1999 Kia Mentor Pricing and Specs

It doesn’t matter whether you have the two-litre petrol, 2.4-litre petrol or the two-litre turbo-diesel engine in your Sportage, they all use timing chain technology rather than the toothed rubber timing belt. As such, the timing chain fitted should be good for the life of the engine and should not require periodic replacement as a timing belt does.

It’s important to differentiate smoke from water vapour when it comes to problems like this that may not be a problem at all. Given you’re also seeing water being emitted from the tailpipe, I’m tipping that this is all happening when you first start the car in the morning.

The fact is, this is perfectly normal behaviour from a conventional engine and is simply the engine doing what it does. The water and water vapour is visible on these colder mornings we’re experiencing right now in Victoria because the exhaust isn’t yet hot enough to turn it to steam (steam is actually invisible, water vapour is the white mist you can see). As the car warms up and the exhaust gets hotter, it will turn the water into steam and you won’t notice it.

But how does the water and vapour get into the exhaust in the first place? Believe it or not, water is a natural by-product of burning petrol in an engine. And until the engine and exhaust are hot enough to turn that water to steam, it’s visible to the naked eye. Which is when a lot of people start to get worried. But they needn’t, as it’s nothing to be concerned about.

The flip-side is if the tailpipe is actually emitting white or blue-ish smoke, at which point you potentially have a worn or damaged engine. This will happen regardless of whether the engine is hot or cold and it won’t go away once the engine is warmed up. If that’s the case, you need to have the engine compression tested by a mechanic as the first step towards finding the cause.

Kia rates the 2017 Sorento to tow a braked trailer of up to 2000kg. That much weight should be well within the limits of the car’s mechanical systems and reflects testing that Kia would have done before releasing the car. Which is to say, you won’t damage the car by towing a sub-two-tonne caravan.

Provided that is, that the caravan and car are loaded correctly and the rig is balanced and safe. This is also dependent on the vehicle being in perfect condition and you diving it correctly in the context of towing a heavy load.

The automatic transmission is your friend here, too, as it is smart enough to decide what gear it needs to be in to make the engine’s life as easy as possible and avoid unnecessary wear and tear. If you think the engine is labouring at any point, you can also lock the transmission out of overdrive and let the engine breath a little easier.