In reply to Peabody :
Yeah, I've never been a big "intake guy" on cars like this. The factory stuff does a good enough job for me honestly. I may do the intercooler muffler delete thing, but that's the extent of mods this will likely receive. I need at least one reliable vehicle in the fleet!
Well, I wanted the extra power without all the noise. I've done it on other cars, but it just didn't work out on this one.
I hated the noise, but I hated it less than I liked the way it pulled hard past 6k...
A piece of 2" exh tubing in place if it works just fine. I think I used a piece of 2" electrical conduit
This week marks 2 years with the Forte GT. That went by quick!
So far, I've put 26k miles on it. I'm averaging 28mpg, with the best tank getting 35mpg and the worst getting 25mpg. All I have done is general maintenance so far. It's been a fantastic daily driver so far and blown away my expectations. Only issue I've had was with the key fobs, and it turns out it was the batteries I used. Swapped them out and it's been fine since.
For its "anniversary", I decided to give it a little detail.
While I trotted out the entire arsenal, I ended up only using the compounds and the ceramic wax with the appropriate pads. The paint on this car is my only complaint about it. It's really thin, and chips/scratches easy. There are a ton of scratches on weird areas from cleaning off bugs and bird poop. This is what the hood looked like:
And after:
While it doesn't look like a drastic difference, the amount of scratches and swirls up close are nearly gone now. There were a few heavy scratches that have been annoying me for a while that came right out with the buffer.
And more beauty shots:
I still love the looks of this car. And I still don't regret the purchase. I can't believe a Kia is this good.
With winter coming soon, I've been thinking about my winter tire setup. Last season, I ran the 16" steelies from my Mazda 3.
As winter went on, the awful cleaning and paint job I did with the wheels started taking its toll, and when the salt hit the wheels, they got crusty again instantly. The tires themselves felt a bit lumpy, and although they have decent tread left, I think they need to be replaced. While I'd still like to find larger wheels due to the clearances being so tight with the brakes, finding the correct size, bolt pattern, and offset to fit the car has been tough on the used market. Plus, 16" winter tires are cheaper anyway. 
That said, I need to find a good way to strip these old steelies for a proper repaint. Last year, I bought a Harbor Freight sandblasting kit:
I don't know what I was doing wrong, but this thing was awful. Media would only dribble out of the gun when hooked up to the compressor, so I'm going to take another look at seeing if the issue was the kit or the dummy using it. I think if I can get the steelies clean enough to paint the right way, I'll just run them again with fresh tires unless a decent set of 17" 5x114.3 wheels falls in my lap with the correct hub bore and offset.
Do the stock 17" alloys from a Mazda3 fit? Same bolt pattern and your steelies fit so they might. I have a set that even has half worn Altimax Arctics on them. They are useless to me now that that car was converted to Lemons duty. I'll be heading to the NHMS race and will let them go quite cheap to help out another GRMer.
In reply to Sonic :
I believe they do fit. I know the "Kia Boyz" love buying the 19" Mazda 6 wheels as well, and they are the same as the 3 as far as offset, bolt pattern, and hub bore. If you have any pics/details, shoot them over via PM. I am probably not going to the race this year, but I think my friends with Nuthin' But A Z Thang will be up there.
I just scored a set of 17x7.5 Drag DR34 wheels locally for the car on the very cheap. These or the Enkei EKM3's were the exact wheels I wanted for winter duty, since they are close to the stock wheels. Seller works at a used car dealer and they came in on a 2018 WRX with Hankook winter tires on them. He wanted to sell the car with stock Subaru wheels, and he was sick of tripping over these in their storage unit, so I snagged them. The tires are decent, but two of them had some strange wear on the inside, like they were on the front of the car and the car had terrible alignment specs. Haven't decided whether I'm going to buy a couple tires to match or just throw them on the back.
Sonic, still might be interested in the Mazda wheels, even just for the tires.
So, a little more about those wheels...
Honestly, I bought the wheels for the wheels, but I was hoping to use the tires. At first glance, they looked good with decent tread, but after some careful examination, I noticed a few issues:
That inner wear mentioned in the above post is less than good. It's uneven, and on two tires.
I also noticed this:
That's a sizeable bubble in the sidewall. And to add insult to injury, this tire had a very large chunk of metal in the tread; so large that I can't believe that it's holding air. Junk.
On top of all that, the date codes make these tires 9 years old, and they don't make them anymore, so I can't even buy a matching pair to replace those two bad tires. Also, the size (235/45/17) is a bit wide for winters on this car; I'd rather a 205/50/17 which will just about match overall diameter. Pizza cutters are better in the snow.
So, I poked around the internet today and found a killer deal on some new Michelin X-Ice Snow tires in 205/50/17. They are at the bottom of the acceptable level for a 17x7.5 width wheel, but that's ok. They were the same price after discounts as some no-name tires I was looking at. I'm still ahead of the game, since I got this set for the cost of what one of these wheels goes for new. Can't wait to see how they do this winter!
New winter tires acquired (don't worry, there are 4 of them):
These things are CHUNKY. A harder compound could totally pass for an all-terrain tire with this tread depth and side siping. They are some of the only winter tires I've seen that actually carry a treadwear warranty, which in this case is 40k miles. Can't wait to get them on the wheels; they are supposed to be magical in the snow and ice.
Speaking of which:
Spent a little time cleaning these up. The machined lips were corroded on all of the wheels, but I was able to clean them up to be "good enough" for winter duty with some steel wool, metal polish, and elbow grease. The wheels are by no means perfect, but there's no curbing or anything like that. They will be perfect for winter duty. Also acquired new hubcentric rings and I'll be picking up some tuner-style lug nuts for these that will fit better than the stock ones.
Looks good. I ran 205/50 on the first gen big block Forte for winter. they worked well. Is your TCS better than he older gen? I ask because in hte first gen it would kill the car trying to get out of a snowbank or crappy road. The Rio isn't much better, but at least keeps the engine running-ish.
In reply to bobzilla :
TCS in this car seems ok, but I usually shut that off when doing winter driving. Gives the tires the chance to grab better. It's definitely better than the TCS in my old Mazda 3, which shut things down completely at the tiniest hint of slippage.
The weather has definitely taken a turn here in New England. Last weekend, it was 75 and sunny, and this weekend, the low temps are in the teens! So, I figured it was time to swap the winters onto the Kia. And boy, I'm glad I did.
Over the past few weeks, I've noticed the font end felt a little darty, especially on the highway. And yeah, this might be why:
Both front tires were completely wiped out on the inside. Much like my old Mazda 3, alignment on these is a bit aggressive up front, so this isn't a surprise. I'll have to replace these things in the spring. They only have about 25k on them, and yes, they have been rotated. About right for OEM tires on a FWD performance car.
But back to the winter wheels and tires... how do they fit?
Before I got the tires mounted, I did toss one on the car quick to check caliper clearance. As you can see here, they have plenty of room. Where I had only a few millimeters before with the 16's, I have much more room with the 17's. They have a 45mm offset, where the factory 18's are a 55mm, so they do stick out a little further. But they are basically flush with the wheel wells.
The only thing I don't like are how far out the spokes stick. This wheel design bows them out a bit for some reason. The wheels themselves have some scuffs on the spokes, largely due to this.
That said, they look great from 20 feet! Depending on how crusty they get this winter, I may paint them a different color, as I'm not digging the machined lips, and that's the worst part of these anyway, as they were corroded pretty bad. The car rides nice on them, and my nephew did a great job balancing them. The only problem that I have now is that the "preprogrammed" TPMS sensors on these haven't registered with the car yet. I did about 10 minutes of varied driving, and they didn't register PSI on the info screen. The TPMS light also didn't come on, yet. Hopefully a longer drive gets them to play nice with the ECU.
So, those "preprogrammed" TPMS sensors I got don't play nice with my car. I believe I need to register their ID's with the car. Not sure how to do that DIY, or what tool to get, but I'll have to figure that out. Otherwise, the tires are great. Quietest snows I've ever had on a car; doesn't sound at all like a lifted XJ with Mud Terrains like all the others I've used over the years.
If it makes you feel any better the factory sensors aren't playing nice with Rio right now. Been on for a full tank of gas and still hasn't recognized them. I may not be driving far enough at a time. I want to say it needed 25 miles and none of my trips have been that long.
Update on those TPMS sensors from RockAuto:
They said they were "preprogrammed". They are not.
I had a shop try and pair the sensors to the car, and they wouldn't work. They are the right MHZ and all that, but the car doesn't see them. The shop said they can try cloning the stock sensors and map the ID's over to these, but getting both sets of wheels there so they can do that is a giant PITA. Guess I'll just stick with the "winter tire light" for now.
In other news, the tires are great. They are comfortable, not noisy, and grip decent. Looks like we'll get some snow up here in the next couple of weeks, so I'll get to really test them.
Nice thread.
Just ordered a Gravity Gray 2023 6M. ETA is 3/1. My 2019 GLI is getting into the mid 50k's for mileage, and I wanted to strike while trade values are still reasonable. New GLIs are unobtainium, and only come in a high trim level putting them into the mid 32's at list. That pricepoint didn't give me warm, fuzzy feelings--though I won't argue that it's a VERY nice car. I just didn't want to spend that much--and thankfully I don't have to.
The Forte is about $6500 less, and, more importantly, I could get one. Having had a 2017 Elantra Sport before the GLI, I am familiar with the dynamics of the GT, and it will be more nicely equipped than either the Hyundai or the VW. Pretty excited.
In reply to FSP_ZX2 :
The newer 2022-23's are nice. I didn't like the looks at first, but they grew on me. The interior and option package revisions make me wish I had waited to get mine, but I didn't really have a choice! I'm right at 30K miles on mine and aside from a couple very minor quirks, it's been great.
Since my day gig decided to send us back into the office more, I've been driving the car a lot more. Most of my commute consists of sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, which sucks. I noticed a few weeks back that I was getting a weird rattle from the engine bay while sitting in traffic, which was annoying the hell out of me. At first, it sounded like an engine knock, but it only really did it at idle. So, after poking around under the hood, I found that the noise was coming from the radiator fan shroud. I noticed that if I pulled it slightly back on the passenger side top corner, the noise went away. So, I fixed it permanently:
I cut a chunk of foam rubber and used ir as an isolator between the shroud and radiator. I could've gone to the dealer, but all the Kia dealers around here are useless, so instead of wasting days of diagnosis time and hassle trying to convince them that there's a problem, I spent 5 minutes to do this. It's not pretty, but it works!
This has been one of the most mild winters I have ever seen in my life up here in New England, and I blame it on me buying really good winter tires for the Kia. We've had plowable snow only once! That said, the Michelin X-Ice tires were magical on that one day it snowed, and they have been good when it's been icy on my commute. What they are NOT good at are being tires when it's 70+ degrees out, which we've been seeing lately during this year's "Fool's Spring". It's still way to early to swap on the 3-season wheels and tires, but I remembered that my OEM Kuhmos were completely smoked. So I ordered these:
Goodyear Eagle Exhilarate in 225/40/18, the stock size. Discount Tire Direct was having a pretty crazy sale on these over the weekend, and with instant and mail-in rebates, I got about $250 off a set. They seem to review well, and are 2nd in Tire Rack's reviews to the Continental DWS's, which are my favorite tire in the performance all-season segment. These had a better dry/wet grip rating, so we'll see how they hold up.
Why didn't I just get summers, you ask?
Two reasons:
1. The roads around here look like the above picture year-round. I've found that all-season compound/construction holds up better to the abuse.
2. I'm commuting more, and treadwear becomes a factor. I'll hopefully get 40k out of these with rotations, and most summers in my experience will get half of that around here. Plus, in the spring and fall, there are days where they would get a little squirrelly in the morning due to the temps.
Looking forward to swapping these on in a few weeks, as long as winter doesn't decide to come back.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
I know that I'll need tires this coming fall since the 23 manual comes with PS4's. following closely for the tire review
I am very impressed with the Goodyear ultragrip performance+ I put on all our Forte's for the winter. I did not expect them to behave like a great all season tire. Those Goodyear Exhilerate should be very good as well based on how good the performance+ I have are. I did opt for the DWS for the other 3 seasons however.
It's a bit late for this, but when I put snows on the wife's 21 Sportage the local TF tire wouldn't do aftermarket TPMS sensors. They said the newer Kias don't recognize the aftermarket sensors.
I ended up buying set of Kia sensors online (Tasca $225 w/shipping) to keep the winter tire light off and make my life easier (happy wife, happy life).
I don't recall if they cloned them, but I don't think so since after switching wheels it takes about 15-20 miles for them to be recognized and start reading pressures
In reply to No Time :
My understanding is that Kia/Hyundai need cloned TPMS sensors --or--having the car programmed seasonally, as the car only remembers 4 sensors at a time.
In reply to FSP_ZX2 :
maybe the newer ones? My car is running the wife's old rio sensors/wheels without being reprogrammed. Both Rios would self learn after about 20 miles.
I have the oem wheels from my wife's 2023 Forte LXS on my 2023 Forte GT for winter. It recognized the 4 new sensors pretty quick.
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