Just a short post really to rant publicly about the shocking reliability of our now 2 year old Kia Sedona. It’s 5 days since our car was delivered to West London Motor Group Kia in High Wycombe on the back of an AA truck. Our 2nd breakdown in 2 years of ownership (I won’t go into detail about the crazy number of times its been back and forth to the dealership in that period for non fatal reliability and build quality issues).

Now, you’d think that a car being towed pretty much guarantees an upset disgruntled customer and that presented with this situation a dealership (and the manufacturer) should be doing everything possible to expedite the process of getting the owner back on the road, in their own car. However as you’re sure to find out, if you’re unlucky enough to own a Kia, this simply isn’t the case. First off the importance of your situation will be directly affected by the recovery service that is used to deliver the car to the garage! Yes, it’s true, direct from the mouth of Kia Customer Services. If the RAC bring your car in you’re in luck, if it was the AA, it’s to the back of the line for you. Not all customers are equal.

I imagined (perhaps incorrectly) that it would make sense to prioritise the totally borked vehicles that have rolled in over the weekend – call the customers who have routine services booked and re-schedule them, safe in the knowledge that they have a vehicle which works (for now) and this will probably only be a minor inconvenience to them. Now you’ve got an empty workshop you can sort those broken Kia’s up and ship them back out! No chance… the reality is that your car is already at the back of the line and it’s gonna have to fit in around anything else that’s booked in this week.

So today, 5 days down the line our car still isn’t fixed and I have very little faith in them resolving whatever outstanding issues there are with that hunk of junk this side of the weekend. In fact I even kinda doubt it will be fixed on Monday. Obviously they’ve been all to happy to offer us a courtesy car (Remember there’s a £10 administration fee though) to ‘get us mobile’, but a car which you cannot physically fit 3 children and 2 adults in really isn’t going to get us mobile at all is it.

Of course I’ve been on the phone to Kia Customer Services but they seem about as useful as a chocolate teapot. In fact they even lied blatantly about asking a manager about the situation and then made numerous excuses as to why we then couldn’t talk to that person ourselves. This car and the customer service we’ve received from Kia has been a total and utter disaster, from the day we took delivery of it right up until now. In 12 months the warranty expires and quite frankly that scares the shit out of me. If you take anything from this blog post, let it be this – Whatever you do, don’t buy a Kia.