[wellsna3]

Hello all I own a 2000 kia sportage 2.0 gas/auto 4 door with a tad over 100,000 miles. In the past few months the car has become intermitently very hard to start . Some days go out crank it over and vroom starts right up. Other days you have to mash the gas pedal to the floor and my wife ( primary driver of the vehicle) has spent without exageration 15 mins of cranking to get it to start. ( No not all at once I have her trained on crank/pause/crank/pause to prevent starter burnout). there is nothing wrong with the starter it will crank it all day long or til it runs out of juice. I have noticed a bad shaking of the engine when it won't start also. rocks on the mounts like a mechanical bull in a western bar. It will however ( cross fingers) always start eventually at least as to this date. As well it will intermitently just 'die" at low idles ( consequently anyone know the correct idle speed for this car in Park and Nuetral?) I have adjusted the idle speed up but it still stalls. I have replaced the battery as the old one lost a cell when this began occuring. The check engine light has never come on though I'm begining to believe the dealer we bought it from may have disconnected it. It was on when I bought the vehicle I brought it in and had it serviced and no more check engine light however I have never seen it come on including when you put the key in the ignition and the other "idiot" lights illuminate. The air filter has been changed, sparks are good and normal driving is fine...never stalls except at idle ( waiting at red lights, parking lots etc. As well does this in both drive and park) I don't own a OBD II scanner ( YET!) so nothing I can do there on my own. Any input is greatly apreciated.

Neal Wells

 

[Axe Man]

Can help. The Idle Air Control (IAC) valve is dirty. The IAC is located on the intake pipe right above the exhaust cam. It has an electrical connector facing straight up.

Here's how you clean it: Remove the 2 screws that secure the IAC to the intake and carefully pull it off. Do not remove the electrical connector. And use care so you don't damage the gasket between the IAC and intake pipe. Spray carb cleaner into both ports of the IAC. Also spray into the 2 ports in the intake. Allow to dry for several minutes then reinstall. This should fix the hard start and low idle problems.

BTW...how did you adjust the idle? It is fixed and controlled by the ECM. There is no idle adjustment. Hopefully you did NOT adjust the throttle stop screw on the throttle body. That is NOT an idle adjustment and is not meant to be adjusted in the field.

 

[wellsna3]

ahh well then the stop screw is what I adjusted opps... :blush: guess that comes from learning to work on cars on pre '80 vehicles... good news is I marked it so I can easily place it back to where it was... I will try this IAC fix in the AM and certainly apreciate the help!

 

[wellsna3]

well did as you suggested...however it seems build up was only half the culprit while cleaning it found a hairline fracture all along the bottom so seems it is time to replace it. thanks again for your help

 

[wellsna3]

well I replaced the IAC unit today.... ran fine all day running errands etc. When I left for work this evening I get a call from my wife she is stuck in the parking lot of the grocery store and her Sportage will not start, I leave work arrive 15-20 mins later , crank it and vrooomm she fires right up. We get home turn it off and again it will not start... I went back to work arrive home about 7 hours later start it and cranked right up. Turned it off cranked it started right up repeat 6 or 7 times... no problems. So I take it out and run it until the heat guage shows the normal operation limit ( warmed up) get home and 20 test starts started 20 out of 20. However I am afraid to let her drive it as if it refuses to start again I don't want her to get stranded..could anyone please help?

thank you
Neal Wells

 

[wellsna3]

UPDATE:

Well after spending a good while on here reading after I got home I stumbled upon another of Axeman's posts describing the problems with the wiring clips including the one on the IAC. I pulled the rubber gasket up and lo and behold indeed the middle connector is pushed up out of the clip. Reseated the connector within the clip and so far today has run like a dream. Will keep you updated and thanks for the help.

neal

 

[platypibri]

Many thanks.

I just wanted to post and say thank you to Axeman. A mechanic wanted 90 bucks just to look our Kia, and you just solved my problem with a 4 dollar can of carburetor cleaner. I cannot tell you how relieved I am. There is no way to tell you how grateful I am. Many, many thanks.

B

 

[carmenrp]

I'm desprerate ('00 Kia Sportage) cleaned the IAC valve worked for 2 days only, what am I to do? changed battery, alternator, starter, relays...what's left ?!

 

[Baratacus]

Need some information on your vehicle... mileage, transmission, any other service done prior to the no start condition?

 

[SLCSportage]

Can you tell me exactly where the IAC is located? I cleaned my Mass Air Flow after having similar problems and also cleaned the electrical contacts going to the fuel pump assembly and so far no stall problems. It seems to want to only stall when my fuel tank is full. I would like to clean this IAC and see if that helps my idling problem. Could you send me a pic?

 

[cdreece]

hope this helps

 

[SLCSportage]

Thanks I'll see if cleaning that helps.

 

[Baratacus]

I don't know what year that sportage was in the picture, but that isn't where the IAC valve is on a 2000 sportage. The IAC valve is on the intake pipe. In this photo you can see that the IAC valve on the 2000 sportge is right where that hose connects to the intake pipe in the previous photo. That hose going to the intake pipe is right next to the IAC valve on the 2000 sportage.

 

[larry adams]

200 kia misfire and starting problems

To those that have a 2000 Sportage, here is a solution, which will be frowned on by the Kia Professionals, but it has worked for us. We developed the rocking engine, misfires, hard starting, inconsistent idle at 140,000 miles.
First fix was to stop the oil flooding number 4 spark plug. Remove the cover gasket and run a thick bead of sealer ( I used stuff for formica counter tops) inside the gasket channel and replace or use a new dry gasket. Apparently the channel is designed too deep for the gasket and when the cover expands, the seal between the gasket ans cover is lost. Crankcase pressure forces oil fumes (eventually oil deposit) into number four plug galley leaving no tell-tale tracks. Stops the problem cold.

The plug insulators are very close to the head walls. The insulators have an inner piece of some type of material that degenerates and produces a conducting powdery film on the insulators. When cold it is not very conductive and the plug fires. As it warms up, the spark will short to the head wall. The hotter it gets the more it shorts and has a tendency to misfire under a load,(starting off). You probably should replace the insulators, if you can get them. I replaced the factory wires with real wire-wire and simple spark plug connectors and narrow insulators. No more misses, no problems.

The Idle air control valve went bad and couldn't be cleaned sufficiently. Lacking the funds to replace and possibly not solve the problem I cut a solid gasket and blocked off the IAC, shutting down a possibly and impossible to get to EGR. Car has 200,000 miles, runs better than ever 25 MPG fully loaded at 65MPH running the AC. Downside is there is no enrichment for cold weather starts. Needs warm up time.

Other than the gasket fix, I do not recommend any of this unless you are in dire straits. We old shade-tree-ers can still rig, but it depends where you live as to what is acceptable.

 

[mge_1]

Hello,

Just replaced my valve cover gasket on my 01 Sportage (2 Door / 5 Speed). I also replaced the plugs while I had everything out and made sure it was properly gapped. So I put everything back as it should.

Now I have a new problem. More annoying than anything as it still drives fine. When I'm rolling into a stop and it's on Neutral, the RPMs is at around 1500-1700 range. As soon as the car stops completely the RPMs goes down to normal around 900-1000.

Any ideas???

Thanks.

 

[tspot]

Hello,

Just replaced my valve cover gasket on my 01 Sportage (2 Door / 5 Speed). I also replaced the plugs while I had everything out and made sure it was properly gapped. So I put everything back as it should.

Now I have a new problem. More annoying than anything as it still drives fine. When I'm rolling into a stop and it's on Neutral, the RPMs is at around 1500-1700 range. As soon as the car stops completely the RPMs goes down to normal around 900-1000.

Any ideas???

Thanks.

I have seen this happen too, i also get the symptom of the car almost stalling when braking to a stop in neutral. this only happens though when the engine is not fully warmed up. i suspect this is a sign of IAC starting to get dirty but not sure yet.

 

[ArcticParadise]

I had this problem too. Took me a while to figure it out but eventually found a cracked vacuum hose was allowing extra air into manifold. Replaced hose. Problem solved.

 

[HavocRazr30]

where was this hose you found that was cracked?

 

[vtjoe]

you might consider a new fuel pump relay also as they do go bad and can cause starting problems