The Kx would probably sell better if it is backed by a decent dealer discount or some stuff like free service etc.

Again, it would have to be backed by better after sales service.

If I were to compare the Kx and a City, having gone through my painful experience, I'd suggest people to get a car from a vendor that has a larger, more capable support base. From my experience (and experience of others that I met during the service clinic with the Korean Engineer), the support base that Naza KIA has is just, sad.

On the other hand, I am hoping the Kx sells well so that the availability of spare parts increase. Hence, there is a win situation in all of this, but it needs stronger backing.

For my personal take on this, the engine oil being used can have an influence on the car's performance. A high quality oil will certainly help.

Bearing in mind that most "synthetics" out there are Group III, essentially severely processed mineral oil with synthetic like properties. If the option is there, go for a better oil (Group IV). Most Group III oils like Syntium and Helix Ultra rely on VI enhancers to achieve their performance, whilst Group IV oils, whilst being more expensive, achieve this performance natively. And VI enhancers also break down eventually.



I will be moving away from the existing Group III oils to Group IV oils during my next service (quite likely Motul 300V 5W-30 or 0W-20).

Mazda has an excellent 0W-20 oil with Moly. Was aiming for that, but too bad it's not easily available locally.

Note that all this is just my personal preference and experience. Moving from a higher weight (or winter) oil to a lower one helped improve my FC and made the engine more free revving in my previous ride. Am hoping to achieve the same in the K3. Our cars are not really racing vehicles, but I suppose no harm investing in good oils as they are built to withstand harsh conditions.

Agreed with this perspective.

Our cars sensors are pretty much based on temperature. There is a sensor inside the car (item 5 in the attached image) that detects ambient temperature and ups/drops the fan speed.

Unfortunately whether it's a bug or not, it seems like it is able to open the recirculate port, but is unable to close it (turn it back to recirculate). Anyone care to Jailbreak/Root the EMS (kidding).


Here's a description of the sensor from KGIS:

"An in-car air temperature sensor is located in the crash pad lower panel.
The sensor contains a thermistor which measures the temperature of the inside. The signal decided by the resistance value which changes in accordance with perceived inside temperature, is delivered to the heater control unit and according to this signal the control unit regulates the in-car temperature to the intended value."





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I believe to change the car is nearly impossible. KIA wouldn't even change my car despite the fact it has a confirmed oil leak and they have no idea what to do.


But I believe for your case, you might want to look up a professional detailer and see if they can remove it. Car's international unfortunately don't fall under the category of a detailer. So you might have more luck with someone who's really into it and perhaps they can give you a better suggestion on how to move forward.

However, if the paint has already corroded, then, that might be tough, even for a professional detailer. Perhaps you could share some pictures under daylight for us to have a look in case someone might have a suggestion.

Guess it was bound to occur again some day. My gearbox problem happen again. Put into D and the gear would not engage. Raised it to KIA Korean engineer also when I saw him but he flatly refused to even look into it.

Cruise control also went crazy after that. Set to 110 and the car just went up all the way to 140 on 4th or 5th gear.

The car was going beyond 110km/h which is what I set. The RPM was somewhere beyond 5K RPM and the car was going past 130 km/h. When I saw that I quickly stepped on the brakes..The cruise control disengaged. I've experienced stuck cruise control before on other cars so I tend to be very careful when using it.

What's interesting is that the car was going past the speed I set. It was already set earlier at 110 and I braked and went to the left lane to let people pass. After cars passed I hit resume and the above happened. Not once but a few times.

Eventually the issue sorted itself and the cruise control was back to its normal behavior I left it alone and drove like 50km before trying it again.

The last time the gearbox issue happened there was an error that was logged indicating a communication error between the TCU and the engine. I suspect this is the case again this time. Will have it checked next week. Just so happen this occur when I'm driving the car on a trip.

I suspect the above same issue also caused the cruise control problem.

I asked the SC to drain and replace the ATF the first time this happened. They didn't though and will probably force them to do it this time around.

Interestingly both times This occurred, it was in the morning....

Having been through my engine oil leak experience, it is very neccesary for end users to always observe their cars whilst it's being worked on. You never know if this would be useful in the future.

Also another thing from my gearbox experience is to always make sure the SC, if they detect any error code, print it out for you and note it down on your record. In my case, the first time the gearbox issue occurred, there was a DTC recorded. Subsequently when it occurred again, there was no DTC. The SC I sent to ask what was the earlier error code. I could not get it back as the SC did not note down the info.

DTC = Diagnostics Troubleshooting Code

There is a very good podcast where the head of Meguiar's technical team was interviewed where they spoke extensively about coatings, what it's for, the ups and downs etc. Suggest to look it up.

I have the B-pillar rubber strip as well as rubber striping for all the doors. I'd suggest to do that (B-pillar and all doors). There is a noticeable difference

Completely agree with susu_capbadak. The K3 has some really strange (or perhaps a better term would be complicated) adaptive logic that can be triggered/influenced by many circumstances.

I.e if the previous driver was somewhat heavy footed, the next driver might feel the car to be very responsive. On the other hand, if the previous driver was an eco-warrior, expect the car to be well....a bit more lethargic, or response might be slower.

Also it depends on the car's current mileage and how far off it has been serviced and the oil used.

Just did my 10K and before the 10K service, the car was just sluggish or rough thanks to the dino oil that was thrown into it. After I replaced it with honest to goodness real synthetic oil, the smoothness, power and the effortless acceleration came back.

Quite a lot of factors really.

I think the survey is generally reflective of the market sentiment regarding those vendors measured.

KIA's performance is certainly below average and that's quite reflective considering the amount of complaints going around (mine included).

However the issue with KIA is not so much things like service center, follow ups etc. They have a good range of service centers and easily accessible as well with a wide range of opening hours and generally good follow up (especially the Glenmarie SC). Plus they have a good range of products.

The problem with KIA is their ability to resolve deep technical problems and the attitude of the vendor when faced with such challenges.

I.e in my case, KIA has totally decided not to take any of my suggestions on how to troubleshoot the engine oil leak I reported (talcum powder, UV testing etc). Instead they just decided to get a third party come in to verify and justify my claims.

Pushing things away like this is certainly not the way to treat customers that shelled out RM99k for a car.

Time for me to experience their below average service level again. My head unit just died. No button pressing would revive it.

Only an engine restart would bring it back to life.

This post has been edited by perror: Aug 4 2014, 08:42 PM


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Mine is the second time it behave weird. First time it was working but there was no sound at all from it

Hi sxplax, they have decided not to do anything about it. I have given them some suggestions such as using talcum powder to help spot the leak, or use ultra violet reactive liquid to trace. The latter is a pretty standard process to help look up difficult to find oil leaks, or oil leaks that don't appear all the time:

http://www.amazon.com/Tracer-Products-TP34...n/dp/B000JFHNTM


Unfortunately they just sent me a mail saying they still think there's no leak, and they want to bring in a "neutral" third party to justify my claims of an oil leak. This third party is AAM, and I'm not completely convinced this is a neutral party.

It's really quite dismal handling from them and I've asked them again, why have they rejected my suggestions completely, despite the fact as I understand is that UV testing is well within their capabilities (from the SC). No answer so far.

All in all, it's still pending, and no sign of closure.

My issue with them is really how they have handled this problem. Most of the time it's just always trying to push the issue to say there's nothing wrong. I don't see any positive effort on their end to really try to get to the root cause of the problem.

Certainly this will be my last KIA. It's a good car, and good drive. However sadly let down by horrible after sales and the "this is not a problem" attitude of the HQ.

No worries man as this is what a discussion group is for really. I'm sure everyone has their reasons, but well, here's my take on your questions as I asked the same when I was thinking of which car to get:

1) Value for money, bang for the buck. I tested the Honda Civic. Love it, but it just feels plastic and you really are not getting what you paid for. Safety wise, K3 is leaps and bounds ahead, and you get a whole lot more metal for that price (hence the weight). The only thing that the Civic had as far as I was concerned was the much better implemented gearbox. The Altis, 3/3 gave me the same reaction. Throwback to the 70s, wrapped in a 21st century shell.

2) Yes, but hopefully that will change.

3) Maintenance for any boutique brand car (or what I would classify as a car company/manufacturer that does not move a lot of product in the country in question) will always be higher somewhat compared to mainstream brands. For Korean cars, due to their high dependence on sensors, the cost will go up slightly for replacement of these sensors should they fail, and it does take a person with good knowledge of the car to troubleshoot these sensor problems (hence the higher manpower cost associated with the activity)

4) In so far, the FC is pretty decent depending on how you drive. My average currently after sorting out all my issues is about 570 KM/tank, giving me nearly 13 days between visits to the pump. Driving style 50/50 city/highway.


I think the real issue is only no.3 (at least from my personal experience).

Mine is a 1.6. I fancied the 2.0, but a few things put me off:

1) The higher price tag

2) Sunroof. To quote PaulTan, we are in Malaysia. It's hot here! Jokes aside, I'm not so confident of the Koreans having sorted out the sealing and mechanism for the sunroof properly so it was more of a liability than a feature.

3) Higher insurance and roadtax (RM90 vs RM300++)



Beyond that, if you are a lone driver or with another person most of the time, I think a 1.6 is more than sufficient. 2.0 would be a nice to have. I don't have the FC numbers for the 2.0 though so I can't comment on the actual fuel consumption of that mill.

Rather to save that 20k and use it to get a good tint, install a PPF (to protect the front side of your car against stone chips etc) and get some leather seat in stalled. Just my 2 cents really

Yeah I think we've got enough sun on a daily basis. Not to mention the heavier equipment required to support the sunroof and all that. Not to mention the rubber seals that could harden over time and it's harder to wax up the car (hard enough as it is even with a stool).

Do check out a PPF as well. It's a bit pricy but worth it. I'm using xPel Extreme and it's taken a lot of beating for my car already. The car next to me which is black, has so many stone chips that it looked like it just got out of Afghanistan

Yeah it's pretty much like a phone screen protector but it's designed for a car. More to the point it's something similar to those invisible shield or best skins ever type of stuff, but significantly thicker.

The cost is not cheap unfortunately...coming about 3k+ to get the bonnet, front bumper, lamps, fender all done up. Almost the price of repainting a car. But it's worth every penny especially since it protects against stone chips and potential rusting on these areas that face the wind.

I've done a PPF on mine using xPel Xtreme PPF.

A PPF is kinda like those full body skin layer for phones etc. It's a film that is layered over your car and protects the paint work against stone chips, scratches as well as the under lying paint. It's thicker than the average screen protector or film used to protect those devices.

Coating, I believe there are others here who can elaborate about it, but it's basically a chemical compound that bonds/sticks to your paint to help protect the paint and repel water etc, but it is unlikely to provide any decent protection against stone chips as I've seen cars with coatings and still with stone chip damage on them.

A good run down on the differences and to get over all the marketing fluff like "real glass" etc can be found in the following podcast, an interview with Meguiar's head of technical training:

http://shoutengine.com/AMMONYC/part-2-jaso...ood-or-bad-1134


I went for a PPF because it is permanent, it won't wear out, and it provides proper paint protection against stone chips. Judging from the marks on it, it was well worth the money. The downside of a PPF, is the cost. It's still very expensive to install it in Malaysia. Also another downside of PPF is if you go for a so so brand, it may yellow and this might be noticeable if your car is white. But most good brands like xPel will not yellow for the next 5-7 years.

I'm not a PPF seller, but I am an advocate of it over coatings for the protection it offers. I did my car's frontal area for slightly over 3k. Let me know if you need a lead on where to do it