2018 Kia Sedona
This year drew an ordinary 48 complaints for a Kia Sedona — the model's median is 107. What they were about is the unusual part: 18.8% of them mention entire, against 6.7% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 48 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 107 |
| Involving a crash | 1 |
| Involving a fire | 4 |
| Recalls | 3 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 20 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- entire — 18.8% of this year's complaints, against 6.7% across the model's other years (2.8×). Owners wrote it as: entire, took vehicle, passenger airbag, pouring.
- potentially — 6.3% of this year's complaints, against 0% across the model's other years (31.3×).
- messages — 6.3% of this year's complaints, against 0% across the model's other years (31.3×).
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
10 mile drive to town. On return home, smoke began pouring from the engine compartment. Within 3-4 minutes flames came from grill area, and within 15 minutes entire car was engulfed in flames.
While driving under normal conditions and normal operation, the engine lost power, began using excessive fuel, the inside of the vehicle smelled like fuel and white smoke began pouring out of the exhaust.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 18V338000 STRUCTURE Fixed free of charge.
- 22V031000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 19V109000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Kia Sedona was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2018 Kia Sedona? What happened to yours?
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