I have posted here from time to time about my lowly Kia Soul from 2015. We’re currently at 91,450 or so in mileage. I just found out thanks to a helpful Valvoline tech that we’re burning oil at an accelerated rate. Apparently, my stupid behind doesn’t know how to properly check oil, because when I checked it 2 weeks ago it appeared to be full. However, yesterday the guy said the oil was barely registering on the dipstick. There’s absolutely no sign of leaks, so this mother freaking GDI engine has to be burning what’s missing.

This is all backed up by the fact that towards the end of an oil change interval, I’m getting a periodic knock on acceleration. It appears that this was my poor 2.0L engine starving for oil. After the oil change, there’s magically no noise at all. In the back of my mind I kept thinking that the noise sounded like sucking too little fluid through a straw, and it seems like that’s very close to what was happening.

I have an offer in hand from CarMax from an appointment yesterday, and they’ll give me $5,500 for my current car.

This leads me to go looking for alternatives. I’m trying not to have a huge payment, so I’m trying to stay under $10,000. That prevents me from considering any Toyotas or Hondas unless they are very old or very high mileage.

Looking around, I found a 2015 Ford Fusion hybrid ( titanium edition) with 115,000 miles for $11,000 from a local Honda dealership that I trust. I also found a 2017 Ford Fusion hybrid at a Ford dealership that I do not know about 40 miles away at $9,880 with 109,000 miles.

I know Fords are not generally well regarded these days, but all my research points to Fusion hybrids being reliable, lasting up to 250,000 miles or more. Given that I’ve put less than 92,000 miles on my Kia in 10 years, it seems like either of these might be a good buy for me that would be well within my budget.

With all that said, I invite you guys to play: Is it better than my 2015 Kia Soul?

  • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    I’m basing my trust on that tech on the way he approached me about it, the volume of the oil they took out, and the fact that oil volume issues would appear to correlate with the knocking that I’ve been hearing towards the end of my self-appointed oil change intervals at around 3,000 to 5,000 miles. It just all fell into place for me when I got this information.

    Fair. Just be wary of lube shops, there are plenty of people staffing those places who will lie through their teeth right to your face to upsell you on things you don’t need.

    Honestly, the engine recall is what feeds my nervousness about my current car. I take pretty good care of it, changing the oil a lot more often than Kia recommends, but I’m still afraid of how it’s going to run long-term. A decent number of people online complain that Kia is extremely difficult to convince to replace an engine, also. So I’m more than a little bit skeptical about whether they’d come through for me. In theory, I have a 150,000 mile/15 year warranty (thanks to the recall), but I wonder how much that will be worth if things go wrong.

    I’ve just never had a very good time with the service department at my dealership, and the same people own all of the Kia dealerships in this area. It’s really hard to get an appointment and they typically charge a ton, so unless I absolutely have to, I just go to third party mechanics and shops. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that they wanted to charge me between $3,000 and $4,000 to replace a catalytic converter.

    Understandable. I would haul it to the dealership anyway and push to get a paper trail started at the least. You’ve still got another 50k miles and 4 years to squeeze their balls.

    The vibe I get from them is that they’re doing everything they can to force people to buy a new car by making the service experience as difficult as possible.

    You’re very close. Manufacturers would rather you keep buying new cars (or even lease one - leases are BMW’s bread and butter) over keeping an older one on the road. Dealers are not helpful here in the slightest, and dealer service departments are absolutely incentivized to steer customers towards the showroom floor. I used to work at a dealer, this was common knowledge among staff across many, many locations.