Fuel service caused engine to fail?

ldh.538
Sun, 01 Oct 2023 13:55:46 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

My 2019 Kia Forte has 34,000 miles and I haven’t had any problems with it. I took it to the local dealership for routine maintenance and they recommended the fuel service and brake fluid service. I know better and I did it anyway.

They told me my car was ready and I paid for the services. I went outside to get the car which wasn’t there and the service advisor told me there was something wrong with my car, that the techician was cleaning the fuel line and reset a code and they were on the phone with Kia. Ten minutes later she told me that now my car wouldn’t start. They got me a rental car and they called later to tell me I needed a new engine. I asked for more information and they told me when the technician “stuck his bore scope in cylinder one he noticed that the piston in cylinder one has come in contact with the cylinder head” and essentially my engine was faulty and I’m lucky they discovered this.

I paid for the extended warranty so I won’t have to pay for the remanufactured engine they said they’re going to install. I think they’re lying to me, though, and in trying to get to the root of what happened, now (2 weeks later) they tell me my car started to fail during the road test and that the fuel service didn’t cause this “as the fuel service does not mess with the internals of the engine.”

I probably didn’t need to explain all that to get to my questions so excuse the venting. My questions:

Could the fuel service mess with the internals of the engine?

Does anyone else have experience with something like this? I searched and found a few related issues but they were over 10 years old so I’m looking for something abbit more recent.

Thanks in advance.

15 posts - 10 participants