My suggestion for this is that you take a photo of the condensation when it is there, and when it is not as evidence. They've been known to not bother to look into issues that cannot be easily reproduced.

There are plus points and minus points of this bit. I believe most here have applied a coating, one way or another. The most important thing is to understand what the coating does and does not do for you and the potential limitations that may be imposed on you once it's applied.

I.e I have a friend driving a 3 year old Sonata that has Sierra Glow on it and it's got a 5 year warranty on the coating. He was complaining of water spots on his car and indeed his car looks like it's been hit with a severe case of chicken pox.

If it was an uncoated car, I offered to try the water spot remover from Meguiars. But since he's got a coating, he has to check what to do with the coating guys. Also there's no certainty that the coating is still there after so many years, and if none is left, the water spot may have etched the clear coat.

Coating is great in some ways, but could be a pain at other times. Just my 2 cents. I just don't fancy the fact that using a coating limits the potential products you can use to resolve defects or problems on your own, for example if you have a scratch, you can use ScratchX to remove it quite easily on any other car.

No worries man. I believe there are plus points in both approaches.

Coatings is targeted to help reduce the amount of time spent on waxing, but has some potential drawbacks.

On the other hand cleaning and waxing (like once a month due to our weather) takes up time, but there's a fairly interesting learning path and experience that awaits.

I'm generally adamant of doing things (and learning on the way) ourselves, but it boils down to time pressure at the end of the day.

Coatings won't protect against stone chips. Only a PPF will do can do that to a certain extent.

I did mine at G-Guard, Glenmarie. They have 2 options, xPel extreme and xPel ultimate which is the self healing film. The former is cheaper.

For me, the day I got my car, I straight away deposited it at their branch so I didn't do any polish or waxing before installing it. Perhaps if you've got some miles racked up, you may need to do some claying before installing or get them to do it for you at a price.

I installed mine on the bonnet, fenders, bumper, side mirrors, head lamps and fog lamps. You can tell them which area you want to install and which area you don't want.

Too bad they don't offer an A-pillar install otherwise I would have gone for that as well.

The PPF came in at about RM3k which is quite pricy. Many say I could just respray the car once for that money.

I can't really comment on that because I don't have the price of a complete respray using proper paint and also with an oven baked clear coat, which is what the factory does. Also at least with the PPF, it protects against rust that normally accompanies a stone chip after a while.

Also the fact I don't need to skip a heartbeat whenever I happen to be behind a lorry or something and stuff comes flying to me. That makes it worth it.

I drove once from Sungkai to Lumut round the town makan and then went back to KL. When I reached KL I went around the place, got stuck in jams getting to the KIA SC at puchong, and a few trips to office.

All in all that one single tank of petrol, i went up to 680 KM before the fuel light came up (typically that means approx 50 KM more of mileage).

I'd say the 1.6 is pretty good and good for some "aggressive" driving down that road...but probably not if you've got lots of cargo though..

The only thing I didn't fancy was the depression on those roads which can be quite bad, got one point it felt like the car was off the ground or something..

Go for a SC that offers you some alternative oils. Anything other than Petronas. Shell Helix is also so so and sadly doesn't perform up to expectations and has very little protective aspects. It's just..oil...

MPV at batu caves has alternative options and you can pay a surcharge to bring your own oil. Best to protect your engine early on. But of course beware of fake oils as well.

I also have the 3 year service package and opted to use my own engine oil.

Basically I have only used Shell Helix so far as a base line comparison and it gets really rough and heavy beyond 5K KM. And it's supposed to last 10K.

Even senior Naza engineers have doubt that Syntium can really last 10K (I conversed with them when they were trying to fix my oil leak issue).

I've subsequently changed to Motul 300V, and the engine is really much more free revving and lighter.

There are areas where I do have concerns on whether Syntium really provides adequate protection. I.e during startup.

Do check around and see and most service centers offer alternatives to Syntium. Note that I don't recommend the 300V as there is some specifications conflict (which I found out later).

Total is a really good engine oil. A lot of European brands like Peugeot uses them.

There are some service centers in the Selangor area that offer Total Quarts 9000.

Feedback on that oil seems to be quite positive.

That's a really good one!

But it's a fact I suppose. There is a linear relationship between a car's perceived resale value vs it's likelyhood of being carjacked.

If you plan to change to HID, you're going to have to drill a hole in the headlamp housing as I recall. That might not be good for your warranty, but this is just what I've read so far.

Alternatively there's always the option to use those third party replacement halogen bulbs. I'm using Osram Night Breaker and it's great.

I forgot how much is it. I recall I got it at a relatively high price at the SC...but if you go to the spare parts shop in Sea park you could probably pick it up for a really good price. Just gotta take it to a trusted mech to install.

No worries man. I got it fitted at one of the SC that was selling it. But you could probably find a friendly neighborhood mech who could help you out with it. It is slightly more involved to remove the existing bulb and replace with a new one than in other cars, but should not be too much hassle.

These devices basically accelerate throttle response and manipulate the values returned to the car's Electronic Throttle Control (ETCS) to give perceived increase in power or better fuel economy.

The fact is a 1.6 engine will always be a 1.6 engine. Nothing an external box can do to make it more powerful than what it already is, other than give the illusion of being more powerful/less powerful by manipulating inputs to the ETCS module.


That being said, whether these devices void warranty is highly subjective. You can always disconnect them before sending the car in to a service center. However, if the car is (touch wood) involved in an accident, and a throttle controller is found, how this will impact the outcome remains an open question. I.e what if something screwed up that caused unintended acceleration.


Some may recall this issue a few years ago caused by buggy ETCS/ECM software that may cause unintended acceleration:

http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/44234...ts-consequences

All in all, there's a lot of drivers going around with these, and even SC promoting it. KIA has done a great deal to ensure the throttle control system is robust. Probably best to leave it untouched.

Just my 2 cents on the matter


This post has been edited by perror: Oct 16 2014, 06:59 PM

My gearbox has been experiencing issues since the day I got the car. At 800KM, 6000 KM, 8000KM mileage. Put to D and it will not engage and the car won't move.

It's at 15000 KM mileage now and it just happened to me again this morning. Getting really pissed off with this gearbox. At my 10000 KM, I changed the shift inhibitor but it didn't seem to resolve the problem.

I suggest looking outside to find a good tyre alignment shop. Even though the alignment provided is free, some shops out there offer better services such as high speed balancing of your tyres.

I did a high speed balancing on my tyres and it performed really well. But not every shop does this. Basically it involves jacking up your car and putting your tyre against a dolly which will then run it and determine if there is any vibration. It's much more accurate than standard balancing.

Vibration typically indicates a balancing issue. Have the wheel balanced and it should be ok.

High speed balancing basically looks out for vibrations that occur when the wheels are spinning at high speeds. Most of the time this is when the vibration rears it's ugly head and causes your steering to shake.

Hi dextm I might have a solution for you on this bit. But probably it is dependent on some info from you.

Basically as I understand it, when you shift the gear from D to N etc, the shift indicator in the dashboard goes out where it should normally show P D R N etc?

If that is the case, you likely have a faulty shift inhibitor. It's a small device sitting on top of your gearbox. Actuating the shift lever in the car physically manipulates this switch. What's strange is that the stick can't be shifted. That's something I've never seen before. However, it does seem like the shift inhibitor may have some dirt or bits in there and worth to get it changed.

You could probably drop by a SC and tell them of this issue and ask them to change the shift inhibitor. Takes no more than 30 minutes. No guarantees it will solve the problem, but from your description, it should.

I've seen many others face this issue as well and it seems like the shift inhibitor in our car is somewhat cranky or not very good

Well I don't know of any shops in PJ doing high speed balancing, but perhaps other members here may know. I normally do mine at Shah Alam