2021 Kia Seltos

The car makes a jumping/jerking movement & at times, something that seems like a misfire happens. All lights go on and the car will do that jerking issue & become un drivable. This happened to me on the road and I was afraid for my safety as I couldn’t get my car to a safe place immediately. Brought it to my mechanic and he gave me forms of a recall regarding 2021 Kia Seltos which is what I have.

My vehicle is included in NHTSA Recall 25V099 / Kia SC336 for defective piston oil rings. The vehicle has experienced stalling, loss of power, knocking noises, and oil consumption. The engine behavior is unsafe and consistent with recall-related engine damage. Kia closed my case based on a dealer’s subjective noise judgment, but no mechanical engine testing (oil consumption, compression, or cylinder inspection) was performed. The recall remains incomplete and the vehicle continues to present a stalling and fire risk.

I have a KIA Seltos 2021 2.0L, Odom 90288, the engine has failed. I was driving when the engine failed and refused to turn over, start. I was on my way to work at approximately [XXX] when in the middle of a left hand turn at the intersection of [XXX] and [XXX] the engine failed, car shout off which left me in the middle of the street (it was still dark outside, and I was stranded in the middle of the street). Prior to this engine failure I received an email directly from KIA stating that there was a recall on my engine and the car needed to be serviced, however I was unable to make my scheduled appointment because the engine failed, prior to. I recently took my car into Bayside KIA of Waldorf however they are refusing to cover the car and the repairs in correlations to the engine recall. Prior to have the car diagnosed by Bayside KIA the car was inspected by JJ Auto Service of Waldorf, who confirmed that the engine failure may be in correlation to the open recalls on my 2021 Seltos. Three days prior to the engine going out the check engine light came on, and I heard knocking under the engine which is the leading reason I scheduled the service inspection with KIA. I believe my engine failed in correlation to recall #21 V259000 (KIA Recall #SC209). INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

This 2021 Kia Seltos car’s engine has randomly seized up 4 times over the last year causing very serious safety concern. Fortunately, these 4 seize-ups happened when the powerless Seltos car could be safely directed to the shoulder of the road while driving in slower paced traffic. Each time this occurred, our 2021 Kia Seltos had to be towed; towed twice to a mechanic shop and twice to directly to the dealer. The mechanic diagnosed the problem as the vehicle using excessive oil resulting in the vehicle safety sensors shutting the engine down. However, in those instances when we towed the vehicle to the dealer, the dealership always obfuscated and gave us the impression that they were not taking our safety concerns seriously. They never adequately addressed our concerns and often conducted some minor repairs seemingly to placate us to get us down the road. None of their minor repairs worked or solved the problem. In each instance after their repair the problem repeated. We expressed our extreme frustration and concern for our life safety. We communicated to them that this vehicle’s engine has proven unsafe and that has randomly seize-up several times We have researched the 2021 Seltos and found that these Kia models have many serious recalls for multiple items including the problem that we have experiences with excess oil usage. It is our experience that our KIA dealership will not adequately address our concerns and will not take necessary measures to adequately address our very serious safety issues. We believe that our 2021 Seltos is a "Lemmon" and needs to be replaced, or at least its engine replaced. We hope this complaint results in serious action and that I'm not writing again indicating that this 2021 Seltos “Lemmon" vehicle has again seized up and has resulted in a life-threatening safety issue.

THE CAR WAS MAKING A GRINDING SOUND, VIBRATES, SLOWS DOWN. GRINDING SOUND IS LIKE GRINDING GEARS OR A SNOWPLOW SCRAPING PAVEMENT. THE ENGINE WAS REPLACED IN APRIL BECAUSE OF RECALL. I ONLY HAVE 23765 MILES ON IT BUT ORIGINAL 5 YEAR WARRANTY EXPIRED ON 12/09/2025. THE SAME NOISE STARTED AGAIN ON 12/10/2025 AND IT WAS TOWED TO DEALER I BOUGHT FROM ON 12/10/25. The master warning light came on 12/10/25 incident and some text. There was traffic so unable to read it and light went off.

Car had 59,522 miles when I purchased it (now has 64,320), and after driving 1,500 miles, it began hot-idle stall with oil light indicator lit. Restarted and drove OK, but when slowing, it kept stalling. This also happened on the roads when slowing for a light or for traffic, posing a risk to myself and others. After 6-7 times and doing some research, this problem exactly matches the symptoms in Kia’s TSB ENG222 Rev 6. I had it towed to a KIA service center due to the concern that it can throw a bearing during stall (as well as be unsafe). Dealer performed combustion chamber cleaning and replaced the PCV valve ($1,000!). They asked me to keep a close eye on oil consumption. Over the next less-than-1,000 miles of driving, engine consumed 3 quarts, well in excess of Kia’s expectation of no more than 1 quart per 1,000 miles. The dealer contacted Kia’s technical assistance for help and was denied an engine replacement due to me being the second owner, out of power train warranty and just purchasing the vehicle, as well as indicating that the engine had previously been “fixed” pursuant to the TSB; however, clearly it is not fixed. I now unfortunately know that this problem is associated with the poor design of the engine and up to 20% of the owners who have had the problem “fixed” continue to have the same problem recur. The engine has barely more than 60,000 miles on it and was maintained, according to CarFax, rather flawlessly by the previous (and only other) owner. There is no way that properly built and appropriately maintained engine should fail with less than 60,000 miles on it unless there is something inherently wrong with the design or build of the engine. It also seems like a huge copout on Kia’s part to not honor their 100,000 mile, 10 year powertrain warranty simply because the car transferred owners (once), especially with the history of known appropriate servicing AND that the car’s engine has already failed the repair directed by TSB ENG222 Rev 6.

I took my car to the dealership for the recall fix on its engine where they put the noise sensors in. I told them my car was burning oil and my car check engine light came on so I took it back in. Just before going in the light went off, but the code was for a misfire in cylinder 2. They did could not recreate the misfire and sealed my engine and told me to bring it back in 1000 miles. During this time the check engine light came on and went off again for the same code. When I brought it back at 1000 miles they could not recreate the misfire and said my car burned 0.77 quarts of oil in 1000 miles and in order for the engine to be bad that it needed to burn 1.0 quarts in that timeframe. They resealed the engine and I am to bring it back again in 1000 miles. A car should burn next to nothing for oil in 1000 miles. So my engine could burn out almost all its oil before a regular oil change and burn up the engine unless I keep adding oil. I am betting the cylinder misfire is because of oil fouling the plug. I could be on the highway and my motor could stall or blowup from lack of oil. Their recall fix is a joke and saying a regular gas enginecan burn up to 1 quart of oil every 1000 miles is ridiculous. This and every car with this engine problem should have the engine properly repaired or replaced