What type of oil do our vans use: Regular or synthetic?
Well first of all, your question can be
interpreted a number of different ways:
1- What type of oil is installed in the engine at the factory?
This one will depend on where your your car was built and what oil that particular factory decided to use in it. So this is a big
? What I can tell you is that KIA does have a partnership with TOTAL Lubricants and the oil that is recommend for our vehicles is TOTAL Quartz, which is a Full Synthetic oil (see
THIS POST). Therefore we can assume that, at least in some parts of the world ("participating" countries), this is the oil that is installed as Factory Fill.
"This lubricant is used by Hyundai- KIA Motors Corporation for First Fill." [
view PDF].
2- What oil does a particular Dealership use in our KIA's when doing an oil change?
This one is pretty much at the Dealership's discretion. I don't get my oil changes done at the dealer's myself, but from what I've heard most seem to use a Synthetic Blend oil (which is mostly convention oil with a small percentage of synthetic mixed in - it is
not 50/50). Some might be using only a Convention/Regular oil - especially for the "free" oil changes, while some might actually be using a Full Synthetic oil. Most will give you a choice between them and simply charge you more for Full Synthetic.
3- What does the Owners Manual specify?
The manual
doesn't actually specify a particular "type" (synthetic vs. conventional) to use in our engine. Which means/implies that you are free to use either. If the manufacturer wanted us to use only one specific type, it
would be spelled out in the Owners Manual. So you are free to use whichever type of oil you prefer.
4- Well this last one is pretty obvious... Your van will use whichever "type" of oil you, or the Dealership, or other oil change place decide to put in the sump!
One final note: As others have pointed out above, Full Synthetic oil is superior (in several ways) to Conventional/Regular oil. For more on this, you can check out
THIS POST
I hope that answers your question.
Richard