My wifes 01 K I A Sportage

this vehicle started to run sluggish, and would only start cold when the gas pedal was held to the floor, then it would cough into life. The check engin light came on and I went to the local Advanced auto, and has them check it with the scanner it came up as a bad knock sensor. My question is what would make this sensor go out? This vehicle has about 122000 mls on it. It’s a 4cyl 5 speed, and I just replaced the timing belt and water pump which is the part that went out. Hope someone has a answer. Sportage challanged Phil.

Find a troubleshooting chart that lists a bad knock sensor signal as a possible cause for hard starting,don’t assume that the knock sensor and the hard starting are related,they may be but try to verify.

I recently had a knock sensor replaced on my Subaru at almost the same mileage you list for your wife’s car. I think they fail from age, mostly. The knock sensor did not cause any starting problems, even while the CEL was on.

What do you mean about the water pump failing? What happened to the water pump?

About 2mth ago, my wife came home from work, and when she turned onto our st, her Kia started to steam. It never overheated or ran dry, and it was only driven about 300 ft to our hse. We determined that the water pump was bad, and I replaced it along with the timing belt. We had been told by the garage about a month before the pump went out that it was going bad, and to keep an eye on it so as to not damage the motor. The bearings wore out in the pump, it was the original pump. When I say there is a problem with starting it it will start and chug likes it’s flooded. It diesels like it has too much fuel, or not enough air when you start it cold, and you must hold the petal to the floor until it stops, and starts to run normal. It acts like its starving when you go up a hill if you lug the engin, and you must shift down a gear to make it stop. It is also a much slower accelerator if say you are on the road at 40 mph in 4th gear and you accelerate it bogs down, and you must down shift to 3rd to get it to stop. The other thing I’m going to check and change is the air filter. I don’t believe it’s been changed sense last summer. Well I believe that tells you all I know, but if you have more questions Please ask,