NHTSA Complaint #11571273 — 2015 KIA SORENTO

On Sunday 2-4-2024, at ~2-3am, my daughter & her boyfriend were driving her 2015 Kia Sorento on I69 near Fishers IN (67 miles from their home) when the engine rod bearings failed. Driving at interstate speeds, they immediately pulled over to the shoulder. If traffic had been bad, this could have caused a deadly accident. This created an emergency roadside service issue. Fortunately, my daughter's boyfriend was with her to help her through this anxious & traumatic event. It took a couple hours (in freezing cold weather) for them to figure out what to do. They called us (her parents) at 5am for assistance. They eventually got a tow truck to tow the car back to our hometown's Kia dealer for service. On the next business day, the Kia Dealer diagnosed the problem as a blown rod bearing; the engine was locked up. Cost to repair will be ~$5900 plus a $589 towing charge. Quotes are included with this complaint. After some research, I discovered that faulty rod bearings is a HUGE problem on mid-2010's Sorento 2.4L engines. The internet is full of customer complaints on this. In addition, there is even a Theta II Class Action Lawsuit on this. The problem is THAT pervasive. I have contacted Kia Customer Service (Irvine, CA) and the Kia Theta II Customer Service group. They explained that because they obliged by conditions of the Theta II lawsuit, which, for them was two mailings to DMV registered owners in summer 2018 & summer 2019 requesting owners to install an ECU software upgrade (followed by a 3rd mailing by the lawsuit handling firm: Epiq), that their liability on this matter is covered. The previous owner did not open or see these letters. So this upgrade was not done on this car. To me, Kia/Hyundai acted in BAD FAITH not to continue with mailings (once every 6 months) to all DMV registered owners UNTIL all registered cars had dwindled to very low numbers (<10% of initial sales). Therefore, I think they are STILL liable for this safety & traumatic issue.