Oil Pump problems of the 2013 Kia Motor Sorento

Our kia Sorento had 46963 miles. We are the second owners and have put 34k miles on it and have had the oil changed at approximately every 5k miles. The kia Sorento stopped running while it was being driven at 55 mph on a two-lane road. I was being followed by a dually pick up towing a large boat. The car lost power and the "check engine" light came on. I had just enough time to turn on my emergency flashers and find a safe place to pull off the road. We had it towed to a repair shop in kingsland, TX, they cut the serpentine belt, couldn't get the engine to turn, told us that the oil pump had failed and the engine seized. We then had it towed to the dealer in austin, where they had a technician look at it and confirmed that the engine was blown. They said that the only way to know if there were metal shavings would be to pull the oil pan ($195) and that would only confirm that shavings were in the oil. To actually know what had caused engine failure they would have to pull the main and rod bearings ($400). They said that even if we did find that the engine failure was due to metal shavings that it would not be considered as part of recall sc147 because it wasn't manufactured at a "certain plant" in a "certain month". He was unable to tell me what plant and month. We have now found, through decoding our VIN, that this car was built in georgia and has the theta ii engine. They did offer to put in an engine from a wrecked kia with 100k miles on it at a cost of $6700-$6800. The kbb value is $9800. We were told that the basic warranty had ended on April 24, 2017 and that the 5yr/60k warranty was not transferable to the second owner. . Read more...

My 2013 kia Sorento with a theta 2. 4 liter engine experienced complete engine failure at 63,000 miles; on Tuesday 3/21/17. When my engine failed/heard loud engine noises I was driving on highway I-10 north in tucson az rush hour traffic, I had to coast over immediately to the side of the highway, very dangerous lucky no accident. I uncovered important information about kia theta 2. 4 liter engine problems. Spoke to kia certified master technician; morgan that took apart my engine for warranty evaluation. He said they have been seeing this engine problem; it's failure of the #3 cylinder connecting rod, feels it's an engineering mistake, the port sizes for the oil flow are not sized properly, causing insufficient oil flow overtime and complete engine failure. My engine looked brand new, there was no sludge build up, and the oil pump looked brand new as well. I have attached pictures for proof. There were very small bronze colored metal flakes in the oil pan; he said it was like panning for gold in the oil pan. The metal flake erosion didn't happen overnight this was slowly happening with every mile being driven; the metal from the connecting rod bearings eroded overtime in small metal flakes and collected in the oil pan. I had peoria kia in peoria, az do my last warranty inspection & maintenance service/oil change on my 2013 kia Sorento in December 2016. I especially asked the service advisor to check out everything including the engine before the 60,000 mile second owner powertrain warranty was about to expired. Kia knew about the numerous past warranty claims on this 2. 4 liter engine, a quick oil analysis would have shown metal debris particulates in the oil, indicating a serious engine problem developing. The metal shavings collecting in the oil pan that should have been detected beforehand.