First, a little bit of background:
So, recently I was on here talking about how great our experience has been with the Carnival so far. I had made a 33,000 miles update post, NOT realizing what was about to happen. So let me start off by saying that we are in general a Honda family. We drove an Accord up until 2004 when we had our first son, then upgraded to a pilot. We loved our Honda Pilot, it lasted us nearly 250,000 miles with basic maintenance. From then on we decided to experiment with different automakers. We tried a Dodge Durango for a while, which was nice then we had a Tahoe for a long time. We decided to switch from our Tahoe to the 2022 Kia Carnival a little over a year ago because online reviews said Kia/Hyundai made reliable cars. We loved all of the cool new tech that the Carnival had to offer but we did have to deal with a couple issues when we got it. We were some of the first adopters of the Carnival, dealing with the leaking fuel rail recall, and the power outlets not functioning. We just kind of shrugged these things off as "Oh, its a new car for Kia and they're just working the kinks out." After those things we started to notice some quality issues, like the trim on the side of the seat had come detached and the trim around the windows had started to fade. Again just little things.
Now the problem that we are faced with currently:
It all started a couple weeks ago when we were driving the car an error message popped up on the main screen where the speedometer is saying something along the lines of "Rear Cross-Traffic Safety System Error". We had just went through a carwash so we assumed maybe some dirt was blocking a parking sensor, no big deal. But after verifying that nothing was obstructing the view of any cameras or sensors, We didn't know what to do. The error message was gone the next day but would intermittently come back on while driving. Fast forward about a week, we booked an appointment at our local Kia Dealership in Springfield, MO "Youngblood Kia" to have it looked at because by this point the error message wouldn't go away and was staying on at all times. The Kia service center was book about 3 weeks out so we had no choice but to keep driving the car to and from work. I run a small used car lot and am fairly versed in Mechanical issues with vehicles, seeing as most of the time they have something wrong with them when I get them. I figured it was a sensor issue or a module that had gone bad, but it was nothing that would affect just driving the car. Maybe the sensors wouldn't work but we could still drive it.
Fast forward to a couple days ago, We dropped it off and waited about a day for them to come to us with a diagnosis. They told us the next day that they didn't really know what was wrong with it because the car wouldn't show any codes on their computer. They had to call Kia for a remote diagnosis. Great! Meanwhile, I've been driving my sons 2012 Honda Pilot that has 200,000 miles on it. They never offered a loaner car or to pay for a rental. Fast forward another 3 days and we get a call, They told us that the sensors had gone bad just out of the blue and they are somehow connected to the Transmission and caused it to pretty much burn up all of the clutch packs in the transmission. They said that they are going to have to replace the Transmission and sensors. I just got off that call and cannot be more furious with this company. I think that Me and my Family are done with the Kia brand. They finally offered us a Kia Sorento as a loaner vehicle because they don't know how long the transmission replacement is going to take as a lot of the parts are on back order. Luckily everything is covered under the warranty, but when its done we are selling the car and going back to a Honda. We paid MSRP for the car about a year ago and the value has actually gone up quite a bit. Kelly Blue Book says our Trade in Value is $52,000 and we paid $48,000. I am going to send it to my local dealer auction with a reserve of 48k and then go out and buy a slightly used Honda because I guarantee I wont have any of these issues in one of those.
IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT SWITCHING TO A CARNIVAL FROM A SIENNA OR ODYSSEY THINK AGAIN. Just know what you're getting yourself into with this car. I've had enough.
TLDR: The Transmission failed at 34,000 miles on our brand new car because of faulty parking sensors. Now I am switching back to Honda
So, recently I was on here talking about how great our experience has been with the Carnival so far. I had made a 33,000 miles update post, NOT realizing what was about to happen. So let me start off by saying that we are in general a Honda family. We drove an Accord up until 2004 when we had our first son, then upgraded to a pilot. We loved our Honda Pilot, it lasted us nearly 250,000 miles with basic maintenance. From then on we decided to experiment with different automakers. We tried a Dodge Durango for a while, which was nice then we had a Tahoe for a long time. We decided to switch from our Tahoe to the 2022 Kia Carnival a little over a year ago because online reviews said Kia/Hyundai made reliable cars. We loved all of the cool new tech that the Carnival had to offer but we did have to deal with a couple issues when we got it. We were some of the first adopters of the Carnival, dealing with the leaking fuel rail recall, and the power outlets not functioning. We just kind of shrugged these things off as "Oh, its a new car for Kia and they're just working the kinks out." After those things we started to notice some quality issues, like the trim on the side of the seat had come detached and the trim around the windows had started to fade. Again just little things.
Now the problem that we are faced with currently:
It all started a couple weeks ago when we were driving the car an error message popped up on the main screen where the speedometer is saying something along the lines of "Rear Cross-Traffic Safety System Error". We had just went through a carwash so we assumed maybe some dirt was blocking a parking sensor, no big deal. But after verifying that nothing was obstructing the view of any cameras or sensors, We didn't know what to do. The error message was gone the next day but would intermittently come back on while driving. Fast forward about a week, we booked an appointment at our local Kia Dealership in Springfield, MO "Youngblood Kia" to have it looked at because by this point the error message wouldn't go away and was staying on at all times. The Kia service center was book about 3 weeks out so we had no choice but to keep driving the car to and from work. I run a small used car lot and am fairly versed in Mechanical issues with vehicles, seeing as most of the time they have something wrong with them when I get them. I figured it was a sensor issue or a module that had gone bad, but it was nothing that would affect just driving the car. Maybe the sensors wouldn't work but we could still drive it.
Fast forward to a couple days ago, We dropped it off and waited about a day for them to come to us with a diagnosis. They told us the next day that they didn't really know what was wrong with it because the car wouldn't show any codes on their computer. They had to call Kia for a remote diagnosis. Great! Meanwhile, I've been driving my sons 2012 Honda Pilot that has 200,000 miles on it. They never offered a loaner car or to pay for a rental. Fast forward another 3 days and we get a call, They told us that the sensors had gone bad just out of the blue and they are somehow connected to the Transmission and caused it to pretty much burn up all of the clutch packs in the transmission. They said that they are going to have to replace the Transmission and sensors. I just got off that call and cannot be more furious with this company. I think that Me and my Family are done with the Kia brand. They finally offered us a Kia Sorento as a loaner vehicle because they don't know how long the transmission replacement is going to take as a lot of the parts are on back order. Luckily everything is covered under the warranty, but when its done we are selling the car and going back to a Honda. We paid MSRP for the car about a year ago and the value has actually gone up quite a bit. Kelly Blue Book says our Trade in Value is $52,000 and we paid $48,000. I am going to send it to my local dealer auction with a reserve of 48k and then go out and buy a slightly used Honda because I guarantee I wont have any of these issues in one of those.
IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT SWITCHING TO A CARNIVAL FROM A SIENNA OR ODYSSEY THINK AGAIN. Just know what you're getting yourself into with this car. I've had enough.
TLDR: The Transmission failed at 34,000 miles on our brand new car because of faulty parking sensors. Now I am switching back to Honda
