Kia Maintenance & Maintenance Schedule

Kia vehicles are built with longevity in mind. To reach the expected long life, they’ll need your input in the form of some simple maintenance: if you follow the recommended schedule for routine services, the benefit will be two-fold. The vehicle’s systems will be kept running their best, and your factory-trained Kia service team will be able to keep an eye on the car as a whole, detecting any issues before they develop into extensive problems requiring repair.
Minor service visits are generally needed twice a year if you drive an average to below-average number of miles. These simple yet essential visits will consist of changing the oil and oil filter, rotating the tires, and a general look-over to make sure things are in their best working order.
The Importance of Maintaining Your Vehicle’s Oil
Motor oil is an essential automotive fluid, to say the least. Some of its crucial roles are lubricating the engine components, moving debris (such as metal particles that form when working parts move against each other) away to the oil filter, and keeping the engine temperature in the correct range. Between visits to your authorized Kia service center, it’s a good idea to pay attention to your vehicle’s gauges, warning lights, and general performance – including any new noises or changes in the usual mechanical sounds. Although it’s not likely that you’ll experience an engine-related problem, anything out of the ordinary should be checked by a qualified service technician as soon as possible.
Tires and Wheels: Your Connection to the Road
While all parts of a vehicle are important, your tires are the point of contact to the road surface, meaning that it’s paramount that they’re in good condition. All four will need to be inflated to the proper pressure (expressed in pounds per square inch, or psi) to optimize fuel economy, handling, and – most importantly – your safety. If your Kia doesn’t have an oil pressure monitor, just get an inexpensive tire pressure gauge, which looks like a small pen, and keep it in your glove box or center console. Visually inspect your tires for any signs of a problem: cuts or gouges, bulges, excessive wear, or obvious underinflation.
Sufficient tread depth is essential, too, for best control of the vehicle, especially on wet roads. (You can purchase a tread depth tool as well and use it to regularly check each tire.) When you stick to the recommended schedule of minor service visits, the service team will perform a tire rotation each time. Different wheel positions take on a unique burden – turning, stopping, and accelerating – and wear down at different rates. For example, the front tires in a front-wheel-drive car have more work to do than the back tires, and so their tread declines more quickly. Switching up these positions allows the more-worn tires to get a rest while the tires left with more tread take their shift of a few months of higher demand.
Wheel alignment is another vital part of ensuring a long life for your set of tires. If you notice the vehicle pulling to one side of the other as you drive straight ahead, it’s out of alignment. Correcting this requires specific machinery that your Kia service department has; if you believe your alignment is off, you should make an appointment to have it checked.