Ok, since you have mentioned a throttle problem, have you guys ever turned the key and the thing won't start? Take the key out, reinsert, car starts. Darnedest thing. I have a Seltos with the 2.0. Just wondering if these things are haunted or something...
Iusedtobefast said:Ok, since you have mentioned a throttle problem, have you guys ever turned the key and the thing won't start? Take the key out, reinsert, car starts. Darnedest thing. I have a Seltos with the 2.0. Just wondering if these things are haunted or something...
Forte GTs don't have "keys"--they use a proximity fob.
Iusedtobefast said:Ok, since you have mentioned a throttle problem, have you guys ever turned the key and the thing won't start? Take the key out, reinsert, car starts. Darnedest thing. I have a Seltos with the 2.0. Just wondering if these things are haunted or something...
What year Seltos? I thought they were all push button start? The wife's S is.
On the key thing, if it is a fob, it's usually indicating that the battery in the fob is dying or dead. Replace the battery, and start the car with the fob in close proximity to the button. That should re-sync the key.
2021 Seltos. The base vehicles are still key to start. I just thought it was strange that it didn't start on first try. Only happened maybe 3 or 4 times since I bought it, that's been 2 years. I've asked at the dealer and I basically got the shrug. Oh well, when I bought the Seltos, they offered me the Forte GT they had on the floor. I would have loved it but I needed to fit my construction stuff in the trunk and the Seltos had the larger opening. I blew it, the Forte was cheaper too. I'm glad you guys are loving yours
The Forte GT is coming up on 35K miles, and it's getting serviced soon (by me). So, I figured it was a good time to check in and see how it's doing.
-The interior is starting to exhibit a couple issues. The driver's seat bottom bolster on the left has a good sized crack in the fake leather, and the piping is wearing out on the left back bolster. Again, Kia says it's "normal wear" and will do nothing about it. This is unfortunately the quality I'd expect from Kia.
-The driver's seat is also squeaking from somewhere every time I depress the clutch (which is A LOT because it spends a lot of time in traffic) and is annoying the berk out of me. Again, dealer doesn't care. Hoping something under the seat needs to be lubed; this happened on my Mazda too. And hell, the seat frame on that car snapped due to a manufacturer defect, so there's that.
-Transmission has been feeling a bit notchy in engagement lately, so I'm swapping in some Redline MT-85 as recommended on the interwebs. I've used Redline fluids in many of my former cars' transmissions, and it makes things better almost instantly, so I'm hoping for the same here.
-Gas mileage has taken a nosedive lately, but mainly due to heavy traffic on my commute. Averaging about 25-26mpg. On longer highway trips, we're in the low-mid 30's, so it's not the car's fault.
-I had an issue with the brakes about a month back; stopping abruptly from high speed caused a thumping/grinding noise from the rear. This went away almost instantly, which was odd. The brakes feel great most of the time, and at other times, the rotors feel like they are warped to hell. I'll be replacing them all sooner than later.
-The Goodyear Eagle Exhilarate tires have been fantastic. Tons of grip in the dry and wet, and they handle crisply. Really impressed with these!
-I plan on swapping the fog lamps to yellow halogens to see how they look. Snagged some yellow 55w Hella bulbs for this swap. I've read that LEDs in that position can cause weird CANBUS issues, and I was afraid that they would be too bright (my bone stock lights get me flashed all the time for some reason, yes they are adjusted properly) so I don't want to be a jerk.
-Since I have to remove the undertray to do the trans fluid and fog lamps, I'll swap in that little intercooler muffler delete pipe. Not expecting any gains from it, but I might as well since I have the thing.
Overall, still happy with the car. Other than some small annoyances, it's been a good car so far. I do sort of regret my choice in buying something with an automatic with my current commute, but that's my own fault, not the car's! I'll try and take pics of the service and do a write-up for reference.
Today, I had some time to tackle an oil change, transaxle fluid change, fog light bulb swap, and attempt to swap the intercooler "muffler".
First things first, for the transaxle fluid, muffler delete, and lights, the undertray has to come off. Some cars are a real pain to remove this, but this one was probably the easiest I've done yet. It's a simple, one-piece design with about 6-7 10mm head bolts and about a dozen push pins. I had the whole thing down in about 5 minutes.
After that, this is what I was working with:
Everything is well thought out and right there with the shield out of the way. Oh wait... what is that?
That's the charge pipe for the intercooler. And yeah, that's oil seeping past the clamp. Not good. I have not noticed any oil consumption, but it's definitely shooting some out!
This is the "muffler" on the other end of the charge pipe. We've talked about this on here before; it's there to quiet down intake noises. This is dumb, since the car has a loud exhaust and a simulated sound symposer in the cowl. Why not just make this straight?
And then I ran into this. In all my years wrenching, I had never seen a band clamp with a round end on it. This befuddled me, so I decided to move onto the fluid changes and leave the delete for another time. After I buttoned it all up, I found out that these are just caps that can be removed with a pair of pliers. D'oh!
Onto the transaxle fluid change. There's a fill/sight plug:
And a drain plug:
A 17mm socket takes both of these off. Undo the fill plug, then the drain.
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This is the drain plug. I expected this to be full of sludge the way the car had been driving lately, but it was clean as a whistle. That's good.
I decided on using Redline MT-85 based on fluid requirements and past experience with Redline products. It's not cheap, but their stuff is great, and I need all the protection I need since I'm shifting A LOT sitting in traffic on my commute. And yeah, a handheld fluid pump is the best way to go here. This one is made by Sneaky Pete, and yes, I 100% purchased it because of the name. Works great and comes with two suction tubes for various length bottles.
I didn't take any pics of the oil change (I've covered that earlier in this thread), but I did take a few pics of the fog light swap.
I decided to go with Hella Optilux 55w yellow bulbs. I've used these in the past and they work well.
With the undertray off, the foglights are right there and easily accessible. I read everywhere that these were awful to do and the bulbs don't like to come out. In my case, yes the bulbs were a little hard to come out, but it wasn't that bad. You just unplug the connector and rotate the bulb socket counter-clockwise and it pops right out.
With all of that done, I noticed immediately on my test drive that the transmission felt 100% better. That's good! It's not as precise as, say, a Honda or Mazda, but it's much easier to shift now. The biggest question now is what to do about the oil in the charge pipe. Sounds like it's time to buy a catch can.
I've been looking at catch can kits for these, but I have a hard time spending $300+ on a little can and some hoses and clamps. That seems nuts. I'd like to get something that works well without breaking the bank, if possible. I'd also like to get something that's easily reversible in case I need to take it to the dealer for warranty work. Going to have to start searching.
Nice write up. I keep thinking about changing that little muffler pipe as well. Just not sure the effort is worth it. I think you convinced me to swap my trans fluid to the Red Line. What made you decide not to use Red Line LV since this is the correct specification for our cars? I really like to change the fluid after the first 10,000 miles just to get any particles from new out of it. I have one concern on your oil seeping. I would want to make sure it is not coming from the turbo itself. Hopefully it is crankcase but I know mine has almost no oil coming from that side of the crankcase vent and back into the intake.
In reply to 2023BD :
I believe the LV fluid is for the DCT cars. This has a manual, so it gets the MT-85.
And yeah, I may have to schedule a service with the dealer. I really hate that place, and they have been completely useless so far. The car doesn't smoke, and I haven't noticed any meaningful oil consumption, but that was alarming to see. Knowing the dealer, they will tell me that the turbo isn't covered under warranty because it's not an internal engine part and that since I've been changing my own oil, nothing is covered. At least I kept all my receipts.
Red Line MT-LV is for Hyundai part number 00232-19063 or MTF 70W which is the fluid listed in the owners manual for the 6spd
In reply to 2023BD :
Weird, I read everywhere to use MT-85. But you are right, MT-LV is the factory equivalent spec. MT-85 works as well, but is just a bit thicker. If I run into issues when it gets colder, I'll swap it out. But I'm still shocked at how much better it shifts. It might be better for me to keep the 85 in there with the amount of shifting I've been doing lately; my commute has been awful!
Quick update: made an appointment at the dealer for next week on the charge pipe oil leakage. Fully expecting them to tell me to go pound sand and/or "this is normal", but at least this way I can say that I reported it and tried to have them fix it in case something goes wrong down the road.
I was double checking everything before I ordered the Redline since I see 30 to -10 in the winter and wanted to make sure I was getting the right one. I swapped fluid in a car 20yrs ago and it was fine during the summerbut once winter came it was a problem.
I have an appointment to take the car in to get the intercooler charge pipe leak looked at, so I called the dealer to confirm the appointment today. Basically, the guy told me that this is "normal" and probably not an issue, but they will look at it anyway.
I also mentioned the issues I'm now having with the driver's seat. The bottom bolster has a 4" crack in the fake leather, and the side bolster piping is wiped out. I mentioned this to them last year when I was there and they told me that "unless the issue presents itself within the first 5000mi, it's regular wear and not covered". They said the same line to me today, and I expect to hear that tomorrow. What's the point of having a 5yr/60K mi warranty if they only cover things up to 5000mi?
The reality is the dealer is awful, and most Kia dealers are, including ALL of them in my area. This is what you get when you buy one of these unfortunately, and pretty much what I expected.
Just finding this thread, I am very surprised this is a car that exists with a manual option. Seems like a good deal that you can do a lot with.
In reply to kanaric :
It's been a good car so far, and it certainly shocked me that it existed when I bought it. I would put it on par with the Civic Si anytime.
That said, I'm sitting at the dealer with it right now. Showed them some of the pics of that oil coming out of the charge pipe, and they said that was worth investigating, so we'll see what they say. They actually made me text them the pics.
So yeah...
Dealer took a video and it showed that the oil pan crush washer is shooting oil everywhere, and they say that's the cause of the oil leak. The funny thing is, I typically use a factory-style washer, but the last time before my recent change I ran out and had to use a different type. I didn't notice oil everywhere when I did the last change, but this time there's clearly a major leak. They recommended that I change out the oil drain plug and gasket, clean up the charge pipes by removing them and cleaning them out, and if it's still appearing to leak out of the charge pipe to bring it back and they will investigate further. Fair enough, but annoying.
They again denied my seat issues, so I had them give that to me in writing. I will be escalating that to Kia's regional office, because the seat shouldn't be worn out by 35k miles. My Mazda 3 didn't have any tears in the seats by 187k miles, so I find it ridiculous that they won't even consider doing anything.
Last night, I pulled the undertray back off again to check out how bad the leak was. Just like the dealer said, it was BAD. Oil was all over the pan, the filter, the intercooler plumbing, and more. All from a bad drain gasket! I should have taken some pics, but the old drain plug and the new one were slightly different, as were the crush washers. After cleaning everything, I replaced the plug and the leaks seem to have stopped.
The other thing was checking out what was going on with the turbo plumbing. Since everything was nasty, I decided to pull the hoses apart for cleaning, which would also serve to confirm if there was in fact an oil leak due to bad turbo seals.
Aside from some extremely light carbon dust, no oil in here. That confirms that the leak really was from the oil pan.
With that out of the way, and the undertray already off, I decided to install that silencer delete pipe.
Here they are side to side. The silencer probably doesn't obstruct flow that badly, but what has me spooked about it on the car are flashbacks from my Subaru days. On the early Bugeye WRXs, the turbo uppipe had a catalytic converter in it. They would break down over time, sending substrate right into the turbo. So, I (like many others) replaced it with a catless uppipe to avoid this situation. A friend and I bought the same one off of Ebay, which had a metal flex joint in the middle. At the track one day, his flex joint failed and collapsed, sending bits of the joint through the turbo, which is the exact thing we were trying to avoid!
In this case, I can see this little muffler breaking down over a few years of New England winter driving once the road salt gets to it and sending bits of itself through the turbo, so replacing it with a small straight pipe makes the most sense to me. Now here's the kicker: These little delete pipes typically sell for $30-50+ through the tuners. Some guy on a Forte GT group on FB found the SAME PIPE on Amazon for around $10, so I snagged one up. Some sellers are offering them for even less! The tuners say it's worth anywhere from 5-10hp, but it's negligible, as we've discussed here before. My Butt Dyno tells me that boost comes on a little smoother and it makes more turbo sounds, so that's cool. The fact that Kia put these on these cars really makes no sense. It's a silencer to cut down on turbo sounds on a car that has a speaker in the cowl to make fake turbo sounds AND it has a loud performance exhaust. The car is already loud as it is, and this didn't really make it much louder. I don't get it.
Either way, car is good to go for a while now, aside from the squeaky/worn seat. Still need to contact Kia about that.
Tony Sestito said:These little delete pipes typically sell for $30-50+ through the tuners. Some guy on a Forte GT group on FB found the SAME PIPE on Amazon for around $10, so I snagged one up. Some sellers are offering them for even less! The tuners say it's
Ours is the 2" diameter correct?
In reply to 2023BD :
That is correct.
My company gave me a POS Chevrolet Venture van and the foam was out of shape in 9 months. They replaced it under warranty but not cleaning the garbage bag off the exhaust that burned PVC for 2 weeks.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
FWIW.....when I was still working for the world's largest seating supplier, the standard test for front seating was 250,000 ingress/egress cycles. The upholstery was expected to last that long without breaking through.
Quick update on that intake muffler delete pipe:
I am shocked. It actually does something. With this installed, it builds boost faster and lower in the power band, and boost comes on smoother than before. It always felt like it would jaggedly step into boost, but with this pipe, that's pretty much gone. It also holds further to redline.
As a result, the car is even more fun to drive, especially around town. It just wants to go! Probably the best $10 I've spent on a car mod to date.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
That was my exact experience when I ditched the air box and put a cone filter on the end. And maybe why I didn't notice any difference when the next thing I did was the little pipe
Quick update on my previous complaints with the driver's seat:
Other than the bolster "leather" cracking, the most annoying thing the dealer couldn't be bothered to figure out was why every time I depressed the clutch pedal, the seat would squeak. They flat out said "not covered" and washed their hands of it.
It got annoying enough that I finally poked my head under there yesterday to take a look. I don't have pics, but I found out what it was, and it was obvious. The bottom of the seat cushion is attached to the frame with a long piece of plastic that clips into the seat frame bar. That somehow got loose and disconnected, and was causing the cushion to move independently of the seat, and causing the squeak. I clipped it back onto the frame and it's nice and quiet again.
Such an easy fix that literally took 30 seconds of my time to repair, including diagnosis time. Things like that are why I don't like taking the car to the dealer. If I authorized them to fix that, it would have cost me $120 in labor!
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