No 4 Wheel Drive!

[Bill]

I need a bit of help here please. I have owned this 2001 Sportage from new. It has a total of 49,900 KM only and is rarely off road. I needed to use the 4 wheel drive mode last night and it wouldn't engage. The segment light illuminates but no 4WD. Any Ideas before I head back to the dealer.. the service personel are real third world and not very helpful or smart.

[Axe Man]

The front hubs are not engaging. This is a failure point for ALL 1998 - 2002 Sportages due to a poor design vacuum hub system. Sooner or later they all leak and the hubs don't work.

There is a permanent solution. Warn industries makes a manual hub assembly for the Sportage. A Brazilian company named AVM also makes manual hubs for the Sportage. I do not know if either are available at your location.

Your dealer may or may not opt for this solution rather than try to fix the vacuum hubs.

You can find a lot of additional information concerning manual hubs here. Http://www.4x4wire.com. Click on "trailtalk BBS" then go to the Kia Forums.

[Bill]

Thanks Mate. Is it possible for me to repair the vacumn system myself or should I just replace the hubs. I usually end up 're-doing' the dealers work myself due to poor quality of workmanship.

[Axe Man]

Don't bother trying to repair the vacuum hubs. They will fail again. It's a design flaw that Kia attempted to fix with a newer double seal design but that fails after a period of time too.

Replace them with manual hubs.