Gee, and I thought I had it bad with my 2001 KIA Sportage. (I'm still waiting, almost seven weeks later, for their customer service support to fax me a letter they claim to have sent out six weeks' ago. I need this before Friday to import the car if I wish to avoid a nasty fine.) This poor fellow allegedly hasn't even racked up 30,000 miles and his KIA has been in the shop nine times! (Mine has only been in the shop three times over the past year. And the second time was shortly within the first, so I'm tempted to count them as one breakdown.)
Here are some other horror stories with KIA cars. To be honest, mine has performed quite well since the first two visits (mind you, the car is in the shop having its brakes looked at as I blog this), but the customer service in trying to have this car imported has been horrible. For example, when I called KIA Canada today to complain, George at Extention 5085 said there was nothing KIA Canada could do because the car was purchased in the US. He would neither forward my call to a manager nor provide me with a last name. "I don't have a last name," he snapped when I ask. "It is just George at Ext. 5085."
Jason Cook at KIA USA was pretty polite this morning, but he couldn't forward my call to the department allegedly looking after this or wouldn't give me their phone number. But if I think he said some guy named Wayne Spencer was suppose to be looking after it, and Jason stated he would pass him along my name and phone number. I'm still waiting to hear back.
I just spent $1150 on a gearbox for a ford that makes the whole car vibrate - and it whines. I'm with you buddy :-(
Feel free to mention to the area representative that you've started writing about your experience on your web site, which has 378 readers per day, average, this month. :-)
Actually, I expect that our audience has plenty of value-minded family folks who would be open to buying a Kia from time to time, if they could have some assurance that the company, relatively new to the North American market, can provide at least average product quality and customer service.