2018 KIA SORENTO Complaints

Lights go off unexpectedly while driving at night. The rear break light has been changed 3 times and continues to work intermittently. Lights come on after the car has parked and turned off.

Headlights will shutoff completely when driving at night in auto mode after using the turn signal. Then turn back on a.couple of seconds later. Which has created some dangerous situations.

My headlights will turn off when using the blinker. It has done this more then a dozen times it is extremely dangerous. They will stay off untill I cycle the on and of headlight switch

My vehicle gets stuck in park and I have to use the release button to put my car in gear

I recently found out via social media that my 2018 Kia Sorento is under recall. I have received zero communication from Kia corporate in regards to next steps to fix my current recall. To make matters worse, my husband just blew at right at 100,000 and Kia refused to offer us any financial assistance since it was “no longer under warranty.” My husband and I spent $5347 out of pocket and an additional $500 on rental cars while our car was being serviced. Again, Kia received to take any blame and refused us any financial assistance. In May of 2022, my husband’s 2013 Kia Optima’s engine blew and we were out of a vehicle for 12 weeks. Kia refused to supply us a rental so we had to borrow family member’s cars while our car was being serviced. Kia did financially assist us with the 2013 Kia Optima’s engine because it was under warranty. Kia has no clue how to create a dependable, working engine and doesn’t have any decency to take initiative of their faulty engines. My husband and I are now in extreme car debt with my 2018 Kia Sorento, owing $8400 and we just spent an additional $5347 on a brand new engine. As of yesterday, 10.3.2023, my car battery was fried and needed to be replaced. This costs my husband and I an additional $200. I’m reaching out because I firmly believe Kia owes us financial assistance and I demand for Kia to be held accountable of their corrupt customer service.

My lights turn on and off randomly while driving or while parked in my driveway hours after parking while my car is in auto lights

After inspection, the service agent, Jeff, came and informed me there was “good news and not so good news”. Good news - He said there was a 999,999-mile warranty on the engine for the oil pressure stick problem. The not so good news is that Kia will not replace the engine until it locks. I was shocked to say the least. I asked him, how in the hell is that safe? Why isn’t the fact that the car started shutting down on me (power steering) enough of an indication that it needs to be replaced? That along with the amounts of oil I’ve had to replace. All the years I’ve had my Kia, I’ve NEVER had to add oil. He said those warnings were not enough. He said the engine light would come on as well as others, the engine would start knocking as well. THEN you get to the side of the road. I told him as I’m going to state here, that is the most asinine thing I have every heard! So essentially, before Kia will replace my engine, I have to possibly kill myself, any passengers and any other drivers on the road first? What if I’m in heavy highway traffic and cannot get over, cannot get to an inside grassy area or shoulder and my car just stops? He said his hands were tied unless these things happened.

On 9/14/2023 I stopped at an intersection to wait for traffic to clear. Upon entering the intersection a large yellow warning notification indicating a problem with the steering system was illuminated. Simultaneously the power steering system was apparently disabled. I was only able to steer the car with great effort. Fortunately I was stopped just before this happened so I was going less than 5 MPH. I continued to a parking lot where I was able to stop safely. I parked, shut off the vehicle, and restarted. The yellow warning notification was cleared the power steering returned to normal function. The problem has not returned in more than 50 miles of subsequent driving. There was no accident as a result of this failure. On 9/24/2023 the vehicle was taken to a Kia dealership. They diagnosed the problem as a "cs126008 steering angle sensor circuit / c126002 steering angle sensor circuit / torque sensor error". To fix this problem it was recommended to replace the complete steering column with motor and module. As this is not covered by warranty I intend to maintain control of the replaced components.

Clunking and sticking steering wheel due to rubber coupling that connects electric steering motor to steering column disintegrates. The dealer acknowledges that there is a mass wide issue with this component failure, but says it is not covered under warranty past 60k miles, nor is there a recall, but there are TSB’s regarding it. This problem clearly puts drivers of these vehicles and surrounding motorist in danger of head on collisions.

While driving at night, the headlights turn off by themselves randomly. The lights need to be turned to off and back on to get them to turn back on. Driving with no lights in an area with no streetlamps obviously could result in an accident. It has not yet been inspected by anyone yet, but a check is scheduled. There were no warning lamps, messages, etc. when the lights turned off. Not a safety concern, but seems related: On another occasion, the car had been parked and locked for hours with the engine off, and the parking lights turned on and remained on until manually shut to off. They did not turn off by a remote unlock and lock.