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2015 Soul Base, daughter complains about poor performance.

2K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  kens gray 
#1 ·
15K miles one Wisconsin salt season, felt heat on all her four rotors, was surprised this vehicle has four wheel disc brakes. All four wheels had pad drag. One at a time, that metal clip on the pad holders was a nice spot for trapping road salt, rust underneath pushing on the pad tips so they stayed partially engaged.

Use a super fine powered wire brush to cleaned off that rust, coated with anti-seize, tips of the pads that engage those clips all rusty, same treatment. Made a huge difference, really took a great effort to hand rotate both rear wheels. But this wasn't the only problem, the rear brake caliper levers were not returning to their home position, good 3/4" distance to the stops. Using my plastic pry bar, removed the rear cover of her center console.

Wasn't sure if this was one of those self adjusting hand brake levers, or adjustable, was adjustable, so loosen that nut until both levers were against their stops. Now the wheels turn effortlessly.

Took it for a test drive on a hilly road, engine was really laboring hard, what kind of gas are you putting in this thing? She told me, couldn't have put worse gas in this vehicle from a near by cut rate station. Told her where to go to get 91 octane ethanol free gas. Lets not get into this, our local ethanol producer, neither state or federal regulated can't even give a proper mix, for all you know, getting 82 octane fuel.

Removed her spark plugs, gaped at over 45 mils, were NGK and first thing I noticed the base of all four of her plugs were coated with a brown orange color, showing poor ceramic seal, to prove this, put them in my spark plug tester, with low pressure were all firing okay, but when I jacked it put to around 100 psi, goodbye spark, could even fill the air leaking. Were also single iridium plugs, ground electrode was naked. As no place in town sells any kind of plug that fits this thing ordered Autolite XP6203 off the net, still waiting for these things to come in.

But with her plugs gaped them at 27 mils and used a high temperature Permatex epoxy to fill that gap between the metal and the ceramic, I know it won't hold, but better than nothing. Also tossed a can of Seafoam, base of her plugs were loaded with black carbon, can only guess what the rest of the engine looks like.

What a difference, according to the net, this thing should do 0-60 in 8.5 seconds, didn't try this, but about par for the course.

Oh, all of her piston side pads were thinner than the outpads, still plenty of meat left, so left them. Just thought I would share this.
 
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#3 ·
I have read all over the web, that the reddish coating on the plugs is completely normal and due to the fuel additives in use all over the US. I have seen it on the last 2 engines I worked on (2005 Dodge 5.7L, and 2001 Ford 3.0L). Scared me at first, but is considered normal by experts.
Thank goodness I don't drive anywhere they use salt on the roads. My pads/rotors, and brake hardware are perfect at 76K miles(I did change front pads at about 50-55K). And all my wheels spin freely when car is jacked up. Sorry to hear you got jacked by road salt. Thanks for the information.....we shade tree mechanics need to know what to watch out for.
 
#4 ·
Sure wasn't there for the first 12K miles, then performance dropped substantially. And how do you explain increasing the pressure in a good spark plug tester wipes that spark out?

Plugs that came with this Soul, love this name, are NKG SIL ZK R6B and could say they were good for about 12K miles. Would contribute this leakage to thermal cycling.

I dropped those Autolite's XP6203's in yesterday, wow, what a difference in performance. Never had this problem with Autolite's, and no, I do not work for Autolite, ha, don't even work at all, been retired for the last five years. But always cleaned my plugs ever 15K miles, and dump them at 45K miles, about twice around the earth is enough.

One thing I do not like about these plugs, and this also includes the Autolite's they are cutting the threads clear to the bottom leaving about a 1/4" of exposed threads in the combustion chamber that get a hard baked on carbon. When this happens, you will have a heck of a time getting them out.

Am an old retired automotive engineer, and so help me, some of these young kids are smoking crack, making threads like this is nothing short of being stupid. On other vehicles like this, would put the plugs in my machine tool lathe and cut these worthless threads off, then you don't have problems.

In some vehicles, not only the spark plug comes out, but also the threads in these aluminum heads come out with them. Then you really have problems, problems that were never problems before.
 
#5 ·
Interesting. My 2015 base manual tranny has also gone through one Wisconsin winter. I had nothing like the problems you describe. But last winter was exceptionally mild, and I will watch carefully this year as my son, the meteorologist, say we are in for a nasty one in 2016/7.

I have measured slightly better mileage (1/2 to 1 MPG) and an impression of better performance with mid-grade gas. Hard to tell for sure as driving styles will vary from tank to tank.
 
#6 ·
She was living an an apartment north of the center of downtown that only offered on street parking. As usual, the left side was much worse than the right side with all those salt trucks going by. Have a couple of kids living in Brookfield, they don't have nearly the problems.

Have 16 odd ethanol plants in Wisconsin so really don't know what you are getting Half of them are breaking Federal EPA emission laws. Maybe you noticed the price of dairy products and beef have really skyrocketed since they started these.

She drove her Soul yesterday and said wow, never had this power before, was talking about trading it in, but already has a pile of student loans.


Pleased with my 2017 Elantra Limited, lied about the EPA fuel economy at 37 mpg, on a couple of 400 mile trips using ethanol free that we can buy up here and at 65 mph, averaging 48 mpg, at 73 mph, drops to 46 mpg.
 
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