NHTSA Complaint #11500209 — 2022 KIA SORENTO

This safety issue involves the windshield wipers. It is available for inspection upon request but must be inspected when it is snowing or freezing rain. When there is inclement weather such as temperatures dropping to create ice or wet and slushy snow, the wipers can not function correctly and you can then not see out your windshield and must drive with them stuck across the face of your windshield. The channel that holds the wipers fills with ice easily. Since the wipers on the 2022 Kia Sorento must retract under the hood during normal operation, they are not able to if ice or slush has accumulated in that channel. Therefore instead, they go up and down only about 5 inches. Even if you turn them off to try to clear and break up the ice in the channel, you can not do so as they are still moving. The only way to stop them from making this 5 inch movement is to shut the vehicle off. Warming up the Sorento does not prevent this from happening. Our safety was put at risk because every time this happens, we are unable to see out the windshield clearly at all. We must pull off the road and manually wipe the windshield off which is dangerous and could cause an accident. Someone could run into us outside trying to clear the windshield, rear end our vehicle putting their lives at risk as well. The dealer today could not replicate this action, the formation of this ice, as it was above freezing. We were advised to record the action (or lack thereof) with our phone video next time it happened. The manufacturer did not see this happen. There were no warning lights. We are hesitant to drive our new AWD vehicle in the snow as we could be put in a dangerous situation. This is the whole reason we bought an AWD vehicle! So we could get safely around town in the winter. We are also afraid of the wiper motor burning out or having a shortened life span.