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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
You are in the Kia Sedona Forum. Your Host is Karens
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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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Replying to: dougv (Sep 22, 2007 12:33 pm) Thanks for the information. I have been talking with a Kia representative for about a week and they are reviewing my case for the Lemon law. I just got my van back last week and after all the attempts to fix it, it is actually worse. I have been through this process once before in 1999 we had a lemon GMC Conversion van that was bought back. In that case the dealer was great and fought for us and actually helped us pay our taxes and gave us an additional $2000 to help with the settelment. We only payed $.15/mile at that time. I agree, $.50/mile is not reasonable but excessive. I have 17,000 miles on my van and that will run me $9000!! I have now contacted an attorney to see what my rights are. I will keep you all posted on my resolution.
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Replying to: egg (Sep 23, 2007 6:14 pm) Thanks to both dougv and egg for the info. Dougv - that's great news for you. Egg, it sounds like both of us would be hosed in a swap. I would hope my dealer will fight for me. They are part of a really big consortium of 19 dealerships in 3 states. I would hope they would want to stand behind me (financially). 50 cents a mile seems extreme especially when you consider many of those miles for me were either spent getting the vehicle to the dealership, the dealership test driving it or me just driving the vehicle while it is broken. When you lease a car the charge is usually 15 cents a mile for every mile over the limit. As I said earlier, I am bringing mine back down tomorrow morning so they can "tear it apart". I will have a rental at Kia's expense. At this point I would be happy to swap my van for one of the dealerships "off lease" vans on the lot (even if it had more miles). They have three on the lot that are the same color with the same equipment. Well, I'll keep my fingers crossed. Good luck to you guys.
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