Consumer Complaints
| Fail date | miles | occurences | Purchase date |
|---|---|---|---|
| POWER TRAIN | |||
| 12/16/2004 | 276 | 4 | |
| Purchased a brand new 2004 kia optima from the dealer on 12/09/2004. the cruise control has not been working since the first day it was driven out of the dealer's lot. what's more, three weeks into ownership of the vehicle, it began to exhibit intermittent, rough idling problems. the problem is not noticeable on cold starts, but after it has been driven for about 35 minutes or so and the engine has warmed up and reached a certain temperature, it will begin to make rocking-jerky-thrusting like movements. it can be felt, as if, the car is either choking or trying to accellerate while waiting at a red traffic light. as for the cruise control, the module was ordered on its first visit, the module was defective and reordered on its second visit, the module was installed on its third visit, and the dealer stated that it needed a switch for the cruise to work. three months later, the cruise control is still inoperable. as for the idling problems, it could not be verified on its first visit. it was verified and reproduced on its second visit, and the car stayed for 2 and 1/2 weeks with the dealer to replace a mass airflow sensor. picked up the car only to find out that it still has the same idling problems. it went back to the dealer 5 days later, and they claimed that the problem could not be detected. two days after its last visit on 02/02/2005, the dealer delivered the car with significant damage on the driver side front and passenger doors. the car got in an accident while it was in the dealer's care, and they promised in writing to fix it. 1 and 1/2 months later, the promised was not fulfilled, so i picked up the car and took it to another shop. my insurance paid for the cost, less $500 deductible. where the dealer failed in 1.5 months to fix the damage, another shop succeeded in just 6 days! the doors are fixed, but the on-going problems on the car still remain. three months of ownership of a supposedly brand new car, and it behaves like a clunker. | |||
| POWER TRAIN - AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION | |||
| 08/06/2004 | 3200 | 7 | 06/22/2004 |
| Bought kia optima on june 22, 2004 vin# knagd126645301131 and have since had seven service appointments, replaced two sets of drive belts, replaced a leaking power steering rack, replaced a leaking fuel regulator, machined the front rotors, lost time from work, lost productivity from work as well as jeopardized my wife's work from car pooling for five months, completed scheduled arbitration with the bbb without success for four problems: acceleration delay, low grinding brake noise, low vibration steering noise, and loud squealing noise from the drive belts. *jb | |||
| 09/01/2004 | 4200 | 3 | 06/22/2004 |
| Irregular occurrences of steering problem, leaking power steering rack. *bf since the initial repair of the power steering rack, the consumer has continued to experience problems with the steering, however the dealer was unable to duplicate the consumers concern. the consumer stated when the vehicle was started in the mornings, there was a second delay in the transmission. *jb | |||
| 02/29/2004 | 1 | 11/26/2003 | |
| Defect: kia optima 2004 manual transmission when shifting from second to third gear, engine often surges after you remove foot from gas pedal creating an extremely dangerous driving condition. it will surge two times out of three. dealer states that the mfgr states that the engine surge is computor controled and nothing can be done about it. i cannot emphasise enough what a dangerous driving condition/situation this creates. this is a condition that will result in death and injury. kia sells so few manual transmission optima's that i don't think they care and kia will try to ignore the defect. this is not a single incident/this is continual.*ak | |||
| POWER TRAIN - CLUTCH ASSEMBLY | |||
| 04/06/2006 | 3 | 08/16/2004 | |
| I bought my car in august 2004, a 2004 kia optima, and everything was fine until about april 2006. i was driving to work and i noticed when i left my house that the car sounded a little funny and the clutch was giving me problems. i was stopping at a red light and the car just died. i had the car towed to the dealership and the service department insured me that the clutch was under warranty and it would only cost $50 at the most. they gave me a loaner car and i went to work. the service manager called me a couple of hours later to inform me that the clutch wasn't under warranty and it was going to cost me $1500.00 to fix my car. they fixed it and i paid. unfortunately that's not the end of the story, a couple of months later my car broke down again and i had it towed to the same dealership, they instantly gave me a loaner car and i went to work. they called me a few hours later at work to tell me that the clutch was bad again and tried to tell me it was because i was riding the clutch. i told them that this wasn't the only manual transmission i had owned. i've owned 4 manual transmissions some new some much older and i've never had to replace a clutch. they did tell me that i wouldn't have to pay anything because the new clutch was still under warranty. about a week later they called to tell me that they had installed the clutch but they found the transmission was bad and needed to be replaced. i asked them if it was possible that the transmission was the problem in the first place and caused both clutches to go bad but they insured me that it wasn't possible. they paid for the clutch and the transmission. *jb | |||
| POWER TRAIN - CLUTCH ASSEMBLY - PEDAL/LINKAGE | |||
| 02/03/2008 | 40000 | 1 | 03/31/2007 |
| 1) no events leading to failure, no indication of a pending failure. no lights came on and the car was running well until the day of incident, feb 3, 2008. 2) after driving a few miles, the car suddenly would not go forward while in gear. we were on an access road to an interstate. we had to coast into a parking lot and into a parking space while cars avoided us. 3) the car was towed to a mechanic, who determined that the flywheel had come loose, destroying the clutch. the car only had 40,000 miles and the mechanic stated this should not occur until almost 100,000 miles. cost to repair was $2,000. *tr | |||
| POWER TRAIN - DRIVELINE | |||
| 06/01/2009 | 89250 | 1 | |
| Wheel misalignment and other noticeable stress in steering, or accelerated abnormal tire wear. rattling noise coming from left front end area, not cv axle or strut. *tr | |||