Here are the details:
2015 Kia Optima automatic 75k miles
I was driving today and my car turned off out of the blue. A bunch of lights came on in the instrument cluster and I was able to coast to a safe spot.
When trying to start the car there is a very short sound indicating it is trying to turn over, but maybe 1 second of this then silence. No clicking or whiring.
My friend came and tried to jump start my car. Before attaching jumper cables I checked my battery voltage and it was 12.4V. After 15 minutes of charging my car would still not start. Even with the jumpers still attached from his battery.
I went to AutoZone and borrowed their code reader, but it came up with 0 codes.
I checked every fuse and they all appear fine.
My thoughts are it could be the ignition coils or starter, but wanted to get another opinion before swapping things out.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance!
Edit: it turned out to be the engine has seized and it is being replaced for free under the recall. Got a 2023 Stinger as a loaner and very happy with how this turned out. Such a relief. I am considering selling my Optima and going Subaru or Toyota.
If the entire car stopped while actively driving, it’s not coils or your starter. All 4 ignition coils don’t just die at the same time, youd have one go out which would result in a misfire, not complete shutdown. And your starter has zero impact on the engine while engine is already running.
Being that it’s a Theta II engine with 75k miles that no longer turns over, it’s likely had a catastrophic bearing failure and has completely locked up. They were a flawed engine design with poor machining and a very high percentage of them die at that mileage, so much so that Kia recalled millions and has been sued over them hundreds of times.
Don’t waste your money parts cannoning that shit, especially when you aren’t experienced. Take it to a real mechanic for a quick inspection, it could potentially be an electrical issue, but there’s a high chance your car is basically totalled unless a Kia dealer is willing to replace the engine under warranty.
Thanks for the info!
I have a tow truck coming to take it to my local auto shop. Really hoping it isnt catastrophic, but we’ll see.
I don’t have the tools to do much other than swap coils or plugs anyways
Good luck and godspeed.
Seized engine :(
Took it to a nearby shop and they gave me the bad news, and a $8.5k quote for a replacement. It’s been towed to the Kia dealership, since it’s under warranty still.
Really hope Kia honors the warranty. It’s under 10 years and 100k miles, but I don’t have every single receipt for oil changes… I have heard some stories about them trying to deny warranty claims for this citing “lack of maintenance”
Damn. That sucks man. The curse of the Theta II strikes again.
Dealers can be hit or miss on whether they’ll do the warranty work. For a while the Theta II warranty calls have just been super easy to do, even with no service history they’ll just do it and let Kia pick up the bill. But some dealers push back because they don’t get paid well for it.
I’d guess as long as you have most of the oil change records it’ll be just fine if you’re comfortably inside the warranty period.
Got a call earlier and the dealership is saying they think the engine is fine and it’s just the starter that shorted out. At this point I’ll believe it when I see it running. I don’t think it’s very likely it would stop while driving from a bad starter, do you? Everything I am reading says that a shorted starter would have drained the battery, which wasn’t the case.
If this is true the first shop seems to have not actually diagnosed anything or they just wanted to get $8.5k for an engine replacement from me. Wasting my $130 tow costs either way.
Correct, it would not have just stopped driving from a bad starter. The starter is not used at all while in motion. Even if you have automatic stop/start which is only used at stoplights. I don’t know why they’re investigating that first when it’s not relevant to your symptoms, unless it’s a corporate level requirement to do some level of “diagnosis” before going straight to long-block replacement. (Warranty TSB’s do have certain requirements that have to be verified before a warranty R&R can be approved.)
It’s super easy to verify an engine lockup- you just put a breaker bar on the crank pulley bolt and turn the engine, it should move relatively easily. Without having to R&R the starter, something they might try to make you pay dor out of warranty. But dealership first-line techs are not often the brightest.
They say they were able to turn it over, so either they are lying or the first shop is lying. This is why I never trust auto shops. I always feel like I being jerked around and overcharged.
I just hope I can have my car back by Monday so I don’t miss more work. They wont even give me a loaner until its verified as a warranty repair by Kia.
Why would it be the starter since the car was already running? If you really think it is the starter, before you replace anything, an old trick is to tap the side of the housing to see if you can get it spinning again.
You have probably already checked, but did you try the fuses? A popped fuse wouldn’t show up under any engine codes but it might explain why it was dead.
A popped fuse wouldn’t show up under any engine codes
It will on a car this new, since losing power to one of the electrical systems will at least show up as a CANbus fault when the ECU can’t talk to a subsystem.
Good to know!
Yeah I checked each fuse one-by-one
Check the grounding stud. The neg terminal of the battery probably is wired straight to it. On my kia soul the whole area was painted. Remove the bolt and connector, sand everything and put it back. May not solve your issue but can’t hurt.
Kia dealership checked it out and it was the engine, replacing it under the recall of theta II engines.
Very relieved to know I won’t be paying a dime for this.Also they gave me a 2023 Stinger as a loaner that is so damn fun to drive and so high tech. I joked at the counter saying “I get a stinger right?” and I think they assumed I had a stinger getting repaired and gave me the same for a loaner
They can take their sweet time with my Optima lol
