2004 Kia Sedona EX from North America - Comments

Brakes have been turned twice, oil leak developed at about 25,000 miles, and the trans "twitches" and bogs.

Brake issues are a known quantity for Kia - the dealers we've been to always gripe and try to charge us, but so far just they have relented and fixed them under warranty. I expect they'll charge us next time no matter what.

The oil leak? That was "our fault", according to Kia's corporate offices: we failed to keep our records for oil changes, and Kia assumes we failed to appropriately service the car, therefore the oil leak is due to poor maintenance - it sludged, clogged something, and the pressure created the leak. Never mind the 3000 oil change rule we followed. Kia’s stance? We’re obviously full of crap, and it’s our fault. That’s pretty offensive.

Then there's the transmission. It started to, um, "twitch", for lack of better word. Rough hesitations occur when we drive - not under acceleration, but when cruising or stopped. Speed is irrelevant. We had the trans fluid flushed at about 18K, and recently at 52K, but the problem persists. The other problem that persists is our record keeping: I have no record for the first trans flush, and the service center that did it is gone. In other words: it’s our fault, too. Doubly offensive.

This car is cheap, and that makes it very attractive, but the warranty is the kicker here: 10 years, 100K miles my ass. Keep every receipt, keep every scrap of paper, and be prepared to do battle at the dealership, because even the brake repairs were a struggle. Time to own up - it was not particularly bright of me not to keep better records, but my Windstar (which I hated) was at a dealership a dozen times in it’s life, and I was never questioned, and I developed a bad habit. Never again.

We’re facing about $2,000 in trans rebuild costs, and given we have a relatively young car and two years of financing left, it behooves us to do it. Mathematically, with $2000 in repairs to the trans, we’re still talking $17,000 for the car, total, which beats the hell out of anything else out there. My assumption, though, was we’d have a car that didn’t spew oil and stutter down the road like a Model T for the agreed-upon price.

As for my view of Kia Motors, I am on a one-man campaign to talk people out of buying them. I have a pretty good record so far –15 people I know have ditched their plans to buy one, and I’m working on more as I write this. Just doing my little bit to save the world.

Keep on the good work ;-)

These cars are cheap as you are saying, even if I don't understand how you got it THAT CHEAP. Guess you didn't pay that sticker price. Anyhow these are seriously cheaper in the US than in Europe. Still it's cheaper than anything here. I guess a few really want them.

Kia are often giving out rebates by the truckloads, so it's difficult to quite know what to pay.

We had the 2.9 CRDI Camper model. Here in mainland Europe it's called the Carnival, but it's the same car. What a piece of crap. It just fell to pieces within a couple of years.

I know it isn't me, since I talked to consumer affairs, and there are a lot of issues related to these cars. I also saw a quality survey some days ago. The Carnival/Sedona was the worst car in the 2-3 years old category and 4-5 years old category according to the German TUV. This model was in a class of its own when numbers of problems were concerned, having almost twice as many errors than the next car on the list, and 10-20 times as much errors than the best cars on the list. 1 in 4 (25%) 2-3 year old Carnivals have potential security related errors, typically defective brakes. I mean you drive around in a 2 year old car and it's a security hazard? That's just Kia.

What really irritates me is their warranties that they never live up to. Only thing that works is running cases through the consumer affairs and threatening legal action.

I should never have bought this car. It's not constructed for diesel use. Sound insulation and vibration damping is probably adjusted to a petrol engine and not a diesel engine. It's very noisy inside and vibrates like mad upon acceleration and idling. They probably just slotted in a diesel without doing any engineering. Crappy and cheap Kia engineering. Doesn't matter that Hyundai bought Kia some years back. Kia still makes crappy cars.

The ac compressor on my 2004 KIA Sedona went out at about 65,000 miles. Otherwise, it has been a reliable vehicle. I have never has to have service on any of the vehicles I owned before they were paid off... until now.

Another thing that irks me... the van is designed such that one must remove the muffler in order to replace the back three spark plugs. The dealer quoted me $2oo for labor to replace the plugs!

I'm also having problems with my 2004. At 37,000 kms I'm having to replace the 'torque converter'... a problem which my mechanic (and no, I do not service my vehicle thru Kia as I find their service people condescending and always 'suggest' that I'm imagining things or not servicing my vehicle properly) says is ridiculous for a vehicle of this age. He can't even find a part for it and it has to be ordered from Korea at an approximate time frame of 3-4 weeks without a vehicle. The service is costing my $1000.

Needless to say, Kia will not honor their warranty on this even though I brought it in to them before the warranty expired (in early January) complaining of my transmission hanging when shifting from reverse to drive. I asked them to do a thorough search of the transmission so that I wouldn't have any problems after the warranty expired in February.

They told me I had no fluid, suggested I do a flush and pretty much accused me of being an incompetent car owner all at the bargain price of $140 (oh, and BTW... they could have actually done the flush for $20 more than what they already charged me but naturally that would have required customer service in the sense that they would have had to call me, tell me the problem and suggest something that would save me money). I did not know at this time that you can't lose fluid unless you have a further problem... you think they could have mentioned that.

So here I am, two months later with a huge transmission problem and no assistance from Kia. My mechanic is totally ticked off and even called Kia Canada for me (to no avail).

I will never buy a Kia again... not so much because of the vehicle itself, but because their warranty is nothing but a lie and their customer service is non-existent.

Hmm...I have a '04 Sedona, and although it has had a few minor problems, I have had absolutely NO problem with the warranty repair. The dealer has always taken care of it and I just sign a paper when I pick it up, done. No hassle, no problem. I have taken it to two different dealerships for service and had the same experience.

It has 79,000 miles and I have been happy so far. Having had a nightmare of an Oldsmobile Silhouette before, I consider this car to have been a good value.

My parents bought a Honda Odyssey used, which cost more than my Kia new. They have had so many problems with it. Auto doors freezing up to leaks.

My van drives nicer and has more pickup, although not as roomy the instrument panel is much nicer.

My husband also drives a Hyundai Sonata, which we love.

I feel bad you had a poor experience, but mine has been pretty good so far.

To the original reviewer - thank you - there will be no KIA's parked in my garage.

Interesting to read that other people have had problems with Kia dealers honoring the warranty.

I had brought my van in a couple of times to complain about the lack of heat, both up front and in particular in the back. They told me each time that they didn't see a problem with it and that it seemed fine to them.

As the 60k mile mark approached, I brought it in one more time to express my displeasure with the heat, etc., only to discover that it had a blown head gasket. I was relieved that it had been diagnosed before the warranty expired, but that was short lived as the service manager informed me he wasn't sure that the repair would be covered by Kia. I asked why wouldn't it be and he advised me that they had no record of my oil changes, etc. I said, so what. What does it matter if I had the oil changed elsewhere. He said well, we don't know if you had them done. He finally agreed to contact the regional manager to find out if they would cover the cost of the repair. I never heard back from them and finally just before 5 pm on a Friday night I had to call him. He finally said that the manager had reluctantly agreed to cover the cost of the repair.

I hate that they gave me such a hard time about it, because I actually like the van for the most part, but their customer service is not the best if they're going to give customers such a hard time when they attempt to have their vehicle fixed while it's under warranty. Of course now, 4 months after they repaired the engine and put in a new timing belt (which I had to pay for) I suddenly have this terrible high pitched whining sound coming from under the hood. I have no idea if it's related to what they did or not, but won't be bringing it back to the dealer to find out.

And just yesterday I discovered that I can't get the rear door to open. The handle is stuck in the up position and won't release so that I can open the rear cargo door. The roof leaks water occasionally when it rains and I'm wondering if water has gotten in there and rusted the mechanism.

You are probably lucky if you got Kia to cover this blown head gasket. It actually states in their warranty terms that you need to follow their maintenance program or else the warranty would be void. I had this problem using a local highly skilled mechanic instead of the Kia dealer 80 miles away. I explained the problem in me driving first 80 miles to the dealer, then 115 miles to work in the other direction, and then 115 miles back to the dealer, and then 80 miles back for a simple tune up. They still said that I had to bring the car in, which I ignored and I later got into trouble doing this because these cars are a lot of trouble. The head gasket is a standard issue on these cars and I know that people have sued to get Kia USA to cover repairs. I guess that's why they agreed to cover the head gasket repair and not because they are nice.

Kia cars used to be sold at a low price, and I guess that they can't shell out a lot of money on repairs. But all in all, Kias are OK enough, but now I've running a Ford since the dealer is 5 miles away. Before Kia was priced below anything in the market, but now they cost the same as anything from Ford, GM, Toyota or whatever, and are not a bargain anymore.