New 2012 Kia Optima daily driver eco project

[minispeed]

Well after saying good bye to my Miata project and a lot of car shopping I settled on the Kia Optima. Other candidates were

New
cruze eco
prius
prius C
accent
TDI wagon

Used
Mini clubman S
TDI
VW Rabbit
BMW wagon
Camry hybrid
VW Passat

The Optima sold me on exterior looks, interior layout, huge inside, standard features, good trunk space and 0% financing for 60months. It's also the highest rated fuel economy for it's class. The electric power steering and smart alternator encouraged me that I could get much better than the EPA. Stock tires are Nexan (ya who?) that are max at 44, they are pretty quiet and grip pretty well but I haven't got to test them. They advertise them as high silica and good on gas but never use the term LRR.

So here's my baby!




So far on the test drive I got 6.2l/100km on a short city/hwy loop, just easy on the go pedal and highest gear at all times.

My first mixed highway/city drive of about 80km got me 6.9. Since then I've been trying to drive it for the break in period, keeping it between 2-4000rpm and have been getting 8.0. This is really hard to do, after getting so used to hyper milling it's dificult to go back.

[LeanBurn]

I do like the looks of the Optima, it looks great!

So what other mods are you considering? Upper grill block would be a candidate, even if you stealth installed it behind the grill.

[MetroMPG]

Excellent that you got the manual!

Engine kill switch in your future? With electric power steering, and the usual vacuum brake reserve, there's practically no downside, and a significant amount of upside.

[minispeed]

Upper grill block stealth behind the grill for sure, been using the SG to see my highest normal temp first, 83c most of the time hwy, 84 sometimes and 85-86 city, max temp out was 28.

At the dealer I was checking out the Rio, It's got the same new KIA signature upper grill (tiger nose I think they call it) and a lot of it is blocked off, the whole centre and at the sides single bits of the honeycomb spread out are open. Mine is 90% open, just a few blocked at the side. I want to check out an optima hybrid see if that's fully open or partially blocked, it may be an easy swap since they didn't make the exterior different like hyundai did with the sonata hybrid. Since the optima hybrid gets the same economy and the sonata got a partial grill block I would guess the optima would need one too.

[minispeed]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Excellent that you got the manual!

Engine kill switch in your future? With electric power steering, and the usual vacuum brake reserve, there's practically no downside, and a significant amount of upside.

I've been getting pretty good at using the key for EOC, I tried some on my drive home last night, I just couldn't resist. Because of warantee I may just keep doing this. I will explore if I can build an adapter to add a kill switch but I don't want to cut into the wires at this point yet. As for that EOC test from a cold warm up, driving all city (but mostly slight downhills with some small uphills) I got 5.0l/100. Then tried hwy pulse and glide 90-120 and was at 6.0 when I got home (46km total).

A lot of the Optima/Sonata forums have been talking about the car being really heavy on fuel for the break in period and some even up to 3000miles. Some people are getting as low as 13mpg, and the avg person complaining tends to get 18-20mpg. It's nice to know that when I try to drive it hard, 2-4000rpm to break it in I'm still getting over the EPA which they claim to not even get close to even when they try their hardest.

It's also odd to hear the advice given by some of the people "accelerate hard, it's easier on gas", "don't use the eco button in the city, it only works on the highway", and then some rolling on 20s and wondering why they can't get close to city epa numbers. There was one other member who link'd them to ecomodder, I think it was in reference to doing an upper grill block.

[MetroMPG]

There's a lot of mis-info out there!

Key on-off works, but a kill switch would be a bit safer.

If you had wiring schematics, you could make up a circuit that would be reversible and wouldn't require splicing/cutting (by removing/accessing the right pins from existing connectors).

Anyway - good luck during the break-in. I'll probably never buy a new car, so won't have to go through that torture!

[jsatter]

Another Kia. Very nice. I like to looks of the Optima a lot. Looking forward to what you can do with it.

[minispeed]

My first two projects today, both on the grill, 1 for cosmetic, 1 for efficiency.

I took the upper "Tiger Nose" grill off today, it was pretty easy to access however the small little phillips screws holding the plastic on were very tight and took a lot of slow turns.

Here's the before pic


And here's the after



While I had it off for the black carbon wrap I put my stealth grill block on, here it is from behind


And painted black on the inside to hide it


It was pretty cold today, 12 degrees so it wasn't the best day to test it but after a short drive 85 in the city, parked it at idle it would go to 89 then kick back down to 88, did the same thing about 3 times.

[MetroMPG]

Like the 2nd last photo - Tiger nose meet Boxer(?) nose?

Looks better & more efficient too.

[minispeed]

Well I hit the engine break in at 1000km, changed the oil right before to a full synthetic, mix or 0w20 and 5w20 (the book calls for 5w20).

On my first drive after 1000km I noticed the smart alternator actually started to be smart. While driving to work during the day the scan gauge was showing around 12.8 volts. When I turned on the lights it kicked it up to 14.1. Previously it had never dipped below 14.0.

So far the tank avg is showing 6.7 with 360km, the first half of that still driving for break in. Over the last few days my trip avg to work (almost 50km) has been 6.9 (just before 1000km), 6.1, 6.0 and 5.4!!! The 5.4 was adding highway pulse and glide with EOC. I also added some extenders to the wheel spats, pictures will come soon when I also do the rear wheels and remove the rear mud guards.

So i'm thinking that 1000km at fill up for 62L is a good expectation but I'm going to set my goal at 1200km before a fill up.