2022 Kia Sorento

2022 Kia Sorento. Dec 2024(previous owner incident) to new owner purchase May 2025- April 2026 vehicle keeps displaying all lights and warnings, loses acceleration & loss of throttle power while driving. High voltage code P0653 code displays. RPM’s will go up and down while vehicle is in park. Have had an active case open with Kia America Escalated case specialist since Nov 2025. Vehicle has been taken to two different Kia dealerships and has had this incident 7 times since May 2025 used purchase. A few different parts have been changed while working with a Kia America tech over a computer, yet it doesn’t fix the problem. It was reported in 2024 by the previous owner and the dealership could not find the source. It was never disclosed from the dealership prior to reselling. My problems started 3 weeks after owning the car. Less than 200 miles. I got in contact with previous owner, the vehicle kept going into limp mode while driving & the code would clear before she could get it to the shop & they couldn’t resolve it, so she traded it back in. 1st Incident: Dec 2, 2024 (previous owner) 2nd: June 6, 2025 3rd: July 19, 2025 4th: August 14, 205 5th: September 19,2025 Contacted Kia after and finally assigned a case officer Nov 10, 2025. Taken to shop Nov 11, 2025. 6th: Feb 22, 2026 7th: April 4, 2026 - going 75Mph on a highway and having to cross 4 lanes of traffic with no throttle power.

1)Transmission keeps slipping on a car that is one year old. Typically it’s from a park>drive or park>reverse but it also happens while accelerating. The worse instance so far has been while I was pulling across an intersection and my gas pedal was to the floor and the car just froze like it was in neutral… rpms went up but car “disengaged” and I had to let off the gas and try again and it engaged. This was a HUGE safety issue as cars were coming at me and I was stuck. I have take the car to KIA FOUR times for this issue and they keep telling me that if there was an issue there would be a check engine light on and they can’t do anything. 2) Adaptive cruise control and lane assist functions keep randomly stopping and have to be reset. 3) Rotors are crap. I have had to to have them turned twice in the first year of ownership and they are making a squealing sound now for a 3rd time. There are tons of complaints about this online and Kia fails to consider it a warranty issue. 4) Two pieces of the car have randomly flown off… Kia says there are no known defects so they won’t help. A piece of windshield cowl came off at highway speeds and a rear axle plastic guard/cover came off and dragged for awhile before I had to zip tie it up…. Again normal highway driving, no off road- no excuse for this to be falling apart and flying off where it can cause harm to other drivers.

In early June, my car went into limp mode. The two lines with a car between on the dash were blinking red. I notified Kia, both Roseville and Folsom, but they seemed unconcerned since it seemingly corrected itself after restarting car and driving it. Since then, the car has had the Ebrake engage while driving at least 6-7 times. After the 5th or 6th time, I reported to Kia and after much back and forth they agreed it was a safety problem since it would cause my car to brake slowing it suddenly to about 1/2 of my traveling speed. The week of August 7th, they had it a week and said they couldn’t replicate the issue. They did do something pertaining to TSB SC252. I got it back on Aug 11th and on the 17th, it did it again when I was traveling about 35 mph causing my car to pull right. It is back in the shop again. On Aug 4th, it engaged, causing me to swerve into the lane to my right. I was in rush hour traffic. On July 28th, I was on the Hwy 50 traveling approx 70-75mph, when it happened causing me to suddenly slow to 35 MPH. It happened 3-4 times previously as well. The emergency brake lights up red and blinks a few times before it disengages. Kia refuses to acknowledge there’s an issue, but they’ve asked me to turn off driver assist and other safety features. It is random and I googled if anyone else had ever had the issue. I found on Kia Forum of someone that had a 2021 model that did the same thing. Kia customer care rep said it wasn’t a real Kia site and the person was probably lying. The contact stated the dealer believe it’s the forward collision sensor that is malfunctioning.

I was driving down the highway and the car stalled out the lights dimmed and the car shut off luckily I was able to get over and stopped the steering wheel was locked up almost like the battery went out. I was able to put it in park and restart the car. I got off the highway at the next exit and went through town and about half way home I was sitting at a stop light and the car died again. I put it in park and started the car again I took it straight over to the dealership and they hooked into it and scanned the car they said they couldn't find anything it continues to happen and I keep asking the dealership about it but they can't recreate the problem. I have also almost been in several wrecks do to this problem. I have also had the car slam on the breaks going over 40 and say caution ⚠️ and the breaks lock up for a few minutes.

Failures with power train around 12,000 miles. Code P1C2D03. Engine jumps gears and may require full transmission replacement. Upon research, there are at least nine other separate complaints of the same issue under 12,000 miles. Car was brought in a month earlier to have the front camera replaced due to a latent defect in the sensor causing forward assist to erroneously lock the brakes while driving. As an aerospace/automotive quality engineer, I am appalled that there isn't a major recall on this vehicle for powertrain failures under 12,000 miles. https://www.carcomplaints.com/Kia/Sorento/2022/transmission/transmission_failed.shtml 12/27/22 – At around 12,000 miles the SUV wouldn't accelerate while driving 20mph to 40mph. Also, it wouldn't get out of 1st gear off the line. On its 3rd transmission in 2 months. 8/4/22 - Kia Sorento is 5 months old, with 2017 miles locally driven, and this is the third time the transmission has failed me while driving. 2/21/22 - Transmission failed at 1561 miles. It would accelerate to 3000rpm, do the 1-2 shift then bang back to 1st gear. https://www.kia-forums.com/threads/transmission-recall-updated-information.360349/ 4/2/23 - Waiting to hear whether I’ll need a new transmission on my SX Prestige 2022 Sorento. 8000 miles on the clock and it started struggling to change out of first. 5/4/22 - same with my 2021 Sorento 11,582 miles, been at the dealers since last Thursday night (4/28/22). This is what’s on my Kia app…Code P1C2D03. (1) Powertrain 5/8/22 - Same milage basically here at 10,400mi for my failure. Transmission was not rebuilt for me FYI. It was a brand new transmission from factory shipped in. 5/10/22 - Check engine code was P1C2D03. I have had the car 15months, and not even 25k yet. Mine is 2021 SX 2.5Turbo AWD https://sorentoforums.com/threads/2021-kia-sorento-transmission-light-wont-move.149/ 5/10/22 - Mine is the same code P1C2D03 and they tell me they've never seen this code before. I have 8500 miles on it.

I got a Kia Sorento 2022 in May of 2022. I was very happy with the car but I noticed an issue with brakes within a few weeks. The brakes would feel as if it grind on the road when pushed down on a sudden stop. A little over 5 months and I was due for an oil change, I was informed there was a recall on the transmission system and it just needed to be updated, I was shocked I was not informed, nor did I see a recall online. I figured I would mention the brake issue. Upon getting the car back I was told the brake issue was due to "debris or pebbles found." I was told to change the rotators/pads if it continued (the car was only 5 months old?) NOW the car drives strange. When shifting gears the car makes a loud clicking sound. When braking the car lunges forward and the car jerks. I do not feel safe in the car. It only has under 4000 miles. It is currently at the dealership for Transmission Diagnosis(NotShiftingProperly,Leaks,Other).

While driving at highway speed the vehicle lost power and all warning lights on the dash came on. Fortunately the traffic was light and I was able to get off the highway. It was early Sunday morning but if I had been in heavy traffic or construction it could have been much worse. The vehicle died and wouldn't start again. The vehicle repeated this 3 other times. It went to three separate dealerships for repair but none could find a problem. They saw all the codes for past problems but nothing was current so couldn't be diagnosed. Twice it wouldn't start in the morning. Once it died while idling. The dealership said the solution was to wait a few hours to see if it would reset. Kia was incapable of fixing the problem or even helping with my expenses. The car was only a few weeks old.