I may have found the answer. Its in the 50s here tonight, so I will have to wait until it gets cold.

Let me tell ya'll what I found. I just got my KIA manual on CD today and its not of much use. Mine is a 95 and must be the odd ball sort (my luck). Anyways, here is what I found. Last night I pulled the Kia in the basement and checked all the wiring connectors on all that I could fathom having anything to do with the engine electric. On mine there is a device coming off the evaporative fuel canister that is called a two-way check valve. This is shown on my vaccum diagram, but what is not shown is the two wire connector going to it. I unplugged the connector and it was all green inside. I removed this check valve and cleaned the conections and put a meter on it and it read about 45 ohms. I blew through it, no change, stopped up first one end , then the other and blew into it and no change, sucked on it no change on either end. So, what the heck was the connection for. I got and idea, since my problem was cold related, I decied to heat the valve. I used a heat gun and in a few seconds the resistance went form 45 ohms to nearly 60, so this is some sort of temperature sensor and with a bad connection the resistance would have made the ecu think that the motor is hot. I cleaned it back up and put it back on plus checked some other hose connections. I'm thinking this must be it. I'm working a night shift, its 37 outside right now so I will try it when I get home. Wish me luck.

Wow good detective work!

Good luck !

Failure! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/angry.gif" alt="" /> Its the same damn BS. I don't know what it is. I'm gonna rig me a pressure guage to the fuel line tomorrow and see what it reads. This is killing me <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> My winter vehicle won't run right and I'm scraping frost off my motorcyle seat for the ride home <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I am a tech an an independent shop and was given a Sportage with a simular issue. I have had 3 come in with the same problem prevoiusly. A fuel injection cleaning fixed all 3. But the one given to me seems to be stubborn. It was at a previous shop and at the dealr. They replaced the plugs, coils, wires, timing belt, and mass air flow sensor. I cleaned the injectors running 2 cans through and it ran great. After a week of sitting it runs worse than ever. So I pulled the injectors and have sent them out to be flow tested and cleaned. I did ohm them and they were all 16.6 and spec is 13.8. Since they were all the same thet didn't concern me. So I am now waiting to see. You might want to get a fuel injection cleaning most shops charge between $49 and $69 in my area. Like I said it fixed 3 other sportages with the same issue.

OK, I wnet over everything again and this time I found that the ECT engine coolat temp sensor is open. Its supposed to be around 15000 ohms when its real cold and 2500 at room temp and 325 or so when hot. I checked it before when hot and it read ok, but when I read it with frost on the hood it reads open. I found and replacement at advance auto for around 20 bucks, I'm hopeing this is it, but alas its warm here again and only in the low 50s tonight. It only screws up when it real cold. I will have to wait and see if this is it. The sensor is definetely bad, after I took it out it never read anything but open, eve after warming it up. The new one read just like the book says it should. If this thing wasn't working, maybe the ecm uses a default temp that wont work when its real cold.

The worst part is you wasted all this time when there was probably a trouble code sitting in your ECU all along saying something like "temp sensor open circuit"... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shame.gif" alt="" />

When will people learn to pull codes before they tear the car apart? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Careful. It's a '95. OBD-I. Limited capability for the ECM to throw a trouble code and set a CEL. There probably was no trouble code to pull.

You should always have the facts before tossing rocks. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/zombie.gif" alt="" />

Oooops I forgot it was OBDI... I have very little experience with OBDI and its lame-ness...

I was just messin with him anyways...I probably would have done the same thing...

Well, I did get that code, and I checked it out and it read fine each time. I never checked it real cold before. It was going open when it got real cold though. I still don't know if I have cured it yet though, I will have to wait until it frosts again to be sure. Now I have another problem, the starter drive on the starter is going bad with all this starting. I took it out and everthing in the starter looked great except for the starter drive assembly which is a press fit. I might take it back off and spray some cleaner in the crack and see if I can get it to work again. Otherwise I will have to by another starter as no on around her sells just the starter drive clutch for a kia.