This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
My car caught on fire on the highway due to a kia recall and kia isn't willing to fix my car because i was unaware of the recall. I was on the highway driving my 9 month old baby to her fathers home and then i heard a rattling under the hood. all of a sudden my car stopped driving and it caught on fire thankfully I had my partner with me so he put out the fire. At the moment the KIA dealership has been brutally rude to the point that they've raised their voices at me and threaten to charge me more fees for my car being there because I was waiting to hear back from KIA. On top of everything i called the dealership that i bought the car from and has cursed me and sent me to hell because they did not go over the car fax with me or even advise me this vehicle had an open recall. he practically took my money, charged me and at the end of the service threw papers on the desk said here is your car fax and told me to have a nice day. I am getting no sympathy for my daughter being in the car and i don't know much about cars so thankfully i had someone with me who notice the fire, on top of my financial hardships right now because of my car being at KIA. I waited 3 weeks for KIA corp to tell me my engine has no warranty and there is nothing they can do to help please tell me you can help me with this if not a referral to someone who can.
At first i heard a knocking noise as if something fell from under the hood then my car stopped accelerating then the engine light went off oil light as well. Mind you I'm in the car with my 9 month old baby in the middle of the highway i stop my car where it was smoking i lifted my hood and there was a fire i had to put out because if i didn't my car would have blew up then the car never turned back on other then the urgency of my situation i dropped my car off to a kia dealership completely rude and unsympathetic and still haven't heard a word back about my car or even trying to get me into a rental worse experience of my life I almost die and kia fails to act like they give a damn.
At an instant i though i herd a pop come from the front under the hood then i looked all the gauges lite up and the engine lite also Damon on and i noticed the RPM dropped to Zero and it would not restart
The contact owns a 2013 Kia Sportage. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle made an abnormal knocking sound. The contact pulled over and had the vehicle towed to an independent mechanic, who diagnosed that the engine needed to be replaced. The vehicle was then towed to the dealer; however, the vehicle was not diagnosed nor repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 100,000.
I have a 2013 Kia Sportage with 85,000 miles on it. I had an email back in 2018 that said that there was a recall for engine issues. I immediately called and they said that based on my VIN number, it did not affect my car. On 11/6/2022, My engine died while I was coming back from Tampa, FL to Jacksonville, FL in Ocala with no warning whatsoever. I had it towed to a mechanic who knew exactly what was wrong. He had worked on several Kia's with the same engine problem and told me to call KIA regarding the warranty. I called Kia Resolution Center as well as Kia Corporate Headquarters and they all stated that there was NOT a safety issue with my engine. They said they sent out a Product Update for an extended warranty, which I do not recall getting back in 2021, or I would have obviously called to get it. Because I did not respond to the Product Update, that I never received, they will NOT cover the replacement engine or even help with it. I had to sell my car as is with no engine to put a down payment on a car at a dealership. My car was paid for with very low mileage and very well maintained with regular oil changes, etc. There are hundreds and hundreds of complaints about this same issue, but Kia does not want to take responsibility for their obvious shotty engines. I will NEVER buy another Kia or recommend one.
- Jacksonville, FL, USA
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I was driving down a hill within miles of our home on route 50 with my teenage son in the passenger seat when my kia downshifted, and just quit working, and then we noticed smoke under the hood. We got it to the side of the road. When popping the hood we couldn't tell what was going on but there was a spark/fire that we extinguished with a soda I had. I did not have to call fire or police. Thank goodness there were no other cars around and we were not injured. It was around 10:30am and was pretty scary. There were no warning lights or sounds at the time of the incident. I had just had all new brakes, rotors, and tires put on in over the summer. We did get it towed to All body auto near where the incident occurred. They said there was a hole in the engine that is not fixable. I notified my insurance company and he said to contact the kia dealership where i bought it because of the recalls. The dealership said they couldn't do anything because I missed a sensor recall P12103 in the last 2 years so I cant get the SC141. and I am over the 150k miles. I also called the kia company number who told me the same thing. I told them that I moved and never received anything about either recall. But they won't tow my car or fix it at no charge like the recalls online said they would do. They also said my vin doesn't get the SC253 recall. They said my kia needs to go to a dealership but they won't tow it. They said i may be reimbursed. I am just super frustrated. I can't leave my kia at the auto body shop. So I sent my kia claim up to national and am waiting on a return call. but i don't think anything will get done.
The contact owns a 2013 Kia Sportage. The contact stated while driving 20 MPH, there was an abnormal sound coming from the vehicle. The contact pulled over and the check engine warning light and several unknown warning lights illuminated. Additionally, there was an abnormal burning odor coming from the vehicle. The contact turned off and restarted the vehicle and the vehicle operated normally. The vehicle was taken to the dealer to be diagnosed; however, the cause of the failure could not be determined. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was 143,000.
My motor completely seized up in the middle of driving on a busy road. I was left in traffic suddenly with no power and no way to maneuver out of harms way.
I was driving home from work on 08/29/2022 in lane #4 at 60 mph during 5:00 o'clock traffic.a I heard a small pop and lost all power. Smoke came from under the hood and the car was dead. Luckily there was no on in the HOV lane and I immediately pulled to the left. Oil was all over the road and the car. An oils slick like that is dangerous not only to the driver of the car but other motorists or motorcycle riders. Thank god my wife wasn't driving it. I had it towed to the KIA dealer and they notified me there was a known issue with this engine and I I didn't have the KSDS sensor updated and Kia would not do any repairs. I had never received any notifications about safety issues or a recall. Since this has happened I found out there was a class action lawsuit which I never knew about either. I now have a car that has a blown engine and Kia will do nothing to repair it even though it is a known common problem. I believe KIA should provide more support for their engine failures and the lack of notification to their consumers.
I was traveling at approx. 65 miles an hour in the #3 lane in traffic, when I lost power suddenly as if the engine died. I was able to immediately exit the freeway at the first exit and pulled into a gas station. (Approx. 2 blocks from the freeway exit) I noticed a light on the dash was lit in the shape of an engine that wasn't lit before. At this time, I heard an unusual loud knocking noise coming from the engine compartment. I had just come from the store and had frozen food in the car. I didn't know what was causing the noise it didn't sound good and decided to just have AAA tow it to my house. Once the car was at home in my driveway and I had unloaded the frozen food, I plugged in my OBDII reader which gave me a p1326 code. I checked to see what it meant and found out my year Sportage was prone to some kind of Premature bearing wear. The car has been serviced by the book by Kia of Alhambra since we have owned it. It was just in for an oil change, transmission flush, and brakes on the 19th of August 2022. We have never received any notice via email, mail, or from the dealership regarding any recall or potential problem at any time. This car is primarily driven by my wife. I'm glad she wasn't driving when this happened. I will be contacting Kia of Alhambra tomorrow and possibly having the vehicle towed there.
KIA needs to notify its customers that they have RECALL's, not CAMPAIGNS. It was unfortunately bad timing for me that when the letter from Kia arrived, announcing a -€œCampaign-€, not a recall, that I was preparing to have another open heart surgery and a -€œcampaign-€ just didn-€™t seem important. My business has campaigns all the time, marketing campaigns. If one of my product lines has a problem with a product that could impact safety or performance, they have a RECALL. I realize that I will never get reimbursed for the money I had to spend for a new engine, and when my credit card bill arrives in the next week or two, I will have to get a short term loan to pay for it. Because you did send a letter. But it was for a CAMPAIGN, not a RECALL. Even with my impending surgery a RECALL letter would have been put on my refrigerator or somewhere so that when I got out of the hospital I could have taken care of it. But it was a F-€™ing campaign!!! I-€™ll never stop telling people that with Kia, they don-€™t have RECALL-€™s I guess it is a bad word. Kia has Campaigns, that is why my engine wasn-€™t replaced when the letter came because it said CAMPAIGN. How many other consumers don't give the attention they should to a letter that arrives staying there is a "Campaign". It should say RECALL, like it does in Canada where my sister lives.
My engine started making a tik-tik noise in June of 2022. I drive very little as I work from home, took it to get an oil change and for a service check, was advised nothing was wrong that they could identify on the vehicle. Ticking continued, Kia advised they were over a month out for service call appointments, got on the list and had my oil changed again after only 300 miles. Ticking noise got louder while waiting on service call appointment, then as I was driving home on a back road (thankfully), there was a loud banging noise from under my hood, spluttering, some whining noises, my instrument panel lit up with all engine-related lights, and the car shut off while driving. I lost power steering and brakes, and had to coast into a neighborhood and down a hill to safely move my car out of traffic's way. I had my 7 year old with me in the vehicle and have since had it towed to Kia, and was advised there was a 'voluntary maintenence' KSDS sensor I was supposed to have had installed in order to extend my currently-intact 100K/10 year factory warranty, and because they did not update my contact information correctly when i moved I never received the notification. My car is currently sitting at the Kia dealership, undriveable, and I am having to fight Kia to cover the engine replacement.
I was driving down a back country road where the speed limit was 50mph. The truck in front of me kept stopping so I went around him and he tried to cut me off so I had to step on it to get in front of him and my check engine, battery, and oil lights all popped on at the same time. My car then stopped accelerating so I had to coast to a stop and pull over and turned my car off. My car wouldn-€™t start back up I had to pay almost $200 to tow my car home to have someone look at it and tell me that an engine bearing went out and I would need a new engine.
I was on the freeway going 55mph when my engine seized (engine light, oil light, and battery light went on) and I was no longer able to accelerate. I had just switched lanes in front of a semi when my acceleration stopped. It was a blessing there was an off ramp by the lane, otherwise the semi would have had to slam on their breaks since my car went from 55mph to nothing in a matter of seconds. No previous warning lights occurred before this incident. Luckily, I was able to coast off the freeway and park. When I restarted my vehicle, the lights went off and I was able to get my car home safely going very slow. The engine know knocks and KIA will not give us answers on coverage.
My car engine seized on the freeway while going 75mph, almost causing an accident. My mechanic said it was an engine recall issue seen often in KIAs. Premature engine barring wearing. I had my car towed to the kia dealership and they confirmed that I had the same problem from the recalls and assumed my KIA was included but was 151,000 miles and they couldn't move forward because it needed to be 150,000 miles. I called customer service to get a goodwill extention of repair for my car as I had NEVER received a recall notice for this issue. Customer service called back later telling me my car was not included in that recall. My car exhibited the same defect as thousands of others and since 2017 I was not notified of potential safety issues.
My engine got blown. No notice of a recall that was supposedly sent out on 4/1/2021 was received. I called Kia consumer affairs and asked if they did anything to confirm that the owners of the cars received the notice of the recall. The response I received was a sharp NO, we only send out postal notices. They never attempted to call me nor send me any type of email to ensure that I was notified in a timely manner before my engine got blown. I could have been extreme danger and put other lives including my own at risk, had this occurred at high speeds while driving. No warnings lights were lit up prior to the car engine blowing. I am concerned that because there was no confirmation of the notice being sent out, and that there are other Kia owners facing the same situation where they have not received said notice and are still driving potentially hazardous cars. This is something that Kia is well aware of, an easy email would suffice or sending a postal notice with tracking.
While driving approximately 75 mph down the interstate, the car failed to accelerate, made a noise as if air was being released, and then died. Thankfully, we were able to make it to the side of the road, but the car would not restart. We had the car towed to a dealership not far from where we broke down. The mechanics at the dealership informed us that the engine had locked up while we were driving. No lights or messages had come up before the car died, and the only sound that we heard was the air release sound. Other vehicles of the same make and model have had engine recalls, but when we reached out to KIA, but there is not a recall on our vehicle.
While driving on highway, heard loud noise from engine and car lost power. Was able to safely make it to the side of the road where I noticed a lot of oil under the car. Called for a tow, while the tow truck driver was hooking up the vehicle he found a piece of the connecting rod under the car. Had the car tow home and called Kia, there seems to be a recall for the 2.4l engine but not on the Sportage. The car has 104500 miles on it and I have e owned it since it was new.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Chicago, IL, USA