Author: asarangan

  • Tapered Roller Bearings

    The 2001 Kia Rio uses two tapered roller bearings. They are different than the majority of bearings. Most shops don’t seem to know how to replace them correctly, or even care to refer to the Kia service manual.  I went through six bearings in 24 months, and four of them were done by the Castrucci…

  • Idle Air Control Valve

    The vehicle (2001 Kia Rio) was having rough idling and stumbling, and every time this happened the code was P1166 (non-specific fuel related problem). Rough idling could be due to a sticking idle air control (IAC) valve. The IAC is easy to remove and cheap to replace, but a sticking valve can also be easily…

  • Rebuilding the cylinder head in a 2001 Kia Rio

    Cylinder heads are very susceptible to heat. A single overheat incident due to a coolant leak or blower fan failure can cause the cylinder head to warp. That is exactly what happened in this case, so a rebuild was necessary. This is not a small job. It took 2 months to do this, but admittedly most…