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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 (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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Replying to: lacoydr1 (Sep 24, 2007 11:37 am) · 09/25/2007 – Tuesday – Brought to dealer at 08:00AM so they could “tear it apart”. They supplied me with a rental vehicle (Chevy Silverado 4x4 Crew Cab). I called them at 4:50PM to see how things were going and they said they needed the vehicle for at least another day. · 09/26/2007 – Wednesday – I called the dealer at 2:00PM. I spoke with the Service Manager. He said they had made progress but it is still not perfect. They are now trying a different brand of tires (Kumho vs. Hankook). I thought this shouldn’t make a bit of difference because they already tried replacing all four tires. He said they were in the process of doing it and he would call me back after he test drove it himself. At 3:30PM I got tired of waiting so I called back again. I spoke with the Service Manager and he said the new tires didn’t fix the issue but that the vibration doesn’t start now until you reach 75MPH. I asked what exactly they had been doing over the past two days and this was his response. “We took all four tires and six rims (I assume he meant the 4 that were on the car and the 2 old ones they had swapped out) over to the Honda dealer where they ran a “Road Force Test” on all different combinations of tires and wheels until they got the best match”. But again this didn’t resolve the issue and they had already tried this during the week of 08/20. He said the problem was improved but still there just enough to be annoying. I told him that I was at the point of wanting to exercise my Lemon Law rights and that I would be speaking with counsel. He thought that Kia would be amenable to a replacement which is all I really want. He said he now had to report in on their progress to the district Kia rep and he would get back to me on Thursday. They still have the van. · 09/27/2007 – Thursday – I did some research on the internet last night and found a link to the Kia Tech Site. This site contains all of the Technical Service Bulletins, recalls, etc. for all Kia vehicles. I did a search and found several TSBs that could be related to my issue. All of them had to do with computer issues causing transmission and wheel vibration. I sent this info to the dealer. Then today I got tired of waiting for a call from the service manager so I called them around 3:00PM. The guy I spoke with said the service manager was out of the building at the moment and he would call me back when he returned. A little while later the service guy called back and said they were going to be keeping the van for another few days at Kia’s request. They were going to try swapping out the axles and do even more “Road Force Tests” on the wheels/tires. I told them that this had already been tried and would no doubt not make a difference. I asked if they had looked up or tried any of the TSB info I forwarded them and he said that they were going to try some of those as well. Wouldn't you think they would have read these things when I first had the vehicle in for the issue. He then told me I could get a different rental vehicle if I wanted to. Also, I just remembered that I had problems wth the idiot lights coming on for no reason. The TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) and the ABS lights both had come on several times in the past. I asked the dealer to check this out on some of the first appointments and they said they couldn’t find any issues. Again, this could point to either defective sensors or a defective computer. I am thoroughly frustrated at this point and just want a different van or my money back. I have hired Kimmel and Silverman, a nationally recognized lemon law firm. They said worst case scenario that Kia will make me keep the vehicle and pay the difference between what I paid for the van and what KBB Trade in value is now. I could live with that. I'll keep you posted.
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Replying to: bluedevils (Jan 29, 2007 12:03 pm) I brought it back and the timing chain tensioner was replaced. The problem still persisted. A KIA Engineer came out to verify the problem, because I had requested aluminum wheels and new tires. He verified the vibration, as I was in the passenger seat next to him. The new wheels (17" aluminum) and tires (Michelin) were put on. Previously I had 16" steel wheels and Hankooks. The problem persisted. Then I found this forum. |
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on my 2006 Sedona LX! The wheels and tires were replaced because the good load force testing computer found problems but replacing the wheels and tires did not stop the vibration completely. It was still there at about 72+ MPH but then the steering and back seat would vibrate while braking. I took it to the dealer and they replaced both front rotors and turned the back ones. The van now drives smoothly like it should. I hope the rotors last at least until 50K miles but I'm not counting on it, Consumer Reports gave the brakes a low score for the 06 Sedona, a black circle. I wash the van once every one or two weeks and is parked in the garage so that should help.
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Replying to: lacoydr1 (Sep 27, 2007 2:42 pm) So this is the time of the year for miracles! Two weeks ago I picked up a new 08 Sedona at my dealers and he told me to just drive it like it was mine. It drove just perfect. No vibration of any kind. Today I went in to his office where he had the paperwork from Kia. I'll skip all of the accountant and lawyer legaleeze. Bottom line they took my 06 Sedon LX and gave me the 08 Sedona LX straight swap. No tax title or License fees and they waived any mileage fee that there might be. No monies exchanged anywhere. I think the dealer was a little surprised also since Kia had originally had said that there would be a fee based on differences in the MSRP. They even washed the two week old van and filled it with gas. As I have said before Kia was not going to admit anything and accordingly the papers I signed said that very same thing that they were not admitting that anything was wrong but they just wanted to settle everything. So after 9 1/2 months I have the van I wanted. Also I have posted with the final resolution as I had promised many months before. To those of you still with problems you can go back and read my oddessy page by page. Also to those still with problems I think some of the new posts point to a real solution to repairing the vibration. As I had posted before after I had test drove an 07 Van in another state and found the same vibrations there the Service manager there told me that had problems with the rotors and he would just resurface them and they would be fixed. I now believe that this is a solution. I don't believe the rotors are the cause, I think it is in the computer when either the ABS or the ESC comes in to play because of some computer error the brakes are brought into a slight contact with the rotors and the ESC causes the brakes to pulse causing the vibrating. I don't think the rotors are warped, no QC department would ever let that happen, But when they are shaved down the thinner rotors do not make contact with the brakes when the ESC or ABS misbehaves. This is really such a simple and cheap solution I don't follow why Kia would not make the adjustments. But everyone goes though the same change the wheels, tires, force balance, etc. Maybe it takes one to know one, that is the corporate or legal mind. Also one other commonality, the Kia rep is never any help. I think my final disposition really came about because my Dealer had just worn out his patience trying to work things out with the Rep and talked to the factory direct-Consumer Affairs and got things done by them. He has all of my sympathy and also any other car buying I might be doing. So unless something unexpected happens this will be my last post here. If anybody wants to ask questions go ahead and post and I will respond. Lots of Luck, DougV
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