2020 Kia Forte GT 6MT Maintenance/Build Thread: Into The Unknown

Tony 

The service aspect is a serious concern of mine. The car has a great warranty, but what good is it if the dealers in my area don't stand by it? We have been doing business with the dealer group's Mazda store which is literally next door to the Kia store, and they have been absolutely phenomenal. They even gave my wife some free oil changes and other services during this pandemic since she works in the healthcare industry. Oil changes were on Mazda due to a promotion (great move Mazda, BTW!), but they did some other stuff, including a set of tires. I'm hoping the experience at their Kia store is similar. 

Hopefully, your experience will be similar to mine. My wife (girlfriend at the time) had a 2011 Forte EX since new, and to my surprise, the service we received at All Star Kia in Baton Rouge was outstanding! For minor service (oil changes, etc.) we were in and out in no time, and if they were running behind schedule or doing any of the standard interval maintenance, they'd give her a loaner without us even having to ask. They also gave her a set of tires at no charge, which I don't believe was covered in the warranty. 

In the 115k miles she had the car for, we never had any major issues pop up. The only thing that ever had to be addressed was the canister purge control solenoid, which I replaced  myself a month before she got a new car because it was just out of warranty.

As I mentioned before, I was shocked at both the quality and service due my prior view of Kias that were based on their early 2000s models. I was seriously considering a 2020 Hyundai Veloster Turbo R-Spec earlier this year but ultimately ended up getting an older (2008) low mileage BMW 335i because it was a smoking deal.

I was curious and looked at the website - this is a rare creature....

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

I didn't even know it existed until I started looking into new daily drivers a few months ago. As a guy who feels like he's in tune with all things cars, I was shocked to find something I missed. Other than the DCT model I saw at the dealer when I bought mine, I haven't seen another one on the road. I have a feeling like Kia would sell more of these if they actually told people they existed.

Tony Sestito said:

-Power delivery in Sport mode is kinda weird. It's kind of like riding a jerky wave. I haven't found the boost sweet spot, and it seems to come on at different times in different gears. It's different than other boosted stuff I've had in the past. When you catch it just right, it's a blast. That boost wave is all over toward the top of the tach, though; it falls off above 6k. I would imagine a tune would remedy this and smooth things out.

 Presumably the 2019+ 1.6L manual turbo cars all have the same tune.  Its in a constant state of increasing powering, hitting a threshold, and throttling it back.  Watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsMM8LZ9mW4

In reply to ProDarwin :

Yup, that's exactly what I'm feeling. The peaks and drops on the chart make sense.

So, I may have found a super cheap "too good to be true" mod that people that have the 1.6T cars keep saying to do: replacing the intercooler noise suppressor/resonator with a straight pipe. 



The claim: The hot side intercooler pipe has a little resonator on it. You replace it with a straight pipe, and you get 10-15WHP. Takes about 5 minutes and under $30.

I think someone on here mentioned they did it. Did it actually do anything? My guess is it does absolutely nothing, but if $30 and 5 minutes nets 10-15WHP, sign me up for that newsletter!
 

That was me.

It was the first thing I did on mine and I didn't notice any difference, though I was new enough to the car that I may not have anyway. I just used a piece of 2" tubing and two new clamps.

I watched that video. It sounds like they've not figured out a way to tune that torque management out? That shows you just how much difference an intake and exhaust makes on these cars. I'm glad mine doesn't behave like that. I have a 3" down pipe to install then I'll do the rear section of the exhaust then we'll tune it. HP tuners supports it now.

In reply to Peabody :

If I heard it right on the video, it sounded like they were losing power when installing an intake and exhaust because of the tuning. As soon as it saw boost, it backed off. Those peaks and valleys are annoying, but I am hoping tuners figure it out eventually. 

My understanding is they can tune it out, but that video was an attempt to get to the car to respond to intake/exhaust bolt ons without messing with the ECU. 

~250whp from a tune, intake and exhaust seems to be the going results:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RIks7Qp_CM

https://www.lap3usa.com/product-page/lap3-ecu-tune-for-hyundai-veloster-turbo-1-6t-gdi

I don't know if the tunes take care of the intrusive stability control you can't defeat.

RE: Intercooler pipe, this is what Tork lists on their website:  "Note: For the 2nd gen Veloster your gains will be only be from 0-5whp" followed by tuning reasoning.  (2nd gen = 2019+).  So yeah, looks like again, it does nothing.

I didn't catch that the video was a couple years old. He did say that they're trying to figure out the tune.

What's happening in the video is that the stock tune, what he calls torque management, is pulling power based on excessive air flow. When they put the aftermarket parts on, the airflow increased so much (that's a good thing), the torque management pulls power even more aggressively resulting in the huge drop in power.

Interesting.  In my 2012 Sonic you can feel the boost peaking and surging when you go WOT; I think the reasoning everyone gave was to keep the torque under a certain point to extend the life of the transaxle.

250 whp out of a tune and bolt ons?  That's fairly impressive for a 1.6.

I have one of those too and feel the same thing. They do all kinds of things these days to make turbo cars not feel like turbo cars. 

The Sonic is overdue for a tune. 

I don't plan on doing a tune anytime soon with the car so new, but I will likely do one later. I'm hoping cars with this engine catch on a bit more so some of the bigger tuning companies (like Cobb) will release some tuning tools that are more accessible and affordable. The car is plenty of fun for a DD as it is.

HP tuners now supports mine. Yours probably isn’t much different 

I just bought a 2021 GT with the DTC last month. Its a lot of fun! Best tank is 33.4mpg mostly HWY, the computer estimated about 38. 

In reply to Jon883 :

Nice, hope you enjoy it!

Yes, the fuel computer is very optimistic. I've found mine to be about 3mpg high each tank so far.

It's been a while since I posted in here. I guess that's a good thing?

So, the car crested 4k miles. So far, so good, but we are approaching it's first oil change service. Kia recommends service at 6k and, as far as I can tell, to use dino oil. I don't like that for various reasons:

-Dino oil in a small, turbocharged and direct injected performance engine? Really?

-6k interval on dino oil is a bit stretched, especially on a DI Turbo engine

-Getting the dealer to do synthetic means a crazy price tag ($85+ at the dealer) and I don't get to choose what goes in it

So, I've decided that just like my previous daily driver, I'll be doing the oil changes. Not a big deal. To keep things easy, I'll be doing them every 5K miles. And since it's under warranty, I'll be documenting everything meticulously like I did with the car before this one while it was still under warranty, just in case. I'll also be using Kia oil filters, so at least the dealer will get my money for those. Haven't decided whether I will go with Rotella 5W40 T6 like I did with previous turbocharged cars, but that's on the table, since that stuff always treated me well. I'll probably just go with some quality synthetic that meets the factory requirements to start.

And of course, just like I did with the Mazda, I'll document the process here since the Kia sites/groups are pretty much useless. A quick glance over on the Kia forums resulted in about 20 people arguing about what oil viscosity means. 

There's many reasons why I'm no longer part of the Forte Forums and the most minor is  because I was banned for calling out their stupidity.

I'd stick with the 5W20 in synthetic form of your choosing unless you're seeing pressure drop or engine noise.

I have probably mentioned this before but... I found oil changes to be much more annoying in the 1.6T vs. previous cars.  The drain plug is on the front of the oil plan so if you drive it up on ramps you won't be able to drain all the oil out.  Also, it will run back down the pan before dripping off and go all over the undertray.  You need to lift up the back of the car also.

Adding to the fun, there is no front or rear center jack point on the car.

ProDarwin said:

I have probably mentioned this before but... I found oil changes to be much more annoying in the 1.6T vs. previous cars.  The drain plug is on the front of the oil plan so if you drive it up on ramps you won't be able to drain all the oil out.  Also, it will run back down the pan before dripping off and go all over the undertray.  You need to lift up the back of the car also.

Adding to the fun, there is no front or rear center jack point on the car.

Well, that is dumb. Might have to schedule some lift time at a friend's place to do it. I also have a slight decline in the driveway, so when it's up on ramps, it's basically level, so this may not be much of an issue. We'll see.

bobzilla said:

There's many reasons why I'm no longer part of the Forte Forums and the most minor is  because I was banned for calling out their stupidity.

Had to quote that, it made me LOL 

I'll add my 2 cents. I've put 30k (KM) on mine since May and still very happy with it.

We have a decent local FB group for the Korean cars. Lot's of available stupidity on there too, but they do a good job of keeping it to a minimum.

H/K classify all Canadian cars as severe usage due to weather, which is silly, but that's what they do. I think the severe recommendation for mine is oil change every 6500 KM and I do it because oil is cheap, and use 5W30. But I heard from one of the Hyundai techs in our group that there was a TSB recommending 5W40 for the 1.6T and a lot of the group uses it. The OEM filters are expensive here as the dealer is pretty much the only place to get them, so I use the Mann filters from Rock auto which work out to less than half price and they ARE the OEM filter.

To change the oil I jack it up on the driver's side frame just behind the front wheel, put a stand under while I take the drain bolt out then pull the stand and drop the jack down until it's finished draining.

When I bought my car the dealer told me if I got my oil changed there, and it wasn't expensive, they offered a lifetime warranty on the engine.  The dealer's too far away, and I wouldn't trust them to honour it anyway

In reply to Tony Sestito :

(Cough) Redline Oil, (Cough)... :)

In reply to Pushrod :

I like Redline, especially their trans/gear oils, but no one around here sells it, so I'd have to order it online. For engine oil, I usually stick with Castrol Edge or Rotella synthetic on high performance stuff, since it's readily available, cheap, and it works great. If neither one of my WRX's (one of them heavily modded) blew up while driving them the way I did, then they must be doing something right! 

In reply to Peabody :

Ya know, I was wondering who made Kia/Hyundai filters. Mann makes a great one. Good to know.