2018 Kia Forte - low compression on 2 cyliners

mrdctaylor

mrdctaylor

Joined
Jun 5, 2003
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848
Location
McGregor TX
Guys,

My son-in-law bought a 2018 Kia Forte a few months ago. It only has about 30K miles on it now. He and my daughter were going down the highway and a check engine light came on and it started running rough. They took it to a dealership and they said that it had low compression on 2 cylinders and likely needed a new engine. I'm not mechanic, but I'm curious if anyone out there knows if there is a common problem that crops up in 2018 Kia Fortes that could cause this. Or is it maybe just bad luck? They've had the car for a few months and have had no issues, so this really seemed out of left field. The car is at the dealer now and they have a rental car. Any info/advice that I can pass along to them would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
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I would want to know the nature of the failure and actual compression numbers and where the leakage was. Seems a bit out of left field. Should be under warranty, though..
 
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It is under warranty, but they are saying it could take a month for a new engine. Basically, I just want to help make sure they are taken care of. This just seems odd. I've never had a car have engine issues so early in its life, but I guess it happens.
 
Probably a head gasket. Assume this is covered under the 5/60 warranty?
 
It's not a head gasket for sure. Thats an easy fix that would not require a new motor. Something failed right off the bat. Yes a common problem with Hyundai's. 14% need new motors before 100,000 miles. I had one go at 14,000 miles. I even bought a new one. 2018 Kona AWD 1.6T, that motor is their best motor, so my odds are good. The 2.4 not so good.
 
Very common for Hyundai / Kia motors to go bad. One of my coworkers had her engine seize up (2.4). I see plenty of Sonatas puffing blue smoke out the exhaust when accelerating from a stop.
 
Holy smoke! My sister has been driving Hyundai's for at least 15 years now. Seeing this I now know she's been lucky as her MO has been: buy new, roll 100k, trade in. Rinse repeat. 4 of them I think. But then she's just a normal person (ie, doesn't hang out on automotive forums) and just has her oil changed at the dealer with whatever they use. Her newest one has a DCT but 40k and no problems as of yet; I doubt she even knows it's a dual clutch trans.....

Funny thing, kinda related... her husband, my BIL drives a company Ecoboost equipped f150 and company policy is it gets maintenance only when the truck calls for it at the Ford dealer.
So, 100k later, MC semi syn at around 10k OCIs and non top tier gas it's still running just fine...

Meanwhile at bitog, F150 forums dot com, Ford truck enthusiast dot com and others, owners fret over oil, what's the best filter, carboned up valves etc.
 
Originally Posted by Mainia
It's not a head gasket for sure. Thats an easy fix that would not require a new motor. Something failed right off the bat. Yes a common problem with Hyundai's. 14% need new motors before 100,000 miles. I had one go at 14,000 miles. I even bought a new one. 2018 Kona AWD 1.6T, that motor is their best motor, so my odds are good. The 2.4 not so good.


Need some serious documentation on this 14% statement.
 
Originally Posted by Mainia
It's not a head gasket for sure. Thats an easy fix that would not require a new motor. Something failed right off the bat. Yes a common problem with Hyundai's. 14% need new motors before 100,000 miles. I had one go at 14,000 miles. I even bought a new one. 2018 Kona AWD 1.6T, that motor is their best motor, so my odds are good. The 2.4 not so good.


30k miles with low compression on two cylinders and you're "for sure" it's not a HG?
 
Originally Posted by Mainia
It's not a head gasket for sure. Thats an easy fix that would not require a new motor. Something failed right off the bat. Yes a common problem with Hyundai's. 14% need new motors before 100,000 miles. I had one go at 14,000 miles. I even bought a new one. 2018 Kona AWD 1.6T, that motor is their best motor, so my odds are good. The 2.4 not so good.


I see failed engines mentioned from time to time - but would not have guessed 14% or as early as 14k
Maybe we made KORUS too easy.
 
Originally Posted by 4WD
Originally Posted by Mainia
It's not a head gasket for sure. Thats an easy fix that would not require a new motor. Something failed right off the bat. Yes a common problem with Hyundai's. 14% need new motors before 100,000 miles. I had one go at 14,000 miles. I even bought a new one. 2018 Kona AWD 1.6T, that motor is their best motor, so my odds are good. The 2.4 not so good.


I see failed engines mentioned from time to time - but would not have guessed 14% or as early as 14k
Maybe we made KORUS too easy.

It's a made up statistic that a guy who's historically been anti-Hyun/Kia despite buying a brand new one, made up a while ago and posted on here. If his numbers were even close to accurate, Hyundai alone (Kia and Genesis not included), Hyundai would've had to replace 500k engines over the last 5 years based on their sales numbers, and that number would brush up against 1 million over 10 years. It's just not even close to accurate.
 
My family has had 3 Hyundai over the years and found them to be very good vehicles. Several over 100,000 miles without any issues. I really dislike people you make up stories to advance their own agenda Ed
 
OP here. I had a 2003 Hyundai that I sold a couple of years ago with around 230K miles on the odometer. That Santa Fe was an excellent car. My daughter-in-law has a 2007 Kia Sportage that has like 240K miles on it. with So I was very surprised that my son-in-law is having this issue. I posted an inquiry on /r/mechanicadvice and got this reply:

"Used car dealer here who specializing in buying fixer upper cars from auctions. From all the 2017+ cars I see with major mechanical failures, Hyundai/Kia is #1 by an enormous amount."

Take it for what it is worth. I doubt the guy that posted it had an agenda--he was just sharing what he's seen as someone in the business. I wonder what (if anything) is going on with Hyundai/Kia over the last couple of years.
 
My buddy had a 2016 or so Soul and Kia sent him a recall notice or TSB or whatever that his engine was one of a large group determined to have a manufacturing flaw which could cause the connecting rods to exit through the side of the block. That could cause low compression on a year-old car without being the HG... not sure if the Forte was included in that recall.
 
Yikes; BETTER be a new engine!!!

The saga continues...since about 2004 Kia has struggled with engine build quality. You'd think they would have it taken care of in 15 years.
 
Sister in law blew the Theta motor on her Sportage. Warranty repair. Got a new loaner V6 Sorento for 3 months!

I guess for the North american market Sonata the engines are made in Alabama.
 
No engine should take 3 months to replace, unless it's a Ferrari or something similar. You could literally hand-manufacture every single part of the engine, by yourself, in less than 3 months! You can't tell me that Kia doesn't know about their problem and have a surplus of "spare" engines just sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

10 year warranty or not, one 3-month span of not having my vehicle because of a mechanical failure would ensure I'd never again spend another penny on that marque, and be trading it in as soon as it came back from the dealer!
 
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