Ok here's a strange one. The other day I was driving the sporty when all of a sudden the CEL started blinking at me then stayed on. I limped home as couldn't get much above 35 mph. So I get out my trusty code reader and get "NO CODES" on the screen.
I call my friend over with a better code reader then mine and get "no codes" again. He says "Hey, lets try this." He starts up the sporty and tries to read the codes again. Now I get a P0301 code and nothing else.
Every other car I've used my reader on all I had to do was plug it in turn the key to "on" then read the codes.
Is this normal for the sporty or not?

i never had the problem with mine and have been dealing with cel for a couple years wether it was reading or deleting them just like you said plug it in and turn on the ignition. i dont think i have ever heard of someone having that problem. so no i don't believe it is common for the sporty.

It's not so strange. About a year after purchasing my Sportage I received a sticker in the mail from Kia. The instructions were to place the sticker under the dash just above the OBD-II connector. The sticker read something like this...

"Vehicle must be running to read diagnostic codes."

This never made sense to me. What if you have a "fatal" error that prevents the engine from running? How do you read the code? And I've never encountered this on any other OBD-II compliant vehicle.

Anyway, in all the times I tripped a CEL I always simply turned the ignition to ON and read the code. And it always worked. I never started the engine to read it. But I can't explain why in your case it refused to spit out the code.

BTW, P0301 is misfire on cylinder 1.

I think that the sticker says that, but I just never got my head down that far to read it yet.
I've picked up most of the parts today. Just waiting on the coils and gaskets (hopefully they will be here on Tuesday). I've never done a plug change before but I've read the instructions post on here numerous times. I hope it doesn't take 3 hours or I'll be finishing up in the dark.

Check your battery voltage and your alternator. I had this very same issue a few weeks ago and the problem was a bad alternator which caused very low battery voltage.

The battery and alternator are fine. I finally got my head down far enough to read the sticker and it does say that the engine has to be running to read the codes..

2 Hours tops! Even with my butterfingers! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well I just got done road testing the sporty. The coil packs didn't look very good neither did the plug wires, so it was a good thing that I waited to get them. Over all it wasn't very difficult to change the plugs. However I did finish up in the dark as I figured I would.