2003 Kia Rio from North America - Comments

Windshield washer pump ~60K.

Front wheel bearings repeatedly fail because they were improperly serviced earlier.

Nice car. I consider it to be fairly reliable, but the front wheel bearing failures are quite a pain.

These bearings are prone to failure, because few if any dealerships bother to use the special service tools to fix them properly.

Unfortunately, the special service tool to measure the spacer needed between the bearings is not available to anyone outside the dealership, or I would simply fix it myself. Improperly sized spacers cause the bearings to fail repeatedly.

I called corporate KIA to try to find a solution to the problem, and had to talk to some know-nothing individual who asked me what I would like the dealership to do. I explained the situation, but doubt any good will come of it.

One life lesson learned - Warranties are only as good as the service/product providers. In this case the dealers. My local dealerships refuse to do this warranty work, so I have been forced to drive some distance outside the city to have it done under warranty. The dealerships I have dealt with have been quite good, except for treating me like a know-nothing customer, and ignoring my polite suggestions.

Just an update - I posted the original review.

The car is at 112,xxx km. No major problems. The front wheel bearings have held up well. The guys at the dealership have done well.

The rear wheel bearings were covered as they also went at about 95K, although it did take some convincing as apparently the service adviser is hard of hearing.

At about 103K, the check engine light came on and I read the code. It indicated that there was a problem on the mass air flow sensor circuit. I cleaned it with some throttle body cleaner and it went away shortly after.

I am now looking at replacing the timing belt. It is overdue and should have been done by 100K, but I wanted to make sure the wheel bearing issues were solved before I put a day of work into it.

Just me again.

Paint has started to flake off the front grille. That might bother some people I guess. Paint scratches easily. Just don't go to Ikea and buy a huge desk, and then use those cardboard spacer thingies and that crappy blue string to hold it to the top of the car because, inevitably, it will move and scratch the paint. This to my wife.

Nice desk though.

Just changed the timing belt at 113,000 km. MAKE SURE YOU CHANGE YOUR TIMING BELTS!!! It was so loose that I am surprised it did not fail - easily an inch of slack between the two cam gears and cracks around the whole thing.

Front stabilizer linkages started to make noise at 115K on the right side and about 119K on the left. I replaced them and that's fixed. It's most likely due to our road being poorly maintained, and me flying down it after a night shift dreaming of my bed as I hit all the potholes.