2011 Sorento SX 3.5L V6 - Neglected Preventive Maintenance - Advice?

mande_2011KiaSorentoSX said:

Hi everyone! I am a young guy, still driving my first real car, a 2011 Kia Sorento SX. I got it at 30k miles about 5 years back. As a whole, I've been very bad about maintaining and taking care of my car. I would get regular oil and oil/air filter changes, but never did anything for the car outside of that (aside from having the dealership replace 2 worn brake pads about 2 years ago, and replacing two tires whose belts had busted).

I know that I've been neglecting my car, so I really want to start taking better care of it and learning about typical preventive maintenance actions. I just hit 105k miles, and after lots of research replaced my spark plugs and intake manifold gaskets. Now, I am at a loss for what to do next. I know I want to drain & fill my automatic transmission fluid, but aside from that I am not sure what things I should inspect / replace?

I am making this post in the hopes that some of you awesome people can give me a rough starting point for things to inspect, repair, and replace. Again, I've driven this from 30k->105k with basically no preventive maintenance, so what are the most urgent things I should start to take a look at?

Thanks so much!

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The most important thing is the oil change, so if you've been doing that regularly, you should be better than you think.

You can get the owner's manual here: https://www.kia.ca/content/ownership/ownersmanual/MY11_sorento_en.pdf

Fluids for maintenance:

• transmission
• brake
• coolant
• steering

I would do them in that order as I believe that is the order of importance. If you want to do all of them, then I would say steering is very easy to flush and fill. Transmission is not too bad. Coolant and Brake fluid are probably the trickiest, if you're going to do it yourself. There are some issues you can encounter, if not done properly. There are enough Youtube videos that show how to do these.

Not sure if you've had any issues with your battery, but if you haven't, it's something to check as well.

PCV valve, spark plugs and serpentine belt are other items to inspect and/or replace. Serpentine isn't too difficult. Spark plugs are difficult...at least half of the spark plugs, the rear 3 closest to the passenger compartment. The PCV valve is difficult just because you need to remove a bunch of stuff to get to it. I'd replace it when replacing the spark plugs, if it's needed.

Following this, you can follow the schedule in the owner's manual about future replacement/inspection schedule.