In cases where you are alert of abnormal symptoms on your vehicle, you are right to be intrigued, because a car represents a huge annual budget and unforeseen breakdowns don’t reduce the costs. So what if you feel as if you have a leaking injector on your Kia Soul? You most likely figured it out thanks to black/oily drips along your engine motor, or a disturbed idle, or unusual black smoke. These three symptoms are the main indicators of a leaking injector. As this failure can cause more serious engine trouble on your car, we chose to publish this article content to help you validate the failure of a leaking injector and handle it properly. To achieve this, we will first check out the case of gasoline injectors and then at those of diesel injectors Kia Soul.
Leaking injector on my petrol Kia Soul
It is fundamental to know that the injectors on petrol and diesel engines are different, in fact, the difference in combustion between these two kind of engines makes the injection different. The biggest 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 Soul: The different leaks
It should be known that injector leaks on a Kia Soul equipped with a petrol engine are pretty rare. This is caused by the much lower pressure in the petrol intake systems. Even so, there are two kind of leaks:
- Leakage from the top of the injector:
It is plausible that you have a leak from the top of the injector, this is the part that is linked to the fuel rail, an O-ring will be involved in this. - Leak injector of the lower part:
Finally, you may experience a leak coming from the lower part of the injector of your car, this one will occur from the junction with the engine and not with the rail as seen before.
Leaking injector on my diesel Kia Soul
Unlike petrol engines, which have spark combustion, diesel engines run on compression. This combustion procedure generates 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 Soul: The different leaks
In the case of leaking diesel injectors on your Kia Soul, there are three several kind of leaks:
- Leakage from the injector inlet:
In this case, it is an inlet pipe that will deform with time, in most cases the leak will be at the clamping point. - Injector return leakage:
As its name implies, this leakage concerns the management of the fuel return in the injector, this time the injector that leaks on your Kia Soul 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 annoying, it is the junction between the engine and the injector nose that leaks at a copper seal, you should encounter 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 read this article content on the existence of oil leaking on your Kia Soul.
Leaking injector on my Kia Soul, how to fix the leak
And to finish, we’re going to check out how to fix a leaking injector on your car. Regularly a leak is linked, as we have seen prior to this, to a worn seal due to the pressures suffered. But think that the pressure in the circuit is gigantic, specifically on diesel engines. So you will have to take some precautions:
- Lower the pressure before any work is achieved…
- Covering you to avoid the risk of fuel spillage
- NEVER work on a running diesel engine injector.
Regarding the repair part of your leak, it will very often be limited to replacing the seals that have failed:
- Locate the source of the leak
- Dismantle the injector in question
- Change the corresponding seal kit
- Reassemble the assembly and tighten with a torque wrench in accordance with the manufacturer’s standards.
In all situations, these interventions are not specifically difficult, but if you have the tiniest hesitation in the treatment of your injector that leaks on your Kia Soul, we suggest you to get closer to your repair shop to avoid any bad handling that could severely harm the condition of your Kia Soul.
If perhaps you have any further questions about the Kia Soul, do not hesitate to consult our Kia Soul category.
