Based on what I have read and freinds and family experiences, tbe Kia engine is good for just about 100K miles. They start buring oil at 90K or so and die at just past the warranty. Given the $9000 cost of a new engine, and no used ones are available 'cause they all fail, that means the car may make more sense to scrap it.
So that warranty might become important.
I’m an engineer and can be quite picky, but mostly in my field. I do use my analytical traits that I’ve developed over decades to evaluate stuff I’m not intimately familiar with. But only to determine whether a shop I deal with is trustworthy. When I find that shop, I let them choose parts and materials that they have found to work. When I began taking my Hondas to my current shop, I asked whether they used Honda transmission fluids and they not only said yes but produced a bottle of transmission fluid from the back to prove it. They charge dealer prices, but I get premium service from knowledge mechanics that stand behind their work.
+1
Additionally, since the OP told us in his other thread that he is already exasperated with the vehicle, the dealership (and, presumably Kia corporate) as a result of an A/C condenser issue, I am somewhat mystified that he wants to try to keep it running–with the best possible oil and filters–for the long term.
Some years back, before synthetic oils, Consumer Reports did a test of motor oils. The same 10W-30 brand of oil for some of the brands tested differently when the same brand of oil with the same viscosity was purchased in different regions of the U.S. The difference may have been where the oil was refined.
In my own case, I looked for a bargain. With the rebate, I bought Valvoline for 25¢ a quart. An even better bargain I got was Citgo oil for 0¢ a quart–essentially free except for the postage stamp to mail in the rebate coupon. I experienced no difference in the performance of the different brands of oil in my 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass with its 260 V-8. In the 240,000 miles I drove that car, I never had to add oil between 5000 mile oil changes. I think the rebates were due to manufacturers wanting to get the motorist hooked on a brand as the myth at the time was to stick with one brand for the life of the car.
As far as oil filters are concerned, I used AC, Fram, or Purolator–whatever was available.
My one oil experience with the Oldsmobile had nothing to do with the brand. The owner’s manual specified either 10W-30 or 10W-40 for my 1978 Oldsmobile. I thought 10W-40 would give better protection. However, I had trouble with pre-ignition and was treating the engine with Casite. I would add Casite to the gasoline when the problem occured. I later learned that the polymers in 10W-40 caused carbon buildup in the engine, so I switched to 10W-30 and that solved the problem.
The only oil filter problem I had was with an MTD hydrostatic drive riding mower. The owner’s manual specified a particular Fram filter for the hydrostatic transmission. I substituted a house brand filter from the cross reference chart. The house brand was about half an inch longer and when I raised the mower deck, the arms hit the filter and poked a hole in the filter. From then on, I followed the manufacturer’s specification.
Again, as I’ve stated before, I asked two things: 1) best possible 2) cheapest safe/reasonable option. Everyone is ignoring that I’m not going to automatically select the best possible option(s) that are presented. I’m just going through a decision making process… I am trying to find the best possible option (regardless of cash) for the car, and then the cheapest reasonable option for the car. I then select something that makes sense.
I hope the mystification wasn’t too overwhelming for you and that you’re able to recover entirely to your pre-mystified state.
I have an extended warranty that I bought with the car. Hopefully this will be useful for the scenario you describe. What are your thoughts on that as protection?
All I’m agonna say at this point is that it is important when designing and marketing a product, to keep in mind the intended purpose. It should not be over Designed to make it too expensive or last longer than needed. It should not be under designed so that it fails earlier. When an engineer wants the best possible product, it is neither necessary or desirable and I think they might have missed a class or two along the way on product design. So in a Kia, a fram or wix or whatever, and oil from citco or Walmart is fine. @Mustangman makes a good point. It is a 100,000 mile car and should be treated as such. A teacher friend just bought a new Kia for her 30 mile daily commute. I have only asked her how she likes it and will say no more. I just hope she didn’t finance it for more than five years. Changing oil sooner is more important.
Sounds like a reasonable approach. I’m just in a transitional phase in terms of where I’m living, so I haven’t located a shop to deal with routinely.
Oh nice. Name-calling. Thank you!
I don’t expect others to do that for me… I’m certainly not getting snippy from my perspective. How am I getting nippy in your opinion?
I’m just appalled at the behavior of some people on the internet. Ridiculous really.
Here, at this point the thread needs a disclaimer and I’ll be sure to include it in bold at the beginning next time:
Disclaimer: Major car snobs need not provide input if they’re just going to use it to condescend and judge. Kindly move along and stop wasting everyone’s time.
Newly minted engineers should listen to their elders.
I remember a conversation on similar about 1968. We were sitting around the living room, friend of the family was the parts manager at the ford garage. His son just graduated from engineering school and was off to Washington or someplace for his new job with ge. Just bought a new cougar and wanted to know what the best oil was fir his new car. His dad said well royal purple would be the best but kinda hard to find and expensive. I don’t know if he took a case with him or not, but I’ve just used Mobil available at Walmart or th3 farm store. Last car I traded had 520,000 miles on it with no engine issues. So royal purple or Mobil or whatever.
Sorry to be upsetting. Car snob out.
If you bought it new, you would have a 100,000 mile, 10 year warranty already. 60K is used. Generally extended warraties are complete ripoffs in my opinion. But just how big a ripoff depends on who issued it and what it cost.
But, by all means, keep your service records. You will need them. And don’t be late on oil changes… that has been used to deny claims.
I’ll let you have the last word, though I’m certainly not “newly minted”. Have a nice day.
5W20 would be better than 0W20 in summer or a southern climate, if both oils are the same type. The more viscosity modifier the less resistant to over heating and neglected oil changes. It will also build up sludge faster.
The exceptoin is that 0W20 is probably synthetic only whereas 5W20 could be conventional or synthetic, in which case 0W20 synthetic is better than 5W20 conventional.
In that case he should be using 10W30 or 10W40 oil. If the engine wears out at 90k miles then the tolerances must be rather poor. SAE 20 oil is for engines with tight tolerances, not for cars from the 70s that wore out before 150k miles. Using 5W20 in a car from the 70s would make it wear out a lot faster! Even if the tolerances in the Kia are good but the materials in the Kia are poor and the rings have little room to expand, SAE 30 instead of 20 will make the engine last longer.
So use 5W30 or 5W40 in the winter. The problem is some engines have variable valve timing and using the wrong viscosity oil messes up that system. So you’re stuck with 20 weight or a check engine light and reduced performance.
If it were me and I had an engine that was going to wear out at 100k miles and need $8000 for replacement or an expensive rebuild, I would see if I could modify the valve timing system to make it compatible with heavier oil, even if I had to pay a machine shop $1000 for the work and spend days engineering it myself.
Of course using oil of the viscosity not recommended will likely void thev100k warranty.
Unfortunately, I know you are NOT kidding
SAE30 is not suitable for use in modern automotive engines, afaik
OEM, OEM, OEM. They are usually no more expensive then aftermarket filters. You never have to guess if it will fit right. The bypass valve is set for the correct pressure for your engine. The flow rate is correct for your engine. The media is designed to last for the full OCI. What more do you need out of a filter? Why do people spend hours and hours researching aftermarket filters that are no better than OEM and, in some cases, can be harmful to your engine?
And you can’t tell doodly squat about an oil filter by cutting it open and endlessly analyzing pleats, springs, and canister thickness. What you really need to know (flow rates, bypass pressure settings, filtration, and capacity to hold particulate matter) can’t be seen in a “cut away” test.
@Defaultemode, You asked if the dealership using synthetic blend oil contaminated your engine. Yes and No. All oil breaks down due to heat over time. The blends will breakdown a little quicker so if the are change sooner, they will not damage the engine. Around 98 to 99% oil drains out during the oil change so what little remains will not hurt anything.
So yes it contaminates the engine, but not permanently. But if the manufacturer specifies full synthetic 0W20 oil and the dealer used a blend, then that dealer was wrong and KIA’s corporate HQ should be notified.
I once bought a new 2002 Saturn Silver Blue Special. It was a basic model with AC and a radio for under $10k off the showroom floor. So cheap that I decided to see just how low I could get my amortized TOC (total owner cost) per mile. I used the cheapest oil filters and oil that met minimum specs, changed only when the oil life monitor light came on. I did the minimum maintenance.
I didn’t expect the car to last much more than 100k miles. 11 years and 275k miles later, it still ran like new, used about a quart of oil between oil changes and looked almost new. I kept a spreadsheet on all expenses including the purchase price, taxes and annual registration, insurance, maintenance, repairs, tires and of course gas. TOC dropped to around $0.14/mile at around 200k and stayed at this level due to rising gas prices until I sold it.
All I can say to you is that a good nights sleep has value. Use whatever allows you to get a good nights sleep.
One last thing, if you have a direct injection motor, which a lot of new cars have these days, they are prone to gumming up the intake valves because there is no gas in the intake manifold to keep them clean. The gumming is caused by oil mist from hot oil. There is actually a standard for measuring the misting of various oils but you don’t see it on the bottles because it is still under the radar and will be until you start to see a lot of complaints about gummed up intake valves.
One of the best oils, that is one of the oils with the least amount of misting (less is good) is made by Murray Oil Company, the maker of some of the least expensive oils on the market, like Kirkland (Costco) and Supertech (Walmart). Expensive does not always mean the best.
Edit: The guy who bought my Saturn was still driving it last I heard, which was about a year ago. It still might be running around out there.
Oh let’s go for 100 oil comments. I’ll just say that manufacture is not generally going to specify full synthetic versus a blend. They will just specify the weight such as 0-20. Some years ago on the rare occasion I had the Acura dealer change my oil, they used a blend. I was not thrilled since the cost was the same as a full synthetic. I guess it was no big deal but I prefer doing it myself with a full synthetic.
As far as 30 wt not for modern engines, maybe the straight 30, but ,my Pontiac calls for 5-30 so that’s what I use, Dino oil. My lawn mower calls for 5-30 too but in a synthetic, but it is not exactly a modern engine. Except for my diesel, I have never had an internal engine failure. So I’ll just continue to do what I have done for 60 years, although the comments are interesting.
That is just wrong, Bing. Many cars specify full synthetic oil.
For at least a few years, I think that “full” synthetic has been specified for almost all new car engines.