Feelings’ for the win
While Petak didn’t have all of the records he wanted, he did have a series of polite, detailed emails to government, CAMVAP and the Peterborough Hyundai dealership that documented his hardships and failed attempts to get answers.
“More than ever, new vehicles represent a massive investment for consumers and they should feel confident while driving,” I wrote in an email to the dealership on April 13, noting that I had reviewed Petak’s digital paper trail. “Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for the Petak family but I think you can help change that.”
Two days later, Shawn Yarrow, vice-president of fixed operations for The 401 Group of Companies, which owns Peterborough Hyundai, reached out by email.
“As an organization that is dedicated to their customers, we did our utmost to address the concerns of the client,” he wrote. “While we are very confident that the vehicle is fixed correctly and absolutely safe to drive, the client’s feelings are what is most important to us … We agreed, in the interest of the client, to repurchase the vehicle.”
Bravo.
Petak’s experience is a good reminder that all car buyers should be keeping their VIN number handy and using it to check manufacturers’ websites regularly for information about recalls and to confirm their completion.
Out of curiosity, I searched Hyundai Canada’s website just before this column went to press to see whether the recall status on Petak’s former Palisade had changed.
As of Friday, April 24, Recall 0304 to fix the “safety risk” of “a seat that doesn’t stop moving” was still listed as “incomplete.”
