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Our Kia matter involved a nearly fatal accident to our 12 year old daughter, when the car she was riding in was rear ended by another car. The driver's seatback [it was a rental car from Budget, rented by a friend of ours] collapsed backwards into the face of my daughter who was sitting in the rear passenger seat behind the driver. When the car was impacted from the rear, it was forced into the car in front of it, and our daughters face was crushed by the impact as she rebounded into the collapsed seatback and back of the driver's head. She has had over 50 hours of surgery over the past 3+ years, and has many permanent injuries which cannot be repaired by surgery.
The car is very uncrashworthy. I suspect there will be much litigation from these cars over the next few years.
Good luck in resolving your situation, and keep up the good work of getting the news out to the consumer about how poor these cars are. There is another website out there similar to yours---DontBuyaKia.com, or something very similar.
I bought a 2002 Kia sportage back in June of last year. It has been in the shop eight times now for repairs. Everything from brakes, transmission, engine, A/C, you name it and I bet you it has broken. I am currently in the process of trying to get the car bought back under the lemon law. However I am certain that justice will fail us all in our attempt to get out of these death trap cars. I will not give up though. I have written letters to 250 newspapers around the country, specifically targeting anywhere a Kia Corporate office is located. I have also filed complaints with BBB, and written my congressmen to get Kia out of this country and back into Korea. I have been preparing for a television interview with a local news channel here to expose Kia and their dealerships for being dishonest and selling products they new to be faulty. If you are interested in doing a phone interview with them as well I am sure they would be elated. Any help you provide is appriciated. I have the name of some other people you can contact on your car and I will send you that information when I dig it out.
I too have had problems. I purchased a 97 Hyundai Accent front the original owner who purchased the car from the Rock Block. I purchased the car at 45000 miles and at 58000 the tranny went out. Now the 97's only had 6 year/60,000 mile warranty. I moaned and moaned and groaned and they finally gave me a deal where if I purchased the $300 maint. package that car should of had at 30,000 miles they fixed the tranny. Now since then I have also had the motor replaced. (Which I'm still paying for)
I going to launch my own website soon, and when I do I was going to complain about Hyundai and Kia period. Not as much the Rock Block, as the manufacturers themselves, since they are the ones that lay down the warranty SCAMS and produce crappy vehicles (I know ford owns Hyundai and Kia
I am so upset and disappointed concerning my whole experience with Kia and their technicians. My whole idea of purchasing a Kia was in the most part for the great warranty, as so I thought. My problems started about six months after purchase. I kept smelling gas and my breaks were squeaking. I was concerned about this but was about fifty miles from the dealership. I decided to let a local mechanic take a look at them , when my tires were removed he found that gas was leaking from my filter. needless to say I was afraid to drive it with the gas leaking. The mechanic replaced the fuel filter and breaks. I then took it to Crown in Gadsden for them to double check everything. They said everything was ok and I should not have let anyone work on it but them.
About a week later I would be driving and I would loose power and the car would quit. My daughter lives in Birmingham with her husband and two children. I try to visit them about once every two weeks. Also at the time my father was in a nursing home in Goodwater, which is about an hour drive from my home in Lincoln. I got to the point of being afraid to drive to either location for fear of breaking down. After numerous trips to Crown in Gadsden and being told that they could not duplicate the problem and being talked to as if I were imagining everything. So I would take the car back home and in a couple of days it would do it again.
As time went on things progressed from bad to worse. The car would just go dead and lock up while I was driving it. Again back to the shop to only be told they could not duplicate the problem. By this time I was relay ticked off and called Kia Corp. They told me just to take it to another dealership or to trade it.
During all this time other things were happening, like the gas would overflow only after putting a couple of dollars gas in. My weather striping on my windows came apart, my cup holder broke,my center console cracked,etc, etc, etc. This had been going on for about six months and nothing was being done when on the way to church it jus died. It stopped in thee middle if the road and my daughter and I were almost hit by a truck. I had the car towed into a dealership that had just opened in Anniston. These people were a joke....They kept my car for almost a month and kept telling me that the problem was one thing after another. If one thing didn't work they would try another. They replaced the head, the wiring jacket, drained my gas etc, etc, etc.
I finally got the car back and guess what? You got it about a week later while coming back from making funeral arrangements for my father the car stopped on me. I just sat there and cried. I filed a report with the Better Business Bureau, but to no avail. They told me my car had too many miles on it to go to arbitration.
The car was hauled into Birmingham where guess what? They replaced my fuel tank. That has been about a month ago and the car mainly sits in the driveway not being driven because of fear of getting killed in it as my friend Penny did while she was having the same problem with her KIA SPORTAGE that was supposed to have been fixed. I regret ever having recommending it to her.I would love to get rid of this car, but can't afford to take such a large loss. I owe more on this car than the trade in value. I will probable just have to keep it because I would not want anyone else to get hurt in this car. Who knows I might even paint it yellow and make me a lemon to affix to the top and tow it around to as many Kia Dealerships as possible. There is so much more to tell you but you are probably tired of reading already. I really hope this helps someone else before they make a big mistake and trust Kia Corp. What good is a wonderful warranty if its not worth the paper its written on and Kia tech are not trained enough to fix even a simple problem when it arises. Next time around I'm buying a Ford, Chevy. Dodge, anything except a KIA Thank You for your concern Linda
This is a few years old now, but within six months of purchasing my SECOND Hyundai Elantra (a new 1999, from Rock River Hyundai) the paint was corroded in multiple spots on the hood and in areas on the roof and front fenders. I took the car to an independent paint/body shop and their guess was that some type of corrosive material fell onto the car while in transport, from the manufacturer to dealership possibly. When I first talked to someone at Rock River about it, they said bring it in to Rock River Ford's service department, and the person who looked it over there talked to me about making arrangements to have the paint damage repaired.
Shortly thereafter, I was told I needed to bring the car to Rock River Hyundai for the regional manager (a title other than this I believe, but regional 'something') Upon his inspection, this man said the damage was from bird droppings and that they would not cover the repair, even though the car was just six months old. I cannot say that I never had bird droppings on my car, yet with other automobiles I've owned, I have NEVER had the paint eaten down to the metal from it. I found a site on the internet that listed thin paint as a common defect in at least the Elantra model (I'm not sure about other models, and unfortunately, I have lost that site's address).
I never got my car fixed, and I will NEVER buy another car from Rock River Hyundai, Ford, or Kia, or any Hyundai from ANY dealership for that matter. Their extended warranty is worthless if they refuse to stand behind it.
Thankfully my problem is one of aesthetics and not mechanics, but the way they handled (or didn't handle, I should say) my problem had the same effect on me. I'll take my business elsewhere from now on.
Jen
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