I was driving my 2023 Sportage PHEV yesterday and tried to use my navigation using voice. It wouldn't work and I got a message about activating Kia Connect. I realized I've had my car one year now and it seems I could no longer use navigation, at least not with voice commands. I'll get back to that, but here was the problem. I tried again a few times to use different navigation voice commands and then I got this screen:
![]()
I was busy driving and didn't read the whole screen. I just figured I'd hit the "Reconfigure" button to see if that fixed anything. Doing that brought up this screen:
![]()
This screen implies I activated Kia Connect, although that isn't the case. You have to press the "OK" button. I didn't want to renew Kia Connect while driving, but the problem was I couldn't find any way to exit that screen.
With that on the screen, my right hand display was essentially locked up. I couldn't use navigation at all (couldn't even bring it up with the media/climate buttons below), couldn't use media (although some steering wheel buttons still worked), and couldn't set up any options on my car.
When I reached my destination I parked the car to try a few other things. I tried shutting down the car and then turning it back on. That screen was still there. I went to lunch and borrowed a pen thinking I might have to press the recessed reset button next to the volume knob to get rid of that screen, but when I returned the screen was no longer there and all seemed back to normal, although navigation voice command still did not work.
I tried this one more time last night and brought up that same Kia Connect Activated screen. This time I shut down the car and waited 50 minutes. When I started the car up again, that screen was still there. So I guess it stays for about an hour.
It's bad enough Kia Connect is begging for money, but they should not lock up my car like that!
Regarding Kia Connect, I had read about the features for the various levels of service offered and thought at the time that the only thing I would lose without a subscription that mattered to me would be over the air updates. That didn't bother me much since I knew I could do the update manually with a USB stick instead. I didn't realize I'd also lose navigation voice controls.
Looking at the Kia Connect options, I now see you have to get the most expensive "Ultimate" service in order to still have voice commands (they apparently call it "Alexa Integration" and "In Vehicle Voice Assist"). So it looks like I have to pay $239 for two years (that's with a 33% discount) in order to get my navigation voice commands back. That seems very high to me for a feature that I thought came with my car's trim level ("Prestige").
Anyway, I see no excuse for Kia to force that display on me and lock up my whole right side display.
I was busy driving and didn't read the whole screen. I just figured I'd hit the "Reconfigure" button to see if that fixed anything. Doing that brought up this screen:
This screen implies I activated Kia Connect, although that isn't the case. You have to press the "OK" button. I didn't want to renew Kia Connect while driving, but the problem was I couldn't find any way to exit that screen.
With that on the screen, my right hand display was essentially locked up. I couldn't use navigation at all (couldn't even bring it up with the media/climate buttons below), couldn't use media (although some steering wheel buttons still worked), and couldn't set up any options on my car.
When I reached my destination I parked the car to try a few other things. I tried shutting down the car and then turning it back on. That screen was still there. I went to lunch and borrowed a pen thinking I might have to press the recessed reset button next to the volume knob to get rid of that screen, but when I returned the screen was no longer there and all seemed back to normal, although navigation voice command still did not work.
I tried this one more time last night and brought up that same Kia Connect Activated screen. This time I shut down the car and waited 50 minutes. When I started the car up again, that screen was still there. So I guess it stays for about an hour.
It's bad enough Kia Connect is begging for money, but they should not lock up my car like that!
Regarding Kia Connect, I had read about the features for the various levels of service offered and thought at the time that the only thing I would lose without a subscription that mattered to me would be over the air updates. That didn't bother me much since I knew I could do the update manually with a USB stick instead. I didn't realize I'd also lose navigation voice controls.
Looking at the Kia Connect options, I now see you have to get the most expensive "Ultimate" service in order to still have voice commands (they apparently call it "Alexa Integration" and "In Vehicle Voice Assist"). So it looks like I have to pay $239 for two years (that's with a 33% discount) in order to get my navigation voice commands back. That seems very high to me for a feature that I thought came with my car's trim level ("Prestige").
Anyway, I see no excuse for Kia to force that display on me and lock up my whole right side display.
