OK, well that escalated quickly.
Three warranty trips back to the dealer so far, and I may not be an Angry Young Man but I'm becoming a Relatively Unpleasant Old One.
Mid-January we had the same problem as above. This time, I was driving and got about a km from home. It was -27C and the van went into limp mode: 1st gear only and low RPM. I shut it off and gave it a minute and then tried again. It was running really bad but we got home. Once again roadside assistance got the van to the dealer. This time, the service manager said there was a known issue, possibly with condensation in the throttle body. Said Kia's working on a solution and in the meantime, let the car warm up for 5 minutes. Eventually, he said, there's bound t be a recall or service bulletin as he's had a handful of similar issues.
Last week it happened again, but this time from start-up the van ran badly. We're now at 15000 km and we'll exhaust the warranty in 2 more winters. Not happy. This time, they removed the throttle body while the van was still cold and found it full of ice. Service explained candidly that the design is really bad, allowing ice build up like an old carb and that the old design had a coolant line running through it to warm the throttle body up. Say's he'll "get up the Kia rep's a$$" about the issue.
This is all very well and good but I'm stuck with a bad design that will be out of warranty in 2 years. After 30 years of old cars and a half-dozen dodge minivans that all ran to > 300K, I'm very disappointed. I opened a Kia.ca customer service ticket but so far no news.
I happen to be the quality manager for a tier-1 automotive supplier.I have this to say, in case anyone from Kia is listening.
- This is Canada. Test accordingly.
- Fix your roadside assistance app. Three times it has promised dispatch within an hour,and three times I've called and found that the call was not registered from the app: a phone call is required.
- This problem has happened on several vehicles, multiple times. Get a service bulletin out faster.
- Figure out a way to deliver the vehicle back to me at no charge after warranty service. The time and cost of having to go pick it up is getting to be more than the cost of parts must be.
- Don't promise 48 hour response to customer service tickets and then wait a week (and counting) to respond
- Did I mention this is Canada?
I otherwise love the van and the dealer's service - but having a lemon that could leave my family stranded at -27 with a roadside assistance app that doesn't work, is a showstopper. Unfortunately at this point you've lost a customer and have gained a negative ambassador.
People, if you live in a cold country avoid this piece of under-engineered garbage.
but everything seems well and I certainly can't fault the speed of service. Driven all week no prob so hopefully they nailed it.
