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2025 KIA K5 — POWER TRAIN

1 injured · 2136607 · 2025-10-05

Vehicle

Make
KIA
Model
K5
Year
2025
Manufacturer
Kia America, Inc.
Component
POWER TRAIN
Speed
20 mph

Severity

Deaths
0
Injured
1
Fire
No
Crash
No
Police report
No
Medical attention
No
Vehicle towed
No

Narrative

The K5 - as soon as I began driving it at 0 miles, I noticed it shifted at lower speeds extremely hard. Head-jerking hard during the first drive of each day at speeds below 25mph. Once the vehicle warmed up, the problem would go away and wouldn't appear until the next day - after the vehicle cooled down completely. I thought, maybe there was a break-in period. So I drove it for about 250 total miles. At that point, I made a service call and brought it into the dealership. I left it overnight. Explained all of the symptoms. The next day, one of your service advisors test drove the vehicle. I was called and told they were unable to reproduce the problem and that I could come pick up the car. I was told by your service advisor that the problem "could be rats or rodents in my garage". I was greatly taken back by that suggestion because I live in an upscale neighborhood, with a highly secured finished garage and have never had any rodent problems. I mentioned that to the service advisor, and she said "You'd be surprised how many people tell us they don't and we find out they had a rodent in their garage". I couldn't believe I was having a conversation of such sorts. I laughed it off and took the vehicle home, quite disgusted that it was suggested that this hard shifting might be "My problem because of rodents". I explained this to [XXX] that evening and couldn't believe that was even brought up given the situation. The very next day, the vehicle did the same thing at about 20 to 2

Source

Authoritative
NHTSA ODI Flat-File Downloads
ODI Number
11691491
Machine
JSON-LD · Markdown