Kia never again!!

[radkins]

Fellows I have been a mechanic for 34 years and I am honestly not just being a frustrated owner but I would never own another Kia if someone gave me one! After a little fuel pump fiasco a while back I was frustrated but this is ridiculous, first it was IMPOSSIBLE to remove the fuel pump without destroying the fuel tank. The dang thing was screwed into the top of the tank with sheetmetal screws of all things and they were just raw steel with NO protection what-so-ever from rusting so they did just that and simply ripped out the holes before they would come out, this required a tank replacement just to remove the pump! I find that this problem, not surprisingly, is common so if you have issues with your pump look out! The reason for the fuel pump removal was caused by the extremely poorly designed grounding wires that that over time will corrode and leave the only ground path for the fuel pump to be the fuel level sending unit which will BURN THESE WIRES IN TWO INSIDE THE GAS TANK!!! This is an EXTREMELY dangerous situation as it involves fire inside the tank! After all this I came down to the fuel filter which requires a special tool designed just for the Kia filter but the tool WILL NOT FIT onto the back fitting as the tube is angled too close the fuel filter body. This required removing the front line and dropping the fuel filter down under the vehicle and sawing off the filter so the tool could be inserted, this is how I was told to do it if the tool would not clear the angle. There is simply no excuse for making a regular service item like the fuel filter so inaccessible even if the fitting were easier to release, but that added to the difficulty of reaching the darn thing makes it a major chore. The most ridiculous thing about this is that the fitting has four ribs cast inside that serve absolutely no other purpose other than to prevent a common line disconnect tool from working and to force the use of the special Kia supplied tool! I could go on and on but based on 34 years as a mechanic in both automotive and heavy equipment/trucking I have to say this is the most poorly engineered piece of junk I have ever had the displeasure to work on and just reading some of the complaints here seems to bear out my concerns. No more Kia for me EVER!!

[kiaracer]

yeah it's not a chevy. it actually takes some skill to work on them. i work on them every day and i've never used a special tool to do anything to a kia. we have them in a cabinet at the shop but i never use them.

[jcwit]

Sorry about your experience with KIA. All mfg. screw up at times, remember the Camaro that you had to loosen some of the motor mounts to change the spark plug, or the Cadillac that had to have its rear bumper totally removed to change the brake light bulbs? The worse car I ever owned was a '72 Camaro, was in the shop every other week that I owned it. I had bought it new. Did I stop buying Chevy's NO, my next car was a '72 Corvette also bought new. Sometimes sxxx happens, usually to someone else sometimes to you. Go buy a Hyundia.

[MrVette]

I think the biggest sign that no-one paid attention on design is that there is no drain for oil in the spark-plug valleys. But like the last post says ALL auto makers seem to be lacking in design thought more and more these days.
I think that they should have mandatory drug and alcohol testing on any and all engineers for a minimum of 2 years. They would have to be clean before they are allowed to unleash any-thing on the public...but then there would be nothing made any-more...

[radkins]

Sorry for the rant and I did not come here just to let off steam, my first posts here were like most everyone else in that I was looking for info from other owners, I appreciate the help I received and it helped me find a very perplexing problem that turned out to be a bad connection to the fuel pump relay. Like I said I am honestly not just being a frustrated owner and I tried to give this thing a chance before I gave up. Yes I am aware of some of the other problems other makes have had, like I said I have been doing this for 34 years. No special tools? That fuel filter will not accept any other connector tool because of those useless ribs molded into the plastic housing, without those the common dis-connect tools would work fine. The grounding wires are a bad joke and the fact that when the fuel pump ground is lost the ground can only carry through the light gauge fuel level sender wire is simply dangerous because this wire gets hot enough to melt, INSIDE THE TANK! And about that tank, having to destroy the tank in order to remove the fuel pump is bad enough but the reason this happens should have been very obvious at the factory. Since this car was new it has been plagued with one problem after another, mostly electrical and mostly due to poor grounding, and the dealer has always had nothing but excuses as to why he would not honor the warranty. Sorry fellows if you like your cars fine I am happy for you but I am a professional mechanic, heavy equipment/truck but no stranger to the automotive field, and I can not help but find this thing to be the worst engineered vehicle I have ever tried to maintain and I keep hearing the same from others as well. I won't complain anymore and I will leave now, sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings but I finally just got tired of asking "now why the heck did they do that like that"?

[gomer]

Dude, I ask that question every time I put wrench to car. Design and engineering quirks are everywhere.