2.0T Increasing fuel consumption

[Ralf]

November 2019 I picked up my new KIA Stinger. Currently I have driven 3300 km by car. During this break-in period, I kept a close eye on fuel consumption because this is also a measure of the car's proper functioning.

Up to 2000 km I drove very carefully and quietly in ECO and my consumption was on average 8 to 8.5l per 100km (29.5mpg - 27.5mpg). After this period I also started driving in sport mode because I had discovered in the manual that I needed to drive a higher rpm range during the break-in period. Carefully, I have occasionally also asked a little more power from the engine.
As expected, consumption also increased. I ended up with 12 to 13 liters (19.5mpg - 18mpg). Not worrying because I was constantly in "sport" mode.

500km later I went back to "COMFORT" and "ECO" mode and noticed that the consumption did not decrease as was the case during the first 2000km.
During traffic-free moments I tried to achieve the lowest possible consumption in different ways, at different speeds, but average consumption is no longer below 10 liters per 100km (23.5mpg). Which is strikingly 2 liters higher than before. If I maintain normal driving behavior, the consumption is around 11 liters (21,5mpg).

Around 2000km I had also changed wheels (GT) with winter tires. To exclude that this was the cause of the higher consumption, I switched back to summer rims, but gave no difference. Bolts tightened to 110 Nm.

I had already tried to refuel super 98 octane. On recommendation of the KIA dealer I also used another gas stations, but without difference.

I have already calculated a number of times consumption on the basis of the indicated km driven between refueling and refueled content. Consumption is in reality always 0.5 liters higher vs
on-board computer.

I regularly feel the brake discs after a ride to make sure there is nothing dragging there, but no heat to be felt.

If I read forums about consumption of the KIA Stinger 2.0, consumption between 8 to 9 liters per 100 km is achievable (29.5mpg-27.5mpg). Even on motorway.

I mostly drive the same roads with very little traffic.

The air conditioning has only a little influence in this cold period.

Can you ever think what this could be due to?

I want to add that I certainly do not want to complain that the Stinger uses too much fuel. Of course I did not buy the Stinger to drive economically
It is just that I am concerned about the good and optimal functioning of the new car.

 

[SFM]

November 2019 I picked up my new KIA Stinger. Currently I have driven 3300 km by car. During this break-in period, I kept a close eye on fuel consumption because this is also a measure of the car's proper functioning.

Up to 2000 km I drove very carefully and quietly in ECO and my consumption was on average 8 to 8.5l per 100km (29.5mpg - 27.5mpg). After this period I also started driving in sport mode because I had discovered in the manual that I needed to drive a higher rpm range during the break-in period. Carefully, I have occasionally also asked a little more power from the engine.
As expected, consumption also increased. I ended up with 12 to 13 liters (19.5mpg - 18mpg). Not worrying because I was constantly in "sport" mode.

500km later I went back to "COMFORT" and "ECO" mode and noticed that the consumption did not decrease as was the case during the first 2000km.
During traffic-free moments I tried to achieve the lowest possible consumption in different ways, at different speeds, but average consumption is no longer below 10 liters per 100km (23.5mpg). Which is strikingly 2 liters higher than before. If I maintain normal driving behavior, the consumption is around 11 liters (21,5mpg).

Around 2000km I had also changed wheels (GT) with winter tires. To exclude that this was the cause of the higher consumption, I switched back to summer rims, but gave no difference. Bolts tightened to 110 Nm.

I had already tried to refuel super 98 octane. On recommendation of the KIA dealer I also used another gas stations, but without difference.

I have already calculated a number of times consumption on the basis of the indicated km driven between refueling and refueled content. Consumption is in reality always 0.5 liters higher vs
on-board computer.

I regularly feel the brake discs after a ride to make sure there is nothing dragging there, but no heat to be felt.

If I read forums about consumption of the KIA Stinger 2.0, consumption between 8 to 9 liters per 100 km is achievable (29.5mpg-27.5mpg). Even on motorway.

I mostly drive the same roads with very little traffic.

The air conditioning has only a little influence in this cold period.

Can you ever think what this could be due to?

I want to add that I certainly do not want to complain that the Stinger uses too much fuel. Of course I did not buy the Stinger to drive economically
It is just that I am concerned about the good and optimal functioning of the new car.

I have the GT-Line with the 2.0T engine and my average consumption is 17L/100km which is 13.8 mpg. It's probably because I floor my car about 20-30 times every single day since I got it and it's 90% of the time in Sport mode.

 

[Kato_the_kia_stinger]

Has it gotten colder where you live?

 

[ZyroXZ2]

There are a lot of conditions that affect gas mileage, but some things to consider:

- By default, ADS is on (automatic defrost), so when things get colder, your AC compressor is running
- Colder weather is always lower gas mileage. It not only drops your tire pressures, but the dense air leans out the fuel mixture and your car's systems will increase fuel delivery to maintain the desired air-fuel ratio. It's also why cars are actually a little faster in the colder months
- The system's ECU learns in every mode. An example is if you gun it from a stop light a handful of times, you'll notice the transmission and engine behave a little differently for awhile. The ECU is capable of advancing timing and adjusting itself a little to the driver's behavior. This could very well be where some of your changes are due to you recognizing a little late that you needed to break in the engine (and in your defense, that's actually quite rare these days).

Hope that helps!

P.S. I assume you typed that all yourself, and that's got to be one of the more impressive posts I've seen by someone whose English is a second (or more) language. I work with a lot of foreign folks at my job, and I'm surprised you had no issue composing coherent thoughts in moderately technical aspects, lol

 

[Ralf]

Thanks for the respons!
I'm a hobby mechanic in oldtimers (Porsche transaxles). I'm wrong to compare the Stinger with the 80s cars. There is no brain behind them that analyzes driving behavior.
(Temperature outside has only changed a little).
Rarely, about 1 time at 400km it happens that he consumes remarkably less during a daily ride. For no apparent reason.
Because of the complex injection control system like ZyroXZ2 cited, I think I should stop analyze fuel consumption and just enjoy the car, in sport mode, where the stinger was designed for

 

[ZyroXZ2]

Thanks for the respons!
I'm a hobby mechanic in oldtimers (Porsche transaxles). I'm wrong to compare the Stinger with the 80s cars. There is no brain behind them that analyzes driving behavior.
(Temperature outside has only changed a little).
Rarely, about 1 time at 400km it happens that he consumes remarkably less during a daily ride. For no apparent reason.
Because of the complex injection control system like ZyroXZ2 cited, I think I should stop analyze fuel consumption and just enjoy the car, in sport mode, where the stinger was designed for

Yes: older cars were tuned "by hand" (of sorts). Things operated mostly linearly, and thus operated the same every time. With newer cars, things are constantly adjusting on-the-fly for optimal performance/mileage/emissions/etc.

Just use cruise control more often. The biggest source of pour gas mileage is inconsistent feet, lol

 

[Reno Raines]

Hi there!

Same issue to my unit (spanish 2.0 GTLine with 10K km). Last weekend a 900 km road trip with 95% highway and only about 5% city road) fuel consumption average was 11l/100 (21.4 US mpg). Far from the declared official values.

Normal fuel consumption avg with less highway use to be over 12 l/100 in my case.

I could remember when it had 1000/3000 km (yes, during summer) consumption was lower..

Should we wait to the hot weather again just to compare?

 

[TwiceStung]

Just did a 440 mile drive today, all freeway at 70-80mph. Got a calculated 33-34mpg. Temps in the 50’s F with winter tires. Made maybe 4 stops and ran into some traffic occasionally.

 

[G-651066]

Thanks for sharing your fuel consumption.
@Reno Raines Very similar to my consumption.
@TwiceStung That is impressive. Is your consumption always as low or only occasionally.

 

[TwiceStung]

Thanks for sharing your fuel consumption.
@Reno Raines Very similar to my consumption.
@TwiceStung That is impressive. Is your consumption always as low or only occasionally.

If just freeway travel at cruising speeds, it’s very easy to get low to mid 30’s. I’m approaching 10,000 miles on the clock and it seems to be getting better if anything. Around town driving, typical is 23-25 mpg minimum. I drive in Eco, use sport when needing to pass or merge and car is completely stock. If I give in and get a pedal tuner, the mpg will drop like a rock I’m sure.

 

[7Andrei7]

I have the same 2.0 GT Line and I usually get 8-8,5l/100km at highway speeds (120-140km/h). However, a couple of times I noticed my car getting a little twitch and could not hold a constant revs on cruise control (at 80km/h or 70km/h). I also noticed the consumption is increasing to about 10l/100km during these periods. I believe this is when the GPF is regenerating. After stopping the car and starting again it goes back to normal both in the way it drives and in consumption.
Really strange!! I had a diesel before and the DPF regeneration was increasing fuel consumption in the city but never brought twitchiness or higher consumption on the highway.

 

[Reno Raines]

Good info 7Andrei7!

Since I modified the set up "reset fuel consumption after refueling" to not reset I have seen changes in the average fuel consumption. Now I see lower numbers about 9-10 liters/100 km.

It seems weird. My car has almost 11000 Kms now. I do not know if after 10K and a 1000 kms long trip I did the consumption has been decreased.

 

[Ralf]

Good info 7Andrei7!

Since I modified the set up "reset fuel consumption after refueling" to not reset I have seen changes in the average fuel consumption. Now I see lower numbers about 9-10 liters/100 km.

It seems weird. My car has almost 11000 Kms now. I do not know if after 10K and a 1000 kms long trip I did the consumption has been decreased.

View attachment 39336 View attachment 39337 View attachment 39338

Similar story with me. Since I exceeded 9000km, the fuel consumption has suddenly dropped to the consumption that I had in the beginning between the first 0 and 2000km, which is average 8 to 8.5l per 100km (29.5mpg - 27.5mpg). A difference of 3liters per 100km!
The KIA dealer cannot explain this. They have not heard similar stories yet.
I suspect that this is controlled by software from the factory. To provide a kind of break-in period or something. I know that BMW does that.

 

[7Andrei7]

So, just as an update from my side. The "normal" consumption for my car on highway is still 8-8.5 liters/100km. But, this sudden increase I get sometimes has been confirmed to be a problem with the heat sensors of the GPF (3 temp sensors apparently).
What happens is that the car detects some accumulation in the filter, tries to start a regeneration process which has a first step heating up the GPF. This is done by pumping more fuel. Normally, the regeneration should be done in 15-20 min. My car would never stop, once it stared. They say it's because the temperature sensors never confirm that the temperature has been reached.
Long story short my car has not managed to do any successful GPF regeneration for 30.000 KM !! My "luck" is that I mainly drive outside of town so that is how the GPF has been cleaning itself, without regeneration and with only 2 GPF errors coming up and then going away next time I was on a highway for more than 20 min.

I am now waiting on these sensors to arrive and be replaced. They will see if they need to replace the GPF and catalytic filter or any other exhaust parts, based on their state.
The symptoms of my car were very hard to understand and track, and there has never been an error code stored by the car (which is my only huge disappointment with how this car has been designed).

The 2 symptoms I could see were sudden increase in instant fuel consumption (to about 10.5-11 litres) at highways speeds, which would not go down (even for 3 hours of continuous driving) unless I would stop the car and restart it. And the second was some kind of stuttering of the acceleration at very low revs.
And, the way KIA was able to diagnose it was by me driving into the dealer with my car on, while it was displaying the symptoms, and them doing a full scan of the car. They could see the car was heating up to start GPF regeneration, but for some reason was not able to reach the temperature and they also saw that the last successful regeneration was at 24.000 KM (now I have 54.000 KM). This second thing was the big red flag that pointed to the temperature sensors.

Sorry for the long post, but maybe someone will go through the same thing and I hope this will help them to diagnose it much faster. It took me 8 months and 20.000 km of driving to understand what is going on because the symptoms would come and go..

 

[Ralf]

Thanks for sharing this! Very interesting info!

My fuel consumption has remained normal for about 4000km (8 liters), but has now gone back to 11 liters. From one day to another.

Maybe I have a problem similar to you. Only my consumption remains that high continuously, from start to finish. Restart makes no difference.

I will take your story to my kia garage.

Keep us posted!

 

[7Andrei7]

Well, I do have a small update. The temp sensors came and were replaced on the car. It looks like the car's GPF is composed of 3 different filters, each with a temp sensor. They could not figure out which one was defective and that's why they replaced all of them.
All exhaust related filters were very clean (they say) and don't need replacement. Now I need to check if problems persist but this will take some time. Planning a longer trip at the end of the month.
An interesting fact from the engineer working on my car: while handling my case he found out that this stuttering and random fuel increase is a known problem to Kia on European models but they have not issued a recall because there is no unique cause to it. He said in some cases they changed the GPF and in some cases the fuel injectors. His advice was to keep monitoring the problem and if it's not fixed, they will start changing other parts. This is a little disappointing to be honest but I'm hopeful that if more users report these problems they will find a permanent fix/update.

 

[7Andrei7]

I've put another 2000 km on the car and no more problems so far with the new temp sensors.
And, today the service engineer called me to say KIA is working on a software update that will address these issues. It should be out sometime in October but will NOT come as a recall. So ask for it next time you're at your dealer. I'll tell you when I get it. He is supposed to call me when they receive it.

 

[Ralf]

Thank you again for sharing.
I went to the dealer because increased fuel consumption remains. But on the day of the appointment, consumption dropped again. So they couldn't find a problem of course. But they will try to motivate KIA to place a logger in the car.
To be continued...

 

[Kris M]

So, just as an update from my side. The "normal" consumption for my car on highway is still 8-8.5 liters/100km. But, this sudden increase I get sometimes has been confirmed to be a problem with the heat sensors of the GPF (3 temp sensors apparently).
What happens is that the car detects some accumulation in the filter, tries to start a regeneration process which has a first step heating up the GPF. This is done by pumping more fuel. Normally, the regeneration should be done in 15-20 min. My car would never stop, once it stared. They say it's because the temperature sensors never confirm that the temperature has been reached.
Long story short my car has not managed to do any successful GPF regeneration for 30.000 KM !! My "luck" is that I mainly drive outside of town so that is how the GPF has been cleaning itself, without regeneration and with only 2 GPF errors coming up and then going away next time I was on a highway for more than 20 min.

Note that the regenerations probably were successful, but the software didn't realise it because it didn't get a "regeneration temperature reached" signal.
This is a very bad situation as the car keeps dumping too much fuel into the system, which can damage and even melt the catalytic converter.
The ECU should give a GPF fault if the regeneration temperature is not reached within a certain time limit.
It definitely sounds as I'm having the same issues. Since the problem started, I noticed a lot more heat is coming off the car after I park it.

 

[Ralf]

Note that the regenerations probably were successful, but the software didn't realise it because it didn't get a "regeneration temperature reached" signal.
This is a very bad situation as the car keeps dumping too much fuel into the system, which can damage and even melt the catalytic converter.
The ECU should give a GPF fault if the regeneration temperature is not reached within a certain time limit.
It definitely sounds as I'm having the same issues. Since the problem started, I noticed a lot more heat is coming off the car after I park it.

Interesting to see another car in Belgium with similar problems. Wich dealer do you go to? Maybe we can help each other to motivate the dealers to take the problem seriously and sharing experience. Please contact me: ralfderidder@hotmail.com