2014 Kia Sorento oil use problems

Paging Bob (and others) to the white courtesy phone:

Non-car-folk coworker / friend has a 2014 Kia Sorento - LX AWD.  I believe that makes it a 2.4 4 cylinder.  His wife's car; bought new, currently has 180k on it.

In the last 2-3 months it has started using or losing oil at a fairly substantial rate - maybe a quart every 800-1000 miles?

It does not spot the driveway or parking spaces.  I checked the coolant overflow tank and it looks clean and green.  I described the difference between oil smoke, fuel smoke, and water vapor.  The have not noticed significant smoke of any kind, but again, they are not car folks, so take that with a grain of salt.  When I looked under the hood, it seemed a little oil-wet under the intake manifold, but the owner had just added oil, so that could have been spillage.

Just recently it has started hesitating and stumbling at launch, but once cruising, seems to run fine.  They may or may not have noticed a small amount of smoke after leaving stops.

My current theories are (in order of severity):

• Broken / stuck ring(s) - I would assume that if they were just worn, you'd see more constant smoke, and the increase in loss wouldn't have been so sudden
   
• Headgasket - do these typically fail without involving coolant passages on this engine?
   
• Plugged PCV

With the current market, they're obviously hoping not to have to replace it at this time.  Anybody have experience, thoughts, or suggestions?  Thanks.

I doubt we are looking at a head gasket. Being a GDI engine have they ever done a top engine service? I mean at almost 200k miles anything is possible but one quart every 1k is still considered acceptable by most manufacturers. I do t agree and the fact that it just started is telling me something is going on. To be using that much oil it's either leaking bad or it's burning it. If it's burning it there will be smoke 

In reply to bobzilla :

Thanks for your input.  I seriously doubt anything has ever been done to it except oil changes on a fairly regular basis.

Oil use is probably more like 1 qt every 750-800 miles, but hearing second or third hand, it's hard to be sure.  Either way, it took a notable turn for the worse in December.

I believe it's going into the shop today or tomorrow.

I'll be interested to hear what it is. my 100k mile gdi rio burns about a quart every 3k.

EDI: the wife's Rio with 110k doesn't use a drop in 3k. Same car, same engine. 

2014 Sorento with the 2.4 is covered by the big recent Kia engine recall (among others), FWIW.

https://www.cars.com/research/kia-sorento-2014/recalls/

They might be outside of coverage due to mileage but could be same root cause.

In reply to pointofdeparture :

recall was for blockages causing oil pressure loss and bearing failures. 

In reply to bobzilla :

I'm not trying to imply that is definitively the issue, but working from third-hand info from a non-car person and with no info about the recall work being done, the fact that it's covered by the recall would at least be worth looking into. 

In reply to pointofdeparture :

Absolutely, and I appreciate the information.  I already forwarded the link to the owner.  Thanks again.

Diagnostic report linkydink

So... it apparently wasn't using as much oil as they thought since it is 2 qts high.  I have a sneaking suspicion that it was showing the CEL (not the oil light) and they would put oil in it and the CEL would then coincidentally go out.

It does, however, have the usual gallery of leaks you would expect in an 8 year old car that gets 20,000+ miles a year on it.  Plus some other issues like a stuck rear caliper.

They're getting the main items listed here addressed for $1500.  In this market, that will get them another couple years out of the car before they have to replace it.

Thanks again for everybody's input.

"We dont want to evaluate oil consumption until you address the 'leaks'" is how I read that.  Frustrating because I imagine those are more a case of slow seepage and potentially not worth addressing if the rest of the engine is about to die.

PCV could certainly cause a sudden increase in oil consumption.

My guess though is oil-rings which are rarely worth addressing other than ring-soak type 'fixes'.

Edit:  Yeah, if they are mistakenly filling it I agree with your assessment. 

If its not burning oil, its definitely worth addessing the rest of the issues, especially that caliper

2QTS overfull? Yeah its not burning/losing that much, a least not enough to cause serious concern. 

OK, they had a bunch of the preventive maintenance done as discussed above, but because the CEL was off when they took it in, that original problem wasn't addressed.

Yesterday it popped the CEL back on. I read it this morning and pulled a P0420 - Catalyst Efficiency Below Threshold Bank 1.

Car seems to run OK otherwise.  All readiness monitors report OK.  No other pending codes.

Any suggestions?  Thanks again!

In reply to Duke :

Pop a spark plug anti-fouler on the O2 sensor and reset codes?

slefain said:

In reply to Duke :

Pop a spark plug anti-fouler on the O2 sensor and reset codes?

Yeah, I've probably got an O2 sensor extender sitting around somewhere.  If it looks like it will be expensive for them to get it fixed the right way, I can probably do that for them in the parking lot at work.

Ive seen quite a few of these fail. The recall refers to debris left in the block from machining, and in the early stages they check for noise from the bearings. Ive seen them locked up, Ive seen them fail the bearing check and Ive seen massive oil consumption and end up getting replaced. A couple weeks ago I was talking to the service manager at a hyundai dealer about one with oil consumption, and he said it was a little bit of a process but he expected to get it covered under the recall.

If oil consumption is present I would at least call the local hyundai dealer and talk to them, I know its got a bunch of miles but a call and short chat couldnt hurt.

Oil consumption would line up with cat failure.

Duke said:

OK, they had a bunch of the preventive maintenance done as discussed above, but because the CEL was off when they took it in, that original problem wasn't addressed.

Yesterday it popped the CEL back on. I read it this morning and pulled a P0420 - Catalyst Efficiency Below Threshold Bank 1.

Car seems to run OK otherwise.  All readiness monitors report OK.  No other pending codes.

Any suggestions?  Thanks again!

 

has i been cold there? The last couple high mileage Korean cars would pop this code when temps sayed below freezing. The catalyst wouldn't reach operating temps due to age. This was on a car that by that point was worth a grand so we never bothered. The Accent started around 190k, the first rio around 170k

If they are running it overfull, that can cause oil leaks as well as increased oil consumption (more oil gets whipped up and drawn through PCV system), and chronic oil consumption can poison a converter.

If that is the engine I think it is, it is basically the same engine as was used in a lot of Mopar cute utes (Patriot/etc), and they all just seem to work aside from developing a minor oil pan leak after a while.

In reply to bobzilla :

No, not exceptionally cold. Anywhere from low 30s to high 50s, plus the CEL first appeared on a road trip to FL, I think.

Don't know current state of oil consumption / loss, but given that it was 2 qts high, I don't think that was ever really the problem.

I think it's going back to the shop tomorrow. We'll see the prognosis then. If they are told it needs a new cat I will probably offer to space the O2 sensor out of the direct exhaust stream for them.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

If they are running it overfull, that can cause oil leaks as well as increased oil consumption (more oil gets whipped up and drawn through PCV system), and chronic oil consumption can poison a converter.

If that is the engine I think it is, it is basically the same engine as was used in a lot of Mopar cute utes (Patriot/etc), and they all just seem to work aside from developing a minor oil pan leak after a while.

On a related note... do the GEMA engines come from the same factories, or do each of the 3 manufacturers produce their own, utilizing the shared designs?

A significant number of Hyundai Kia engines are GEMA (Theta).  Basically all 2.0L+ 4 cylinders.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

If they are running it overfull, that can cause oil leaks as well as increased oil consumption (more oil gets whipped up and drawn through PCV system), and chronic oil consumption can poison a converter.

If that is the engine I think it is, it is basically the same engine as was used in a lot of Mopar cute utes (Patriot/etc), and they all just seem to work aside from developing a minor oil pan leak after a while.

The oil overfilling was, I believe, a response to the CEL.  Like I said, they are not car people at all.  I think the CEL came on during a road trip; they didn't know what it meant, so they checked the oil and found it a little low.  They added some oil and coincidentally the CEL went out.  So after that, every time the CEL came on, they just added a little more oil.

All of that happened since late December or early January when they were on the trip.  So the overfilling thing was only for a month or so and a few thousand miles.  I don't expect that oil in the exhaust would have killed it in that amount of time (I could well be wrong) but at 180k miles it could well be down on efficiency just from natural causes.  And anyway, the CEL came before the oil input.

Thanks, everybody!

In reply to ProDarwin :

They each made their own. The basic block design was shared, the rest was unique to each manufacturer. The engines made in the US were the ones with the majority of problems, much like the early years of Honda manufacturing where the Japanese built vehicles were the ones to get. 

https://shop.tekmetric.com/inspection/gZfvnVC1WasBOs3WkuFo7act7Tam1-zrSBfnP9ywvNM 
 

So the shop thinks it's the pre-cat.

In reply to Duke :

Didn't know about the "if the cat is cooler at the outlet than inlet, it's not doing it's job." That's a thing?

fatallightning said:

In reply to Duke :

Didn't know about the "if the cat is cooler at the outlet than inlet, it's not doing it's job." That's a thing?

Not a particularly accurate thing.

He's waiting for an estimate to replace it, but if it's anywhere near what I suspect it's going to cost, I'm going to recommend we space the Bank 1 o2 sensor and send it.

The car is running fine and not showing any signs of the cat being clogged.