The saga continues!!! The dealer replaced the CV joint. Thinking my vehicle had been repaired I drove to Myrtle Beach South Carolina from Pittsburgh. Needless to say the problem was NOT resolved and I had a very long and nervous trip home with my children from a relaxing vacation! Back to the dealer I go only for them to tell me they again cannot locate the problem, they are calling in a field tech and will call me to come back for trip number 8 to see if they can resolve the problem. I am not confident that my vehicle will make it from point A to point b without me having to pull off the road somewhere. The whole experience is quite frustrating to say the least!! Any thoughts???
These dealership mechanics . . . have they ever driven your vehicle on the freeway?
Or only to the donut shop down the street, and then right back to the shop?
If the latter, they will NEVER duplicate your complaint
Don’t settle on dealing only with the dealers. Keep in touch with high-ups at Kia customer care or whatever their US corporate problem resolution department calls itself.
The last dealership (I’ve gone to two) had the guy that lived the farthest drive home and back the next day putting several miles on it. I have told them I was on the freeway when it occurs. The last repair invoice (when it was supposedly fixed) indicated that they contacted tech line with the concern and were advised to check a few things. After checking they found that the left front axle would come out with ease when using a pry bar. That is when they replaced the left front CV joint.
I contacted customer Care when I was at the first dealer and had the problem escalated…They have never contacted me. I called back with the customer care number I was given but only got a voicemail and no return call.
Check in your owners manual. There is an address to mail a letter to. At this point I would send it certified or to be signed-for upon receipt…
This is slightly off-topic . . .
I had some work done on my kitchen several years back, and they really buggered it up. I called them and they were jerking my chain
I sent a certified letter to the corporate office, and the response was instantaneous. As soon as that letter arrived, the company called me on the phone. They promptly sent a different crew out to fix the problem. Actually, they had to do a significant portion of the work all over, again.
Anyways, certified letters grab attention, and they’re harder to ignore than emails or a phone ringing
But it works the same way at a car dealer. Once official correspondence starts showing up, especially from an attorney, the dealership personnel AND corporate usually stop dragging their feet and either resolve the problem once and for all, or buy the car back. I’ve seen both scenarios.
In the cases where they fix the car, it’s almost always a different guy who is assigned to fix it right.
Often a smarter guy with more patience. And oftentimes he’s paid for the time spent on the car, versus the first guy, who probably got reamed
Better yet, start getting prepared to start buyback proceedings, or what have you. Come to think of it, I believe there is also a provision for buyback, based on the number of days the car spent in the shop in relationship to the unresolved complaint. That’s in addition to the 3 strikes clause, where if the 3rd attempt doesn’t fix it, the car can be bought back
I’ve actually seen cars get bought back, because they were in the shop too long, waiting for the necessary parts to arrive. By the time the required time period had passed, the customer had 0 confidence in the car, anyways, and was happy to get it bought back
The CV joint was not the answer - I have since taken it back to the dealer two more times. The Service Manager drove my vehicle home and could not duplicate the problem still. Only problem is it seems to be happening to me at least once a day. I feel like I am going crazy about the problem at this point. I talked to the service manager and told him to check the hub and bearings. I am not a mechanic and when I asked the service manager if he was a mechanic he said that he had a license to inspect vehicles…II am hoping they find the problem soon as it is giving me a daily headache. I am going to go to the dealers and possibly have one of the tech ride in the car with me and hope the problem starts while he is in the vehicle. It is not my job to find the problem but it seems like I will have to do some investigating myself. I certainly will NEVER buy another KIA or Hyundai (they are the same company) or recommend any of my friends or family. Any additional advise would be greatly appreciated. I tried to attach a video of the noise but was unable to upload for some reason.
So I decided to have an independent mechanic take a look at my vehicle and he found defective right front and left back bearings…now to get the dealer to fix under the warrantee…