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Vans & Minivans Kia Sedona Kia Sedona Steering Wheel Vibration
92 messages, Last post on Mar 27, 2009 at 6:25 AM
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Replying to: egg (Aug 29, 2007 7:40 am) If you have read my previous posts you should know about where I stand. I will now update you. As stated "several" engineers from Korea and California came to work on my car on Aug 20th. I dropped the car off at 7:30 and left. The dealer called me on the 21st at 3:30 and said the car would be ready in about 45 minutes but he would call. He called me at 5:15 and said it would not be ready tonight but he would call tomorrow. He called on the 22nd at 11:30 and said the car was ready for a test drive. I really did not ask what they had done to the car because I had no way of verifying it anyhow and all I was interested in was the results anyway. Can you guess the results? Vibration was a lot better about 90% good. I considered taking the Sedona on a 2000 mile trip for a shakedown. However I came to my senses. They had had the car for 6 months now and had brought out the A team that had worked for 2 1/2 days and still the vibration was not solved completely. What I was proposing was more of the "gee! howbout we try this" stuff. I finally hit my limit. I told them lets put this behind us and move on I was out of patience. I had not been driving the car and had put only about 650 miles on it. Although it had about 1300 when I gave it its last test drive. Oh! yeah they did do one more thing on the word of the KIA tech rep. They swapped my steel rims and tires for the aluminum alloy 17" and I did one more test. The handling was better but the rims still had no effect on the 75mph vibration. The Service mgr hinted that if I was happy with the new rims that KIA would probably give them to me. Not a bad offer but I wasn't that hard up and I was sick of any vibration, so I turned them down. After I turned the Sedona back in to the dealer he said he would contact KIA about a buyback. He called me a day later and gave me an account of the conversation. The Tech Rep after telling me he would give me a buyback if the last repairs did not work suggested to the dealer that they ask for arbitration. I can't believe the balls of the guy. I had enough evidence four months ago to satisfy the NM Lemon law and gave him all the time he requested and then he wanted arbitration. The dealer turned him down and said no way did he want to do this to me. The dealer then said that KIA would consider some other option if I was open to it. I said I would consider a new car deal of some sort. He said he would contact KIA and get back to me. That was on the 23rd and I'm still waiting. If I don't hear by monday I am just going to wash my hands of it all and give it to my lawyer. Then I will follow up with letters to KIA management and other auto publications. It could just be the local KIA rep or it could be a bigger recall deal and they are just stonewalling it. Either way as I stated before they have to know what the problem is and their way of handling it is to just really Micky Mouse around util we all go away. Again I will post with my final solution for your info.
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Replying to: capecoralbill (Aug 29, 2007 1:44 am) Well it's Thursday and the new rear "wheels" (i.e. rims) were installed and they had no effect on resolving the issue. I just talked with the service manager who has been very nice and understanding and he said he was going to bring it over for one last "load force test" with the new rims. After that he will be having his guys deliver the van back to my house (25 miles from the dealership) as he said I have been more than understanding and patient in this situation. I doubt the additional "load force test" will have any effect either based on dougv's latest post. The service manager is waiting to hear back from the Kia Tech Line on the next steps. At the very least if they take my van again I am going to request a loaner vehicle at Kia's expense (as it's not the dealer's fault). Overall I have been very happy with the dealer's response and I am hoping that at some point Kia will take responsibility for the issue and just give people replacement vehicles that don't have the issue. I'll keep you posted.
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Replying to: lacoydr1 (Aug 30, 2007 10:17 am)
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| I am not good at describing mechanical problems, but here goes. I have had my Sedona Van for just over 3 years. Had right wheel assembly fly off just over 60,000mi. No help from Kia other than wholesale parts. Dealer no help at all otherwise. Now I have the vibration problems many are talking about. Have had a vibration for 90 plus day. My Kia dealer first went for wheel balance, no help, then replace front end parts from another Sedona van, no change, then replace some bushings ($300 incl labor) and still the vibration continues. They've test driven it numerous times and nothing changes. I can feel it in the gas pedal especially when hitting the pedal for some extra oomph such as going up a hill. The strangest thing though is that the strength of the vibration is not consistent. At times it is not hardly as bad as at other times. Last night for instance I had a trip of 240 miles. The first 190 miles you knew the vibe was there, however I could live with it. Then on a smooth stretch of road it became more violent especially when heading up hills (i'm on cruise). Then after about 15 miles of this, things settled down again and it wasn't as big a bother by any stretch. My service shop has put a lot of time into this, and haven't soaked me any big wads of money. They want to find out the problem too. But I do find that Kia Customer service at head office is useless and does nothing for the consumer. Their field reps. especially in my area show no care whatsoever. If I buy an other Kia it will only because of the guys in the service dept of my dealer. And the Sedona van is as comfortable as it gets. I am a sales rep and spend lots of windshield time every day. | |
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Replying to: dougv (Jun 29, 2007 11:07 am) 
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Replying to: egg (Sep 01, 2007 6:47 am) Well the "additional load force test" had no effect on the issue. The Service Manager felt so bad he had his guys deliver the van to my house. They are still waiting to hear back from Kia. One interesting thing I have noticed - I live in the North East. The weather goes from -20 to 98 degrees between winter and summer. I got my van in February and didn't notice an issue until late Spring. Yesterday it was around 72 degrees when I drove home and I noticed the shaking was much improved. This morning it was 45 degrees when I drove to work and again the shaking was much improved. I am going to monitor temperature and intensity of the shaking over the next week. It's supposed to hit 90 degrees by the weekend. I'm also going to let the service manager know so they can relay the info to Kia. Good luck on your lemon replacement fight. 
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Replying to: lacoydr1 (Sep 05, 2007 5:02 am) Received a call from the dealer's service manager today. The district rep. was in and test drove my van. He to noticed the vibration and after a long meeting with the service manager they have decided to try and change out both the front struts. I told the service manager when he called that had already been done back when they replaced the strut mounts and he seemed unaware. He is now calling the rep back to let him know that the van already has new struts and seeing if they want to try anything else. It is interesting that you mention the cold weather. While looking through my service records the other day, I noticed that over the winter months I did not have it in for service. I related it to not driving long distances and reaching high speeds, but maybe it was something else. I will keep you posted 
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Replying to: egg (Sep 05, 2007 4:47 pm)
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Replying to: dougv (Sep 05, 2007 10:05 pm) Thanks for the updates Egg and dougv. I had called my dealer over a week ago and he said he was talking to the Kia rep the next day. I didn't have the time to call him back until yesterday. I asked what the status was on my problem and the guy who answered put me on hold. He came back a couple of minutes later and said that Kia wanted me to bring the van in for a few days so they could tear it a part. Kia would pay for a rental vehicle while they have my van. I almost wonder if I hadn't called if I would have ever heard back from them. So, either Monday or Tuesday I will be bringing the van in again and they will probably try all of the things they tried on your vans, most likely without resolution. I just hope it's a warm day when they take it out for the test drive. Otherwise they'll think they've fixed it. But if they do give it back to me and say it's fixed (during cold weather) then I'm going to ask what defective part they found that was causing the issue. I am also going to send them an e-mail stating that I won't believe it's fixed until I drive it in hot weather, most likely next summer. That way I'll be covered if the problem rears it's ugly head again later on. I'll keep you posted.
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Replying to: lacoydr1 (Sep 22, 2007 8:37 am) Good news and bad news? Firstly the good news. KIA has agreed to exchange my 06 for a new 08 Sedona. Don't know yet what the price difference will be yet. I assume it will be just the differences in MSRP. Actually I should be paid for the almost 9 months of "Fill in your own words" that I have been through. The dealer (who has been great through it all) said he would let me know when the 08's are ready to be delivered and I can come in and make my choices on styles and options. The bad news. KIA has said that in exchange for the new Sedona I will have to pay a mileage fee on the use I had of the 06. Now get this! The mileage fee is $.50/mile!!!! This is not bad for me as I had only about 600 miles on the 06 when I brought it in and maybe even less. The dealer told me he would pay this for me. However, if I recall correctly you guys had a lot more miles. Like if you had 6000 miles you would owe them $3000! This is getting close to what you could get from any other dealer on a trade in for any other car. My motivation with so little miles on mine was firstly I did not know how safe it would be to drive it on the highway and secondly, I'm a nice guy and if there was to be an exchange I wanted to give back a car that was almost like it had just been driven off the lot. Sorry, I can't say this about the KIA rep. So, every time they give you back your van and tell you to drive it they are charging you $.50/mile for that privilege. I know this information is not encouraging. The best deal for you is for them to get your vans fixed. However as all the other posts are testament they will spend piles of money doing busy work on your vans and never get down to the real problem. I don't know what else I can do to help you guys. I am not a crusader who will try to get to the bottom of this farce or try to blacken KIA's image. If I get my new 08 Sedona (and it is ok!) I will probably just go away. And I would probably buy another KIA when the need arises! My only consolation would be to have KIA do a Mia Culpa. But as I said before they are not going to plead guilty, only a "no contest" thing. So I will post if I have something new and hang in there!
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