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Sportage 2005 handling problem

7K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  Less02 
#1 ·
Hello everyone,

I own a Sportage 2005 V6 Front wheel drive with Toyo Observe GO2+ 15" tires and I'm the first owner of that vehicule.

Last year I noticed I had some trouble keeping a straight line when driving in snow or on ice on secondary roads (above 60 km/h). I have seen regular 2wd car passing me. But i couldn't go faster since the back of my sportage was kind of dancing slightly from right to left. Even my passengers can feel the sportage moving from left to right. It is not just a driver's feeling.

I also noticed my summer rear tires were wearing unevenly after 40000km, on the outside of each tyres. Like if my car had positive camber. So I went to re-align my car at an alignment specialist and he told me everything was fine! no adjustment required!!!

This winter, I'm still experiencing this same problem, each time the road has snow or ice on it. I went to the Kia Dealer, and again no aligment problem, everything perfect. We have verified the wear on the winter tires and no significant difference between inside and outside wear (Only 25000 km on them though). On the road test, I was unable to reproduce the problem since the road condition were perfect (no ice or snow)

I have no clue of what it could be. I added 200 lbs of sand bags right over the rear axle to put more weight on the rear tires, and no improvement. My tires are rotating in the correct direction. All inflated at 32 lbs. On dry or wet roads, my car is going in a perfect straight line and not pulling into any direction. All the hardware is perfectly tight at the rear and also at the front (bearing, bushing, ball joint, tie rod).

Any advised would be appreciated. Bare with me for my english.
 
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#2 ·
When I first bought my Sportage in Febuary, we had lots of snow and ice on the highway and I to felt the vehicle was dancing and thought I was loosing control... I soon realized the vehicle was always following different groves in the road and it was just a normal feeling. We have a newer road here that uses concrete with groves in it and the tires will follow those groves and it feels like its dancing even on dry summer days... Might not be the same issue but its what I have experienced.
 
#3 · (Edited)
For those it may concerned, this issue has now been resolved. It took 4 years of complaints to the dealer for them to realise that 3 sets of tires on my sportages weared incorrectly. They agreed this was obviously the cause of the bad handling behavior.

As a results of all alignments performed by the dealer and a third party, the Sportage was always inside the manufacturer's specifications, and no geometry problem were found on the chassis or the rear suspension. The way the dealer fixed the problem, with the approval of Kia Canada, was to set the rear toe to 0 degres, as opposed to the specification which ask for a little toe in.

Before this change, here are the symtpoms I had :

Tire showing obvious sign of Feathering (Tooth saw wearing);
Rear tires wearing faster than front tires;
Bad handling on Ice and Snow;

Now everything is perfect : Ice and Snow Handling as well as the tire wear. I waited almost 3 months before posting this reply, just to make 100% sure everything was back on track. Dealer provided a brand new set of winter tires as a compensation.
 
#10 · (Edited)
As a result of all alignments performed by the dealer and a third party, the Sportage was always inside the manufacturer's specifications, and no geometry problem were found on the chassis or the rear suspension. The way the dealer fixed the problem, with the approval of Kia Canada, was to set the rear toe to 0 degrees, as opposed to the specification which ask for a little toe in.
Sorry to revive this old thread, but I have to ask: Did you retain the recommended rear camber setting (-0.91 +/- 0.5 degree according to an internet search) when toe was set to 0? The same internet search also showed front camber should be 0. My 2007 Sportage has been found to be wearing a little faster at the outside of all 4 wheels. I'm going for an alignment check and I need to know if the dealer also deviated from the recommended camber.
 
#4 ·
Thanks for posting again with the fix to your problem. I wish more members would do the same, it helps others out in the future. Glad you got it sorted. This info should be helpful if any other owners get a similar problem, at least they can suggest it to the workshop. :cool:
 
#5 · (Edited)
OMG what are the odds of finding this ! I just started to notice this on my '06 Sportage - almost the EXACT same issue (same tires even!) I thought I was going crazy - have it in the shop now to check this out. I thought it might have been the tires (we don't drive it much in the winter however this is the 5th winter for these Toyo's) so I thought best case was $800 or so for a new set and wost case some ESP module that needed replacement (still under warrenly I think only have 72k Kilometers on her) but who know if that is covered, When I called the dealer as I always bring it to a third party shop, they said 'it depends' which usually means , if we can find a way to say it's your fault then ... cha ching$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

If an alignmnet is all it needs it will be a merry christmas after all !!!!
 
#6 ·
In my case, I had to align it out of the KIA specifications. Down to 0 degree toe setting in the back, as if my rear was a simple trailer. KIA Canada authorized this change for my vehicule, but they never changed their specifications. If you have the same problem, make sure your dealer agrees before changing anything that could void your warranty, or cause other problem. My kia dealer is now aligning the sportages all to "0 toe in" as soon as there is uneven tires wear on the rear tires.
 
#7 · (Edited)
Thanks Less02 - I use an independant shop for all my cars (we have 4 drivers in the house and yep 4 cars) whom I trust implicitly. Good point on warrenty there is a little left on the Sportage (5 years 100k - we will get to 5 years in about 6 monts). I am pretty sure he as a 4 wheel alignment unit to check the tracking. It was hard to see tire wear as like most Canadians we switch tires every Oct/Nov and Apr/May plus rotation of course uneven wear is difficult to see and we only have 72k Kilometers so at most each set of tires would have been rotated 4 times with 30 - 40k kilometers on them.

It's interesting this is the first winter I noticed it. My wife made the comment as if there was a lot of black ice on the road. So I took it out for a drive and yeah something was 'just not right'. As a secondary test I took our other KIA out (the Amanti) with a brand new set of Toyo OBSERVE G-02 plus winter tires and it felt fine (thus my initial thinking it was the tires or at least one bad tire)

Our side streets at this point are brutal, but in low speeds , 1 foot ruts and deep snow banks outside the 'ruts' never had an issue. The sportage in general (it's an '06) has been trouble free. This is the first non maintenance item I will have to pay for. So all in all , if it is indeed just an alignment I'll pay for that. If it is the EPS system then I'll have to take it to the dealer and see what happens.

I have to believe it is an alignment issue as you described exactly the same symptoms , in the same conditions, heck with the same tires even. Dry roads I never noticed anythiing, in fact last summer it went on a 2.5k kilometer trip and performed flawlessly.

Thanks again for the post. The Sportage is still at his shop - hoping to find out the story today. I'll update this post with my findings.
 
#8 · (Edited)
For followup (it's only been one day) there are also some differences in our Vehicles mine is 4WD.

The shop installed a Cam / Crank Bolt Kit on the rear suspension. They checked the alignment and it was within KIA specefications , however they did do a 4 wheel alignment. He took it for a test drive and did not notice any 'drifting' on the winter roads. (which he did notice when I first broguht it in) - however it's only on snowy icy roads at high speeds it was ever noticed so road conditions change constantly hard to 'test'.

Also as a side note most impressed with Toyo OBSERVE G-02 plus winter tires. This is their 5th winter and there is still lots of tread left. As much as wanted to sell me new tires he could not in good conscience (as I said I trust him).

I took it out last night as well. I did about 10km of Highway driving and maybe twice that City driving several times well over 60kmh with peaks of about 85kmh.

Some roads were very icy (as braking one time the ABS just stopped me maybe less than a meter from the car in front of me). I had noticed the slippage on the highway I was one before I got it fixed, none last night.

I did notice the ECS kick in a few times on the city streets.

While it's too early to tell - I did not notice any slippage or drifting. So far so good. Got a few highway trips planned over the holidays that will be a good test (300km round trip).
 
#11 ·
As far as I remember, Camber was not adjustable on this car, other than by installing shims. In my case, No, they haven't touched the camber, but my problem was feathering on rear tires, and not just a little.

I still have the 2005 Sportage by the way and other than the huge gas cunsomption, this is a very reliable car : I have nothing to complaint about it.
 
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