I have posted here from time to time about my lowly Kia Soul from 2015. We’re currently at 91,450 or so in mileage. I just found out thanks to a helpful Valvoline tech that we’re burning oil at an accelerated rate. Apparently, my stupid behind doesn’t know how to properly check oil, because when I checked it 2 weeks ago it appeared to be full. However, yesterday the guy said the oil was barely registering on the dipstick. There’s absolutely no sign of leaks, so this mother freaking GDI engine has to be burning what’s missing.
This is all backed up by the fact that towards the end of an oil change interval, I’m getting a periodic knock on acceleration. It appears that this was my poor 2.0L engine starving for oil. After the oil change, there’s magically no noise at all. In the back of my mind I kept thinking that the noise sounded like sucking too little fluid through a straw, and it seems like that’s very close to what was happening.
I have an offer in hand from CarMax from an appointment yesterday, and they’ll give me $5,500 for my current car.
This leads me to go looking for alternatives. I’m trying not to have a huge payment, so I’m trying to stay under $10,000. That prevents me from considering any Toyotas or Hondas unless they are very old or very high mileage.
Looking around, I found a 2015 Ford Fusion hybrid ( titanium edition) with 115,000 miles for $11,000 from a local Honda dealership that I trust. I also found a 2017 Ford Fusion hybrid at a Ford dealership that I do not know about 40 miles away at $9,880 with 109,000 miles.
I know Fords are not generally well regarded these days, but all my research points to Fusion hybrids being reliable, lasting up to 250,000 miles or more. Given that I’ve put less than 92,000 miles on my Kia in 10 years, it seems like either of these might be a good buy for me that would be well within my budget.
With all that said, I invite you guys to play: Is it better than my 2015 Kia Soul?
I will tell you from personal experience that it is far, far cheaper to just monitor the oil level and add to it as necessary.
That said… Kia/Hyundai had a massive engine recall over engine issues, your vehicle included. It would be worth looking into, because for any 2015 vehicle, reaching ~150,000 miles with minimal issues is the absolute bare minimum, yet yours is already supposedly exhibiting issues with less than 100k. Hell, our 2015 Toyota Highlander is at 120k miles, hauls kids and all sorts of other shit around, and isn’t exactly babied. Yet, it still runs and drives like new.
Take it to the nearest Kia dealer and pester them about the engine recall https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2015/KIA/SOUL
And for the love of god, DO NOT trade it for a goddamn Ford. That’s a severe downgrade. If you insist on trading, get an older V6 Toyota Camry. I mean this quite literally - any year Camry with a V6 engine will easily outlast literally every other American sedan by a significant margin.
Honestly, I haven’t been checking in between changes like I should, because I’ve been changing the oil about twice as often as Kia recommends, and it never occurred to me I could be losing that much oil over such a short time.
I’m basing my trust on that tech on the way he approached me about it, the volume of the oil they took out, and the fact that oil volume issues would appear to correlate with the knocking that I’ve been hearing towards the end of my self-appointed oil change intervals at around 3,000 to 5,000 miles. It just all fell into place for me when I got this information. I had assumed the knocking might have been related to the catalytic converter replacement I had to have done this year, but it had occurred to me that the knocking I heard would occur sometimes during acceleration close to the time when I would need to be taking it for an oil change. I’m going to be monitoring it carefully to confirm, but I think oil loss through burning is likely what my issue has been. As I’ve stated elsewhere, there’s no evidence of leaks at all. Also, I’m not putting out the kind of smoke that I’ve seen from cars that I was told were burning oil. Apparently, it’s just common knowledge that some GDI engines burn a ton of oil, and that just never filtered into my conscious consideration.
I would dearly love to get into any kind of Toyota or Honda at this point. Unfortunately, the only affordable ones available are even older than what I have and usually much higher mileage. The ones that are in my price range are not of the aesthetically pleasing variety, which would not please my wife. Personally, I would drive a mechanically sound but ugly car, but it’s not just me I have to think about.
If I weren’t already paying for another relatively new car (a 2023 CRV hybrid), things might be different. However, given the expense accorded to even used Toyotas and Hondas, I would be lucky to find one in the price range I need. Even well-maintained 10 or 15-year-old ones with low miles are running over $15,000. Heck, one dealership is selling a 2019 Civic for around $18,000 with 218,000 miles on it.
Honestly, the engine recall is what feeds my nervousness about my current car. I take pretty good care of it, changing the oil a lot more often than Kia recommends, but I’m still afraid of how it’s going to run long-term. A decent number of people online complain that Kia is extremely difficult to convince to replace an engine, also. So I’m more than a little bit skeptical about whether they’d come through for me. In theory, I have a 150,000 mile/15 year warranty (thanks to the recall), but I wonder how much that will be worth if things go wrong.
I’ve just never had a very good time with the service department at my dealership, and the same people own all of the Kia dealerships in this area. It’s really hard to get an appointment and they typically charge a ton, so unless I absolutely have to, I just go to third party mechanics and shops. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that they wanted to charge me between $3,000 and $4,000 to replace a catalytic converter. The vibe I get from them is that they’re doing everything they can to force people to buy a new car by making the service experience as difficult as possible.
I’m thinking, too, that a lot of the engine issues with these cars is the result of people running into exactly what I have. They’re sticking to the 7500 mile oil change interval recommended in the manual, the engines start burning oil at some point, the oil loss gets to a point where the engines start tearing themselves up, and, voila, another one bites the dust.
Fair. Just be wary of lube shops, there are plenty of people staffing those places who will lie through their teeth right to your face to upsell you on things you don’t need.
Understandable. I would haul it to the dealership anyway and push to get a paper trail started at the least. You’ve still got another 50k miles and 4 years to squeeze their balls.
You’re very close. Manufacturers would rather you keep buying new cars (or even lease one - leases are BMW’s bread and butter) over keeping an older one on the road. Dealers are not helpful here in the slightest, and dealer service departments are absolutely incentivized to steer customers towards the showroom floor. I used to work at a dealer, this was common knowledge among staff across many, many locations.