Hey Scotty,
I have a 2015 Kia Soul with a automatic transmission with a 129,500 miles and a 1.6 engine. What can cause the Kia to lose oil? I changed the Valve Gasket and the PCV valve and I still see the engine lose little bit of oil. I looked at the exhaust and see any smoke was coming out of the exhaust and there was no smoke. I checked inside the engine and its clean. Its weird because I checked it last week and it was full. I checked the oil pressure after I let it cool off from driving for couple of hours. Kias engine are very complex, I'm looking to get rid of it within about 2 years. Help me out Scotty. What else should I check? What could it be?
Thank you,
Lorenzo
Cape Coral Florida
What can cause the Kia to lose oil?
Kia engines are poorly made and are known for burning oil and catastrophic failure.
I looked at the exhaust and see any smoke was coming out of the exhaust and there was no smoke. I checked inside the engine and its clean.
Irrelevant. Oil burning has to rise to a high level to produce visible smoke. Sludge would be a sign of poor maintenance, too much blowby, or inadequate crankcase ventilation, not oil burning.
I checked the oil pressure after I let it cool off from driving for couple of hours.
If your oil pressure is dropping that's a sign of excessive internal wear.
What could it be?
Your engine is wearing out. You're at about the right mileage for that.
I looked at the exhaust and see any smoke was coming out of the exhaust and there was no smoke.
You need to be burning massive amounts of oil to show up in the exhaust. I drove behind someone around 10 years ago, some old late 80s or early 90s junker. He was burning oil like we're in Saudi Arabia. Ohio doesn't have emissions testing, except Cleveland, and I was in Dayton. That car wreaked of oil, and it so happened to be Earth Day that year. I said as I was driving that dude may as well delete his piston rings. Haha.
What else should I check?
With newer engines (maybe yours as well), the dealers consider it "normal" for up to a quart of oil to be consumed per 1,000 miles; to put that into prospective, my 1999 Ranger has 2x the mileage of your Kia (294k miles) and it burns or leaks around a quart of oil every 5,000 miles: normal for an engine that old. It's not normal for a 9-year-old Kia to burn that much oil.
