No. This was a service manager who knew nothing about the car. I told him that the engine was bad and without any further information he told me the symptoms and diagnosis. It was not a coincidence. I can't wait to open it up to see what happened. Originally I expected to find low compression but when I finally got the right adapter and tested it, it was zero. Now I am wondering if I should pull the whole motor or just the head because it could just be a valve problem. If the compression is higher in that cylinder by design, how did they do it. Stroke, piston or head?
#1 Cylinder no compression
I am disappointed that's there is no discussion about this. Talking to the service manager this is a very common problem. #1 cylinder has no compression. The other 3 seem normal. This car has 180,000 interstate miles. He explained that it had to do with the instant start feature, #1 cylinder is engineered with higher compression. Said I could replace with a crate engine. I want to see why. Disassembly will begin in the coming days and weeks.
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Good points. I think in today's world, most people would just replace the engine because it is tired and never look for the cause. Why is it not uncommon to see a Toyota with several hundred thousand miles? Why can't these engines do the same? I will find out and tell the world.
Still runs. No knocks so I think the bearings are ok. When you get it up to speed the miss isn't as noticable. Not going to be able to get to it till this weekend.So I'm not a manager but work at a dealer and look at and repair these things everyday. You either misheard this manager or he is full of crap. For one thing the #1 cylinder is no different than the other 3. For two I see low compression on random cylinders not always on #1. 0 compression sounds fishy. Get a leak down tester on it, unless you threw a rod. Does this car still run just with a misfire on cylinder 1?
Solved. I apologize for not being more thorough doing a compression test. I finally took it apart and I am amazed at how well the motor is designed. The cylinders have the original crosshatch from the factory (180k miles) but do have some aluminum residue from the piston skirts. The rings end gap are tighter than factory spec...... Now the issue, there is a hunk missing from an exhaust valve. After researching, this is a problem with most direct inject fuel systems. The valves build up with carbon and get hot spots. Sounds like the carbon comes from the crankcase via pcb valve. Toyota solved their problem with a fuel cleaning sequence. Fuel additives will not solve this issue. You need to put a cleaner in through the intake manifold after the mass airflow sensor. Years ago the way that we did that was to get the engine running and warmed up and run a trickle of water into the carburetor for a few minutes. The steam from the water would loosen up the carbon and clean it from the engine.
Bucket shim? I assume you buy those from kia. Sounds like replacing all of the valves is a major ordeal if you have to shim each one. I like the suggestion on the valve tool. I'll be checking that out.
I was very confused because I don't have buckets. My head has normal lifters and roller rocket arms. Am i missing something here?
Update.... Really starting to hate kia. Rebuilding the engine is nearly impossible. Not only do you have several hundred dollars of torque to yield bolts but every main bearing size is different. Every cylinder bore is different, rod bearings are different, etc. I have never seen such a clustered up engine. So you buy oversized piston rings and grind the ends to fit the end gap. You are supposed to be able to see colors on the rod bearings to determine size and plastigage to verify spec. Mine have no colors. Now the valves.... The stock valves have raised lettering and logos on the top. A great place for the carbon to start the buildup. I ground and polished the lettering away. The replacement valve from autozone was already smooth. I've seen many issues on the forum concerning the catalytic converter. It appears to me that it is an avalanche starting with carbon buildup. If you clean the engine every 20k miles you will probably be fine. Otherwise the blow by and burning oil will plug the catalytic converter. Come to find out the root cause is the fuel delivery. Every manufacturer has issues with gdi engines. Toyota solved theirs by changing the fuel delivery periodically.
There should be a way to burn the oil out of the catalytic converter. A person could make a lot of money.....
There should be a way to burn the oil out of the catalytic converter. A person could make a lot of money.....
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