• Head of QC for O-Ring production, NASA, Jan 1983 - Oct 1986

I think you mean you worked for Morton Thiokol if you were in QC. I know, because I was in rocket component procurement at NASA around the same time, and I remember the contract very well for… reasons…

Did you ever see Doogie Howser, M.D.? I’m like that, except for middle management, and a lot younger. Got my MBA when I was still living in my parents.

His time with the Panthers was just another Jets situation. Remember, they had no idea how to win with Mayfield, then he immediately goes to the Rams and turns heads in a single game at the end of the season.

I picture a lady named Marge wearing Mom jeans and a sweater vest with an accent like the characters in Fargo.

Like the Lannisters, but even dumber than Cersei in the books.

I was thinking the same thing.

I’ve never had the nerve to watch it, either. Something about the summaries I’ve read just make me dread it.

Second that. The Day After is pretty dark, dark enough that it supposedly inspired Reagan to pursue nuclear arms control far more than he had previously. That being said, where The Day After is dark, Threads is just relentlessly brutal. And it never feels like they’re just trying to shock you–it just lays all the awful consequences of nuclear war out there for the viewer.

I’ll check it soon and take a picture to share. I have zero pride left in this area, so I’m willing to do it to double check that I’m doing it right!

I’ll send off for that testing kit, too. That seems like exactly what will help me get a better picture of what is really happening.

If you look at the days of supply on hand, Lexus, Toyota, and Honda have the lowest. No surprise there. The models they have in the 25 list are not the ones people would want the most, either.

If I was an automaker, I do believe I would try to figure out what Toyota and Honda were doing right with the majority of their lineups.

There’s at least two shops I trust pretty well. I don’t have the sort of relationship with them where I actually interact with the mechanic–everyone has a front office these days. I do think I can trust what they do and the info they do share, though. I’m pretty confident I can get a prepurchase inspection when I need.

I think you’re right. What’s not super comforting is that Kia expects the damned things to burn oil, apparently. They’ll do a replacement if you burn an amount they consider beyond spec. The fact that there’s a consideration for how much oil it’s okay to burn tells me I’m likely never to be a customer again. I’ll be damned before I get anything that doesn’t have multi-port injection or dual injection going forward. From what I’ve learned, GDI can be okay, but city stop and go driving allows more chance for deposits. Someone here (a former Hyundai/Kia mechanic) advised me to take it on the road and put my foot down on it occasionally. I don’t know how much it helps, but I do have some visible exhaust when I do, so I feel like there’s some benefit, given that I’m usually way below highway speeds in my daily use.

I did read up on the Fusions and saw the issues. As long as you stick to the hybrids beyond the 2010-12 range and avoid the Ecoboost engines on the non-hybrids, they can go over 250,000 miles, apparently. Some people swear by them. Of course, Ford no longer makes them 🤡

As I’ve said elsewhere, I really wish I could get another Honda or Toyota. I’ve got a CR-V hybrid for my wife, and I love that thing.

When I do eventually get another one, I do plan to research everything and get a prepurchase inspection, for sure.

I’ve done the intake cleaning with the spray into the intake that goes into the throttle body. After I waited an hour, I took it on the road and put my foot down going onto the interstate. Put out a Billie of white smoke like you wouldn’t believe. Changed the oil after as directed.

Is there something else that needs to be done with that?

I’ll look into that Valvoline oil, for sure.

The fusions under consideration are 10 years and 8 years old respectively, so I’m thinking all original warranties are invalid. Given that they are dealerships, I would imagine there would be a three to five thousand or 60 to 90 day warranty for these used vehicles.

Like I’ve said elsewhere in the comments, I’ll be monitoring levels and adding as needed going forward. If I never get my knocking again, I think it’s a pretty good indication that my working theory about this whole thing is right. However, I am interested in the oil testing you mentioned. How would I go about doing that? Do the testing facilities provide some sort of kit for collecting the oil? I know I can Google this stuff, but I’d be interested to see what your recommendations are.

As for the methodology of checking the oil, I’ve always pulled the stick, cleaned it off, stuck it back in, and then read it when I pulled it again. It’s been suggested that since I haven’t necessarily checked it when the engine was cold that I might be getting a bad reading. I have not tended to read it cold because my driveway has a pretty steep grade, so I always need to move the car to make sure I get an accurate reading. It’s also possible that I’m not reading it right, but when I read it as full, it looks the same way as it does when I’m presented with the dipstick after my oil changes, with the oil covering the section between empty and full on the stick.

God, I feel like such a flipping idiot. Who doesn’t know how to read their oil dipstick?

I’ve heard some people talk about Seafoam like it was the best thing ever, but I’ve also heard some people suggest it was worthless or even harmful. I’m willing to try it, but is there any chance that it might cause me some trouble?

You’re probably right. I just run around with this fear about my engine thanks to all the wonderful things I read about the engine recall on these years, and I overreact whenever something seems off with the car. Hopefully, checking carefully and adding oil get me through. I think my addled mind just needs some assurance from wise internet strangers on occasion to get me through this particular psychosis.

Given the way life works sometimes, I’d probably get a new car and then promptly have that blow up on me while my old Kia would be somewhere quietly working its way up to some ungodly and unexpected amount of mileage, burning oil, but still going.

Honestly, I haven’t been checking in between changes like I should, because I’ve been changing the oil about twice as often as Kia recommends, and it never occurred to me I could be losing that much oil over such a short time.

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. I had assumed the knocking might have been related to the catalytic converter replacement I had to have done this year, but it had occurred to me that the knocking I heard would occur sometimes during acceleration close to the time when I would need to be taking it for an oil change. I’m going to be monitoring it carefully to confirm, but I think oil loss through burning is likely what my issue has been. As I’ve stated elsewhere, there’s no evidence of leaks at all. Also, I’m not putting out the kind of smoke that I’ve seen from cars that I was told were burning oil. Apparently, it’s just common knowledge that some GDI engines burn a ton of oil, and that just never filtered into my conscious consideration.

I would dearly love to get into any kind of Toyota or Honda at this point. Unfortunately, the only affordable ones available are even older than what I have and usually much higher mileage. The ones that are in my price range are not of the aesthetically pleasing variety, which would not please my wife. Personally, I would drive a mechanically sound but ugly car, but it’s not just me I have to think about.

If I weren’t already paying for another relatively new car (a 2023 CRV hybrid), things might be different. However, given the expense accorded to even used Toyotas and Hondas, I would be lucky to find one in the price range I need. Even well-maintained 10 or 15-year-old ones with low miles are running over $15,000. Heck, one dealership is selling a 2019 Civic for around $18,000 with 218,000 miles on it.

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. 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.

I’m thinking, too, that a lot of the engine issues with these cars is the result of people running into exactly what I have. They’re sticking to the 7500 mile oil change interval recommended in the manual, the engines start burning oil at some point, the oil loss gets to a point where the engines start tearing themselves up, and, voila, another one bites the dust.

Yeah, the thing that keeps me going with it is that I have no payments. I bought it new, and it’s been paid for a couple of years. However, if something serious does go, and I don’t get a warranty replacement thanks to the class action lawsuit regarding these engines, it’s going to be next to worthless. An OEM catalytic converter was quoted to me as somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000. I was able to get an aftermarket one installed for about $1,200, which is no small expense for me, but at least it wasn’t as high a percentage of the car’s value. I’m just wondering if I have more expenses like this, when does it make economic sense for me to cut my losses and get what I can get for it?

I have been doing the oil changes significantly sooner than recommended, so I’ve got that under control. I’ll just have to be checking the oil in the proper fashion going forward in between changes and adding when I need it. Am I just going to add a little bit at a time, checking readings in between additions until it reads full?

I change my own air filters regularly. The coolant has been flushed really recently. The only thing that I have left to do right now is have a transmission fluid exchange. It is overdue for that. I haven’t had any problems with misfires that I’m aware of, so I don’t think I’m quite ready to change the plugs and coil packs, but I do know that that’s on the horizon. I’ll look at my maintenance schedule and see if there’s anything that I’m missing.

I think the reason I’ve been so clueless about the oil burning is that I didn’t see any leaks anywhere, and I’m not trailing black smoke, so I assumed there would be no issues with oil loss without those signs.

When I checked it, I made sure it was on level ground, because I’ve made the mistake of checking it in my driveway (which has . I pulled the dipstick and wiped it before reinserting and pulling it. It was wet all the way to the top of the target area when I did that, but I had been running the engine within the last 5 minutes, so it seems like I sabotaged myself. I’d always thought that if you ignored the reading when you first pulled it and then re-dipped it, you would get a good read. Apparently I’m a damned idiot.

The recommended oil change interval is 7,500 miles. I’ve been trying to do it at least every 5,000, but I’ve effectively been doing it every 3,000 in the last two oil changes.

I’ve heard the knocking before, but I thought that issue had been resolved when I had my catalytic converter replaced. What I didn’t recognize is that I had an oil change around the same time so it’s entirely possible that when I stopped hearing the noises it just had enough oil. The symptoms I had for the catalytic converter failure were more serious-- severe power loss and such, but it looks now like the knocking I would hear sometimes was likely unrelated.

I would change my own oil, but my driveway is on a pretty significant angle, and I’m concerned that if I change and the only place that I really have to change it, that the angle will make things not drain properly or lead me to overfill or underfill. I’m also fairly afraid of messing up and trashing the car.

I do try to do things that I feel confident about. I do change the air filters, both engine and cabin. I’ve changed the PCV valve, though it played merry hell on my nerves when I couldn’t get the original off easily. I eventually was able to loosen it and get it off without damage, and I installed the replacement without issue, but I’m always worried about doing something stupid.

When I was younger, I was bold enough to change my own brake pads on a Nissan hardbody truck, but I later got myself into trouble when I tried to replace the distributor on that same truck and had to have it towed. Since then, I’ve been cautious about what I would do for myself. I really wish there was some sort of damn class I could take. At the very least, I’d feel a hell of a lot better if there were Haynes or Chilton manual for my car, but apparently that’s not a thing with some automakers these days.