Whenever you are informed of abnormal signs on your vehicle, you are right to be preoccupied, because a car represents a massive annual budget and sudden breakdowns don’t lower the expenses. So what if you feel as if you have a leaking injector on your Kia Optima? You most likely figured it out thanks to black/oily drips along your engine unit, or a disturbed idle, or unusual black smoke. These three signs of illness are the main signals of a leaking injector. As this problem can produce more significant engine problems on your car, we made a decision to compose this article content to help you confirm the failure of a leaking injector and handle it correctly. To do this, we will initially check out the case of gasoline injectors and then at those of diesel injectors Kia Optima.
Leaking injector on my petrol Kia Optima
It is essential to know that the injectors on petrol and diesel engines are distinct, in fact, the difference in combustion between these two kind of engines makes the injection distinct. The key difference lies in the pressure experienced by the injectors, on a petrol engine it will vary between 3.5 bars for indirect injection and 120 bars for indirect injection.
Leaking injector on a petrol Kia Optima: The different leaks
It should be noted that injector leaks on a Kia Optima equipped with a petrol engine are pretty infrequent. This is caused by the much lower pressure in the petrol intake systems. Nevertheless, there are two kind of leaks:
- Leakage from the top of the injector:
It is possible that you have a leak from the top of the injector, this is the part that is attached to the fuel rail, an O-ring will be involved in this. - Leak injector of the lower part:
Finally, you may encounter a leak coming from the lower part of the injector of your car, this one will come from the junction with the engine and not with the rail as seen previously.
Leaking injector on my diesel Kia Optima
Unlike petrol engines, which have spark combustion, diesel engines run on compression. This combustion procedure creates very high pressure in the engine, as do the injectors. On these models, the pressure is more than 10 times higher than on the direct injection of car petrol engines, reaching 1800 to 2000 bars.
Leaking injector on diesel Kia Optima: The different leaks
In the case of leaking diesel injectors on your Kia Optima, there are three different kind of leaks:
- Leakage from the injector inlet:
In cases like this, it is an inlet pipe that will deform along with time, commonly the leak will be at the clamping point. - Injector return leakage:
As its name indicates, this leakage concerns the management of the fuel return in the injector, this time the injector that leaks on your Kia Optima will be the result of an O-ring or its plastic tip that leaks. - Injector base leak:
This injection leak is one of the most bothersome, it is the junction between the engine and the injector nose that leaks at a copper seal, you should feel an air noise and a compression loss. - If after verifying you have oil leaking but it does not come from your injectors, we suggest you to consult this article content on the presence of oil leaking on your Kia Optima.
Leaking injector on my Kia Optima, how to fix the leak
And to finish, we’re going to check out how to fix a leaking injector on your car. Oftentimes a leak is associated, as we have seen prior to this, to a worn seal as a result of the pressures endured. But think that the pressure in the circuit is tremendous, especially on diesel engines. So you will have to take some measures:
- Lower the pressure before any work is done…
- Covering you to avoid the risk of fuel spillage
- NEVER work on a running diesel engine injector.
Concerning the repair part of your leak, it will very often be limited to replacing the seals that have failed:
- Find the source of the leak
- Take apart the injector in question
- Replace the corresponding seal kit
- Reassemble the assembly and tighten with a torque wrench in accordance with the manufacturer’s standards.
In all cases, these interventions are not automatically difficult, but if you have the slightest hesitation in the treatment of your injector that leaks on your Kia Optima, we suggest you to get closer to your auto mechanic to avoid any bad manipulation that could critically harm the condition of your Kia Optima.
To get more tips on the Kia Optima, take a look at the Kia Optima category.
