Gearbox oil, you might want to proactively change it ...

Just a note to Niro owners that Kona owners who have changed their gearbox oil have all found that it comes out jet black. It seems to be caused by fine metallic dust, no doubt originating from break-in of the gears.
There's a discussion starting around here if you're interested.

 

Well, this is an EV group so yes it applies.

 

Well, engineers call a box with gears in it “a gearbox”. Gear reducer is the specific function. I suspect EV marketeers use the term only as point of difference to ICE.

 

If you're going to all that trouble lifting the car and removing the underside panels you may as well change it. There's not going to be any variation among samples here, no magnet == black oil. You won't find any large particles because they all get ground up at the expense of unnecessary bearing wear.

You can use Redline MT-LV in the 0.946 litre bottle. You'll need 2 to get the required 1.00 to 1.05 litre, or make up the difference with any other GL-4 gear oil such as ATF. Torque plugs to 33 ft-lbs dry. Any questions, just ask.

One Kona owner in SoCal had his changed at Riverside Hyundai. They billed it as a diff oil change because there was no other appropriate line item. Seemed a bit over the top at $135 though.

 

Here are the pics the owner I mentioned above sent me. Only 2,500 miles on his 2021.

 

The two posts prior to yours might provide some answers.

 

Noting that from all the evidence collected so far from initial Kona oil changes, the "YMMV" part is more applicable to the assessment of the oil condition rather than the actual condition. Fully 100% of the approx 30 changes reported from 3,000 km to 160,000 km are described as "black", but that's only apparent if a quantity of oil is placed into a container. A sample on a finger or Q-tip will have a black instead of a gold tint but won't otherwise look contaminated.

The small handful of reported assessments from dealer's service departments have varied from "there's no oil in an EV" and "it's black but still has life left in it", all the way to "we'll report this to Hyundai engineering". It's alway possible that any random service tech might have a basic knowledge of tribology but I can only say based on my own background that in general "black oil" in a simple gear reducer is indicative of an abnormal operating condition and that it occurs from very low kms makes that assessment definitive. So, it's not the depth of blackness that is an issue but more the fact that any blackness indicates the presence of an underlying engineering defect. The four used oil analyses we have on the OEM oil backs this up as iron and aluminium levels are described as "elevated".

We also have some evidence that the internal magnet Hyundai/Kia (actually MOBIS/Transgear) install is oddly non-magnetic. So, they have addressed the need for this in the design but somehow have failed in the execution.

It's early days yet but recent evidence is suggesting that adding a supplemental magnet can keep the oil clean in 2 of 3 cases. I'll stress there are very few reports of gearbox failures that appear to have resulted from this defect but not it's not zero. It's also not clear that this is related to or causes the "tapping/wheel of fortune noise" but running contaminated oil is not going to help.

For what's it's worth there is recent evidence from several other interested Kona owners that placing 20mm dia neodymium disk magnets on the outside of one or both stock plugs does provide an effective magnetic field inside the gearbox. That's an easy DIY, very inexpensive and warranty friendly.