Thread: Oil change

You just can't have enough oil threads. I posted this in the other forum and decided to do it here too in case some don't go to it.

My 2012 Base with a manual transmission has a little over 19k miles on it.

I let the factory fill go to 3619 miles and had the dealership change it because they gave me one free oil change. I have always done routine maintenance on all of my cars, but I thought since it was free, I may as well let them do it. The was done in January 2012. I bought the car on October of 2011. At the time the dealership was using conventional 5-30 Shell. I wasn't crazy about them using 5-30 when the oil cap said 5-20.

I left that oil in until April of 2012. The car had 7260 miles on it at the time, so the oil had 3641 miles on it. I decided to use Pennzoil Platinum(PP) 5-20 as I have used it in a 2004 Mazda 3 HB I used to own and in a 2006 Honda Element that I still have. I have been able to get 7500 miles or so out of it on those vehicles before it starts looking like it needs to be changed. I'm too cheap to send off a sample to Blackstone. I've read plenty of oil analysis on the BobIsTheOilGuy site. On the Soul I noticed around 3500 miles that the oil had a little gas smell to it and was pretty dark. I never noticed this while using the same oil in the other cars.

I decided that if the car was going to be that hard on oil that I wasn't going to pay for synthetic. So at 10,864 I went back to the Kia dealer and had them change it again. They only charge $8.88 for an oil change (when conventional 5-30 is used). The total cost is about $15.50 after tax and fees. So the Pennzoil Platinum had 3604 miles on it when I dumped it.

I kept that oil in until 15,326, so it had 4462 miles on it. It wasn't as dark as the Pennzoil Platinum that had about 800 less miles on it. I thought maybe the PP had better cleaning additives in it and I should try it again, so I did.

I changed it again yesterday at 19,235 when the oil had 3909 miles on it. It was smelling like gas again, was dark and appeared to have lost its viscosity. I decided to go back to the dealer to do the $8.88 oil change again. When I got there, they said they can no longer do that on KIAs. KIA is making them use 5-20 now - probably due to the fuel mileage issue. This dealership uses a semi-synthetic 5-20 and the cost of the oil change with tax and fees would have been over $34. I can do a full synthetic change for that price, so I passed.

I did buy a filter and drain plug washer while I was there for $8 and change. I went across the street to Wal-Mart to get the oil. I always buy oil from them as they are MUCH cheaper than anywhere else. I could get a five quart bottle of PP for $26, where at Pep Boys or AutoZone it was about $8 or 9/qt. As much as I hate Wal-Mart, I'm not going to spend $40 or $45 on oil elsewhere when I can get it for $26 from them. I could have got conventional Pennzoil (aka PYB on BITOG) for about $14 for the 5 quart bottle or Quaker State for about a buck less. I decided to get Motorcraft 5-20 Semi-Synthetic for about $18. About five years ago this oil was around $11. Oh well. It does get great reviews on BITOG. I'll see how long it lasts.

I'm not sure why I get the gas smell in the oil. I got 36.7 mpg two tanks ago and 34.5 on the last one. I have never got less than 30 and it is usually in the 32 to 34 range. I calculate this myself. The car's mpg calculation is always 1 or 2 mpg high. Given the mpg I am getting, I don't think the engine is using excess fuel. I think it has to do with the GDI engine. Most people own the 2.0 liter version of this engine, where I have the 1.6. Maybe there is a difference between the two. I don't have any confidence in going over 4000 miles between oil changes the way it is now.

my dealer uses 5w-20 semi-synthetic and get it done there all the time as in my case I have free oil changes for as long as I own the vehicle

We both have the same engine, the 1.6L, DFI, VVT. My dealer is doing all my oil changes for the first year or three changes, whichever comes first. They too use Shell 5W?? Blend. I'm trusting that it's 5W20. Also, they want to see my car every 3k miles for its maintenance. Nothing strange there, that's what I've been doing for the past 50 years. But when they are done messing with it, sometime around April or May, I'll be doing my own maintenance 100%. Like you said, Walmart has good oil at discount prices, so why buy it elsewhere? It's always a good idea to buy the genuine Kia filter w/crush washer, at a Kia dealer. Mine only charges $6 and change for a new KIA filter. There are some pretty nasty things that wind up in our motor oil that cannot be filtered out, and not being a chemist, I won't go there..... but, it's important to get those things out of the engine before they can build up to a point where they will do harm to the engine. Thus, the 3k oil change interval. That has served me well for OH these many years and I see no reason to change now. My SX4 took about five quarts of oil, so those 5QT jugs were just right. My Kia Soul takes 3.49dqts of oil, so a 5qt jug is overkill.
I actually look forward to the day when my own first oil change rolls around.... probably sometime next summer. I'm ready!

I don't think I ever had a car, where the oil filter and drain plug where both so easy to get to.

I'm ready for my first personal oil change:



Personally, I think it IS important to use a very good quality oil (non-synthetic) and then stay with the brand. I've been using nothing but Castrol GTX for the past 13 years and it has served me well.

I've also used "Prolong" anti-friction additive and that too has served me well, to the extent of saving my Suzuki Forenza engine, when I ran completely out of oil on I-75 one night, due to a loose oil filter. But that's a whole story in itself.

Good Luck with your Soul.
TechnoMage

Nothing worse than having the dealer do an oil change and then trying to do your own the next time and not being able to budge the oil filter or the drain plug. I want to get a spigot to make draining easier!

If you do enough oil changes - and I can't even tell you how much oil I've changed in the past 25 years in my garage, but it's easily in the hundreds - you'll know that you almost always smell gasoline in the oil, irrespective of the vehicle. That's where deposits accumulate, and part of those deposits are going to be vaporized gasoline, no matter how new the car is. There's no set of oil rings on the planet that are going to stop every molecule of gasoline from entering the crankcase. The other thing is there's no way you're going to read viscosity from the dipstick. You either have to bite the bullet and pay the 25 bucks to Blackstone, or you're just changing oil from the seat of your pants. Once you get past 1000 miles or so on a modern engine, I wouldn't be looking at the color to tell anything. Detergents in the oil are supposed to wash down carbon deposits, so I would expect the oil to turn black faster.

Originally Posted by vol245

You just can't have enough oil threads. I posted this in the other forum and decided to do it here too in case some don't go to it.

My 2012 Base with a manual transmission has a little over 19k miles on it. <snip>

All your concerns can only be substantiated with an oil analysis. If you frequent Bob Is The Oil Guy Forums, you should find information on where to get that done. It's been a while since I have been on there, but last I heard, the concensus was PYB (Pennz Oil Plain Yellow Bottle) what the way to go along with the plain Quaker State oil on this round of specifications.

If you are going to change your oil like you are supposed to at least every 7500 miles, synthetic probably isn't worth the money. I do my changes every 5,000 miles due to the fact that I do live in a harsh climate, but with the fact that 95% of my driving is at highway speeds, I question my own reasoning. Needless to say, I just swing through my dealerships QuickLube bay and get it done for $30 and some change with full synthetic.

One piece of advice you do need to hear is that you really should use the KIA OEM oil filters. It's all about the backflow valve and the fact that our engines have constant variable valve train that runs off the pressure from the oil system.

So a manual transmission doesn't need the OEM KIA filter? Dm.

I always use the Kia filters.

Full synthetic for around $30? Nice deal. My dealer wants $58 + tax and fees, so that would be around $64.

There is no way I would go 7500 miles between oil changes with this vehicle. I also have a 2011 Corolla. Toyota recommends 10k intervals and I have done that for the first two, since they were covered under their 2 year maintenance plan. The oil at 10k was in visually much better shape than the Soul's at 3.5K.

Originally Posted by scirocco

So a manual transmission doesn't need the OEM KIA filter? Dm.

We're talking about the oil filter on the engine.

I'll be getting my first three O&Fs for free at the dealer. I got my first at 3143, will get my second in 3,000 to 3,500, and ditto the third. At 10,000 the car should be reasonably well broken-in.

At that point I'll probably switch to M1.