Piston Slap: A symbol of death is this engine’s Forte

James writes:

Hi! Have a 2010 Kia Forte with 69,000 miles. It has bearing noise and piston slap when cold at startup. I read Kia recalled some of these 2.0 engines but we never received a notice. Hard to believe such a low milage car has this! Local mechanic said to “just drive it,” but what do you think?  Thanks!

Sajeev answers:

I am pretty sure your local mechanic is right, but I would highly recommend starting a paper trail with your local Kia dealership. I hope you have service records showing regular oil changes, as those are crucial to a paper trail that will work in your favor. And this is a big deal because the Theta II engine has manufacturing issues that lead to engine failure. This video does a fantastic job explaining the problem:

But the only way to know for certain is by yanking it out and disassembling it. Which would be much like exploratory surgery in a hospital setting, as it is something nobody wants to do. So instead, just make sure the Kia corporate mothership has a paper trail on you (with oil change history) and your engine’s performance issues. Heck, you might wanna ask the service manager at your Kia dealership of how many engines they’ve replaced under recall/warranty/goodwill in the last 5–7 years. I bet they could tell you a heckuva story.

Or stories—plural. Manufacturing defects seem par for the course with Hyundai-Kia gasoline engines these days. The scope of the problem is likely unknown, as I suspect many are quietly addressed via dealership franchises performing the aforementioned goodwill repairs. Unless another whistleblower provides a running list of all the poorly manufactured parts from the beginning to the end of production for all Hyundai/Kia engine families, we are likely to only see a hodgepodge of errors come to the surface. Which doesn’t exactly help you, so let’s get back to the point.

Start a paper trail of customer concerns and oil change history with the Kia dealership, as I promise that the effort put in has a potential benefit, should your motor decide to implode in the future. Once complete, do what your mechanic said: Drive the Kia normally, but keep an eye on oil consumption as if the car’s life depends on it.

Because it probably does, as naming your engine after the Greek letter associated with death turned out to be a bad move. Best of luck, because maybe you got one of the motors that was machined/assembled correctly. Fingers crossed on that.

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