u/snack510

My wife and I bought a new 2025 Kia Sorento Hybrid in May 2024. This was the first car we have ever bought new and we were incredibly excited about it. Everything seemed perfect for our family - size, price, design, gas mileage, etc.

Within 3 months it had a problem with the fuel system (either pump or sensor) and couldn’t go above ~40 mph. Despite obviously not working correctly, there was no warning or alert of any kind anywhere on the car. We took it back to the dealer, where it sat for over a week with no communication and no action taken of any kind, and no loaner or rental available (this was not a situation where they gave a heads up that it might take a few days to look at. There was never any indication that this might be the case at any point despite daily follow ups from my end). When they finally looked at it, they said they would replace both the sensor and the pump just to make sure (and if I’m remembering correctly, it didn’t even throw off a diagnostic code). That took another week.

Once we got the car back, it wouldn’t allow manual shifting. I figured it was something weird that didn’t get reset and decided to wait til the next oil change to ask about it. A week after getting it back, the same fuel problem re-emerged. I’m not clear if they didn’t actually replace both components as they said they would or if they failed again almost immediately. We took it back, and this time were able to at least get a loaner and have it looked at in a timely manner. They also told us the car had been in “limp mode” since the last repair, again with zero alert anywhere on the vehicle that it wasn’t functioning properly. So regardless of whatever parts they replaced, they had returned the car to us without it actually functioning correctly.

This eventually got sorted out and the car was fine until yesterday, when the same issue recurred. Scheduling service has been a nightmare. I’ve called every Kia dealership within 45 minutes of my house and none has loaners and only one has an appointment even within this week. So now, despite buying a brand new car, within 2 years it will have spent roughly a month in the shop (assuming this repair takes a week) and left me out hundreds of dollars on a rental car, besides costing me more time and stress to get it repaired than every other car I have ever owned combined (including multiple cars with well over 100k miles).

Once it’s straightened out I will be trading it in at the first possible opportunity for a Toyota, half because I don’t trust it to run despite being almost new, and half because I cannot deal with garbage Kia service infrastructure anymore. Buyer beware.