Repair issues and fixes

John, had you installed the Votex plugs you bought last year? The iron and aluminium numbers are very low, nearly the lowest of any of the analyses we have so far at much shorter drain intervals.

 

KiwiME, I had not installed the Votex plugs, beautiful though they are, having decided the external magnet method was more secure. So the reductiion gear oil had not had the benefit of any magnetic filtering at all.
Thanks for charting the results, where I see what an outlier my oil analysis is. You also remarked earlier how clear the sample was. I'm actually wondering if the dealer gave me back the correct oil.

 

That would provide an interesting comparison.

The bottle does show that stratified mix of clear oil and black particles that we've seen on:
(a) @KonaAU's 1st change at 142 km,
(b) @navguy12's 2nd change after 3,576 km with external magnets and
(c) in a video of an oil change posted on YouTube which was a 2nd change after 5,000 miles with the double Votex.

We've also seen this on a Niro 1st oil change after over 100,000 km but I can't find the post. I'm fairly confident that it's your Kona's oil because it would be rare to find this from other used oil sources in a workshop. It's just a matter of accepting that we are seeing something different from the usual solid blackness in some cases and don't know why.

I try to avoid speculating but we have to start with a theory. I'm wondering if these five examples are cases where there's a very low aluminium contribution?

 

I received the analysis back from Blackstone Labs today for my 2020 Kona EV. The gear oil sample was taken at 4,200 miles when I had the oil replaced and both the fill and drain plugs replaced with Votex plugs. They said "Wear metals and silicon are high for 4,200 miles but that's normal in factory oil due to wear-in of new parts and silicon from sealer/lubes. Expect the bolded elements to improve at face value and on a per-mile basis next time and eventually resemble the universal averages for a Hyundai automatic which are based on approx. 40,000 miles of use. This MTF has a viscosity closer to that of an ATF at 5.35 cSt. Insolubles measured at 0.4%, which would be a high level for most ATF's, so it's good that the oil was changed out. Check back next oil change to look for progress."

 

Thanks for your contribution, Susanne. For 1st oil changes without a supplemental magnet the iron is slightly on the high side of the linear trendline but well within the scatter we've seen so far. It's not anything to worry about because by using a linear rate as a reference I'm assuming a linear addition of iron by distance driven which won't be accurate, more will be added during the break-in period, perhaps the first 1,000 miles. The magnetic plugs should do wonders to reduce iron levels from now on. Did the dealer do the oil change and was there any resistance from them installing the Votex plugs?

Aluminium is spot on average.

 

Here's my long sad story of getting the oil change at the Hyundai dealership - I’ll start by saying that I love this car! I had a bad experience buying the car and decided to try a different dealership for servicing. It took two appointments to get them to even do the oil change. First time I brought it in they did nothing. They told me the car didn’t have a transmission or any oil. When I disputed that they quickly changed the excuse and told me they did not have the right GASKET in stock so they had to order it. So I went to the parts dept. and they spent 20 minutes on the phone with Hyundai to figure out what to order. They ordered the gaskets and told me they needed it them in case the Votex plugs didn’t work for some reason and they need to put my OEM plugs back in after the oil change. They said they would call me when the gaskets arrived. No call – I called eventually and they had the gaskets. My second appointment was better since this time they did agree to do the gear oil change. But when I returned later they told me that the Votex plugs would void my warranty. So all I got was fresh oil. The invoice did not match what they told me so back and forth and another hour later they told me they replaced the fill plug but not the drain plug. They charged me for a new Hyundai magnetic drain plug saying it was ordered for me – which was not true, but at this point I wanted to leave. I get home and I see both Votex plugs are gone and I have two OEM plugs in the bag. They had installed them after all and they KEPT the drain plug I was charged for - you know, the one I didn't order. Why all the back and forth? I have no idea. But I have had it with them. So either I try a third dealership, find a mechanic who I can go to after the warranty is over or sell the car and get something else, although at this point I don’t know what that would be.

 

Ah, right, I just put two and two together from your post over at HyundaiKonaForum. Assuming they did install the Votex plugs, if you did nothing else regarding the gearbox oil for the remaining life of the car you'd still be ahead of 99.99% of all other owners. Change the oil again at your option perhaps at 30,000 miles if you're up to tackling the dealer again but you've already passed the biggest hurdle.

 

What an incredible tale of incompetence! Sadly, it is not isolated. Front counter people are not mechanics - they just spruik the corporate line which works most of the time. As soon as you go "off script" that's when the BS starts out of sheer mechanical ignorance.

I think it's likely the shop mechanic who did the oil change knew exactly what you wanted and why and did it. The front counter people wouldn't have had a clue unless they crawled under the car and had a look, which they wouldn't do because they wouldn't know what to look for.

However, if you like the car and it seems you have a good one re the reduction gear oil, then I'd discard your third option. As KiwiME has said, you've done the hard yards now, the rest is cruisin'. I'd try to find a competent and honest dealer for future services. You seem to know enough to be able to ask some questions but not commit to a service, eg, ask if it's possible to get a reduction gear oil change. If you get a BS response say thanks and move on. If you get a promising response you may have found your dealer for the next service.

Are you obliged to use dealer service to maintain warranty? Over here (Australia) our consumer laws specify that during the warranty period you can use any (even non-dealer) licenced mechanic for regular servicing and factory warranty is preserved. Warranty work must be done by the dealer and they cannot refuse it because you've been using a non-dealer mechanic. Your consumer laws are different, but if that option or similar is available to you it might be worth pursuing.

 

Susanne, I'm sure they would have returned the Votex plugs if unused but if it helps you could verify their install by taking a photo with your phone from under the hood as I've indicated, pointing slightly down from horizontal. Wherever it may have ended up, the Hyundai "magnet plug" they supposedly ordered looks exactly like the original plug.

 

We have a 2021 Kona Ultimate

Does anyone know where the breather is for the reduction gear case?

 

I have noticed in a few YouTube videos of people driving the Kona EV in winter weather where snow gets under the charge door flap. It has those covers on the inside which should keep all snow out of them, but I was wondering if anyone has tried to put a foam seal on the inside of the door so that when it is closed it will be a bit more airtight (the stuff you put on your doors to make them not seep air).

 

I just purchased mine in December so only one winter's experience
Most of the time snow isn't an issue but I did have my door frozen shut after driving in very wet wintery mix. I have a garage so I just let het car sit inside for a few hours and the door released.
If you have to park outside you may need to grab the wife's hair dryer to warm things up a bit.

I have seen pictures of a person who did use foam weather stripping to seal just inside the door's lip. However, even when my door froze shut, there wasn't very much snow by the connectors.

 

My Kona was delivered by truck from over nine hundred miles away right after a huge snowstorm - it was slimy with road grime to an almost unbelievable extent - every surface in the "engine compartment" had grime on it. The charge connector was spotless. If it can keep that fine-grained mess out, then I have great confidence it'll keep the snow out. I'd keep one or two of those chemical hand warmers on hand to melt the door if it should freeze shut. They really should have put a defrost element there, though.

Edit: Make sure your cap cover cables don't get twisted. I've noticed that if they do they can "prop" the door out a little on the hinge side.

 

After several winters now I've encountered pretty much all conditions. While the door does occasionally get frozen over and fine snow will occasionally migrate under the door, both of which are easily dealt with with a smack or a quick swipe, the most obnoxious issue with the door is that water will migrate into the hinge and down into the mechanism and freeze forcing the door to be stuck in the open position. Because everything is made of (cold and therefore brittle) plastic there's really no way to force it closed without risking snapping the whole thing off.

 

Yikes! I didn't even think of that. The little flap-door our MX had would stay warm enough from charging to not have this happen (since if it was out and about and plugged in, it was charging). Thanks for the warning!

 

My car is stored and charged outside all the time so the door is open and the car is plugged in 100% of the time when I'm not driving. That's when it's vulnerable. I've never had the hinge mechanism freeze while in the closed position (thank goodness!). It's the door gap that's vulnerable to freezing when it's shut. A sharp but restrained smack with a flat palm has always succeeded in crackung any ice in that spot - for me anyway. Your mileage may vary.

 

Here's some testing I carried out to complement testing done by others over on HyundaiKonaForum.com :

Testing Magnetic plug options for the Kona EV gearbox in water

I installed and sealed each of three magnetic plug options into their own 400 ml clear plastic container such that only their top surfaces were exposed to the interior, as they would be when installed in the aluminium-cased Kona gearbox. Those plugs tested are the DeFill M18 with neodymium magnetic, the Toyota OEM 70-series Landcruiser diff plug with ceramic magnetic, and the home-brew solution - three Ø18x3mm neodymium disc magnets attached to the outer surface of the Hyundai OEM steel plug. I’d consider the DeFill to be similar enough to the Votex DP007 to perform the same, but the DeFill is 3mm longer but since it hasn’t been tested in the Kona I can’t specifically recommend it as an alternative to the Votex.

The agitator is an 18mm spade drill and the target agitation speed is 1500 RPM. One container lid was drilled to fit the spade drill shaft so water doesn’t splash out when agitating.

The iron filings were made with mild steel on a slow-turning drill-mounted grinding wheel to avoid overheating the particles and damaging their ferromagnetic properties. I filtered the particles magnetically to remove non-ferrous debris and divided them up about equally for the three plugs I’m testing, each quantity I’d describe as about what I’d expect to see as normal wear in the Kona’s gearbox over perhaps 50,000 km.

One downside of using water as the fluid medium instead of oil is that the particles rust in about 30 minutes so the entire experiment must be performed and disassembled expeditiously to keep the plugs in good condition. The upside is that the video images are clearer, there’s less risk of a nasty mess if something leaks, and the final cleanup is much easier.

The experimental method was to fill each container with water, install under the drill press and add the particles and allow them time to find their happy place. I quickly found out however that if dropped in gradually nothing much happens until agitation is started, but in two of the three cases the particles clumped together when dropped in and subsequently find the plug immediately.

In all three plug tests I replaced the water after the initial agitation to clear out any remaining non-ferrous debris. The contents were agitated for about a minute then allowed to settle before being agitated again to see if any break loose. The video is edited to minimise boredom, so intervals appear to be shorter. The top agitation speed generates tiny air bubbles that should be not confused as being significant loose ferrous particles. There is some inevitable foreign debris floating around as well.

The important outcome for all three options is that no amount of agitation could visibly knock any particles loose and all options work acceptably well. I'll note that in reality actual wear particles may have been subject to intense heat and as a result may have lost some ferromagnetic attraction, so this test is carried out with ideal particle properties.

 

Nice job mate, thanks