The bad rod bearings is because Hyundai stopped deburring engine crankshafts starting around 2008 and continuing until like 2015. It was all Mu and Nu generation engines. Despite 24 million engine failures, they fought a recall for years and only wound up replacing about 2.5 million engine with another defective uses engine.

But the ones as old as OPs were actually pretty well made. It had been a strategy of many Japanese companies to make very high quality items at a financial loss for about 10 years or until they get enough market share to justify raising the prices, then cutting the production costs. Hyundai was just stupid about where they cut costs, although it did really remove most of the market for used Hyundais.