Mark: Hi it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, Vancouver’s best auto service experience, 17 time winners of Best Auto Repair in Vancouver as voted by their customers. How’re you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well, actually I have a correction Mark, actually 18 time winners now, we just won the Georgia Straight Best of Vancouver for 2017
Mark: So I’m corrected, stand me amazed, 18 time winners now
Bernie: Yeah, so very fortunate and thank you to everyone who voted for us, we really appreciate it. So I’m doing very well this morning.
Mark: Great. So we’re going to talk about a Kia Sedona, a 2003, a little bit long in the tooth, there was a check engine lamp problem, what was going on with this vehicle?
Bernie: So the vehicle came to us, it had a check engine light that was on intermittently, sometimes it would come on and go off but beneath it all the engine had a slight rough running condition at idle that the owner was concerned about.
Mark: So how badly was it running?
Bernie: Well not really badly, I mean as far as how bad engines can run, it wasn’t too bad, like a full, sort of really rough misfire the engine would shake quite severely. This one, we went out for a very long drive together, you know some of the times it would shake and some of the times it wouldn’t and it would only really happen at idle. The rest of the time driving it wasn’t really noticeable.
Mark: So what kind of system did you follow to find what was going on?
Bernie: Well so any time when there is a check engine light or any rough engine type of thing, any engine issue, first thing we do it plug the scan tool in and the scan tool is basically a computer that talks to the car computer. We looked at it and the first thing we found was a code, P0306, which means a cylinder misfire. So it gives us a pathway to follow and an area where the vehicle’s computer has picked up a problem. So first thing we do is go to number 6 cylinder, inspect things like the ignition coil, the spark plugs, fuel injectors, is there compression in that cylinder. Now these are the things we look for and these are the things that can cause problems, so these are the ares we look at.
Mark: So and what did you find?
Bernie: What we found was interesting, number 6 spark plug had a crack in the porcelain insulator causing it to misfire sometimes and having worked on cars for years and years, I mean I’ve seen that happen before. Once we found the issue, of course that’s what it is, it’s one of these things that won’t cause a full on misfire like a completely dead spark plug or a coil but it’ll cause a misfire sometimes because the spark is supposed to go down from the ignition coil through the spark plug into the cylinder and it doesn’t always make it, it sometimes get grounded out. So I’m going to share a couple of pictures here. Here’s our 2003 Kia Sedona, still in good shape for the age of the vehicle. Here’s our spark plug. Now we actually wiped off the carbon track that was on there, what happens is it gets a carbon track and if you look closely, you see the red arrow, if you look down here you can see a little tiny crack, a little bit of blackness, that’s some of the carbon track that was present and basically what’s happening was the spark from the ignition coil goes to this piece here and down through, this insulates the spark plug and goes down and basically fires a spark right down here. But if there’s a crack here, the electrical energy won’t make it all the way down so it goes down this crack and grounds out so the engine at certain times won’t receive that spark that it’s supposed to receive. Now we’ll go to the other view, so here’s the ignition coil, there’s the spark plug view again and this is kind of how it all sits. The ignition coil sits on top of the spark plug and this is buried deep down inside the cylinder. There’s our picture show for the day.
Mark: So how did the van run after the repairs?
Bernie: Really well, nice and smooth, perfect.
Mark: So this is a fairly old vehicle, how are Kia Sedona’s?
Bernie: Pretty good. We’ve actually serviced this vehicle for many years with the client. We don’t see a lot of them and I don’t think they really sold a whole lot of them back in 2003. It wasn’t as popular of a van as it is now a days. I’d say they’re pretty good vehicles. The only thing that I noticed with this vehicle that’s really wrong at this point, is after it idles for a quite awhile it starts burning some blue smoke and that’s kind of typical of some engines as they age, they just can’t seal the oil out properly, it uses oil and it’s got nearly 200 thousand kilometres, so I guess it’s not a bad thing but certainly like Toyota’s don’t have that problem. What I’ve noticed all along in servicing this vehicle, it seems to have a few more problems than you’d get out of say a Toyota Sienna van so you pay a lot less money to buy the vehicle but you’re going to have a few more repairs and that’s probably the way Kia’s will go, even new ones compared to say Toyota’s or the more expensive Japanese brands.
Mark: So there you go, if you have a Kia in Vancouver the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at 604-327-7112 to book your appointment or check out our website pawlikautomotive.com or our YouTube channel Pawlik Automotive Repair. Thanks Bernie
Bernie: Thanks Mark.
