general problems of the 2021 Kia Motor Sorento - part 2

The contact owns a 2021 kia Sorento. The contact stated while driving 80 mph, the vehicle suddenly lost motive power. The contact stated that she pulled to the side of the road. The contact stated that she restarted the vehicle, and was able to continue driving. The check engine warning light was illuminated. The contact stated that the failure recurred several times while driving. The contact stated that the last time the failure occurred, the vehicle restarted but failed to respond upon depressing the accelerator pedal. The vehicle was towed to the dealer, where it was being diagnosed. The vehicle was not repaired. The contact related the failure to NHTSA campaign number: 22v760000 (power train); however, the VIN was not included. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and informed the contact that they could only assist after the dealer diagnosed that the failure was related to the recall. The failure mileage was unknown.

Transmission shifting 3 levels with start of driving.

I was driving my car on Friday, September 29 at approximately 12:30 pm. As I was driving the vehicle ot started to feel as though it was jerking and stalling while driving in driving on a busy road. I reached a parking lot and pulled over and shut the car off when I restarted it a warning came up on my infotainment system that there was a promblem with the transmission and I needed to contact my dealer immediately. The check engine light also came on. I own a 2021 kia Sorento with 11,712 miles. I was afraid to drive vehicle after this incident as I feared for my safety.

The contact owns a 2021 kia Sorento. The contact stated that while his wife was driving at unknown speeds, the vehicle lost motive power and stalled. There were no warning lights illuminated. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic, who mentioned a recall on the transmission. The vehicle was towed to the local dealer, who informed the contact there was no recall coverage on the VIN. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was contacted, and the contact was informed there was no recall or warranty coverage on the VIN. The contact stated that the failure was related to NHTSA campaign number: 22v760000 (power train). The failure mileage was approximately 66,550.

My 2021 Sorento randomly gets stuck in between gears, slipping into neutral and rev'ing up to 4000-5000 rpms. This is at lower speed usually within a mile or so of leaving my house. It's very frightening and has happened to me dozens of times, but I live in a rural area over an hour from a kia dealership, and they do not offer loaners. This issue first arose for me after the transmission oil pump recall was already addressed. I am the 2d owner, and suspect this could be why the previous owners sold the car, which I bought through autotrader from the heiser dealership in wisconsin. After the latest episode, I finally arranged alternate transportation and took it in to the serra kia dealership in jackson, TN. They have had it over a week and not been able to replicate the issue so far. No computer codes show up on it either. They say there's no technical advisory on the issue, and have no idea what's going on with the transmission. Serra kia is saying that kia corporate will not approve replacing the transmission without an error code. From reviewing other owner reviews in kia forums, the kia 2021 Sorento slipping into neutral while driving appears to be an issue for others as well. It is dangerous, as I could be rear-ended. Quite honestly, it’s terrifying, and I am afraid to drive the car again without this issue being addressed.

See attached document for complaint.

The automatic start/stop function (isg) stopped functioning. The light turned from green to amber and flashes intermittently. When the light is flashing the vehicle has a loss of power. On 8/28/23 I was accelerating to get on the interstate. Suddenly the speedometer dropped from 40 mph to 24 mph. I had to quickly exit the on ramp as to avoid being hit from behind by a huge white pickup truck. I drove the side streets, staying under 40 mph, to the dealership. You cannot disable the isg at this time. There is no warning of when this may happen. I've had it in the dealership 3 times, 8/10/23, 8/24/23, and 8/28-9/16/23. The first two times they could not replicate the problem, so nothing was done. On the third visit a high pressure sensor was ordered and replaced. The isg is still malfunctioning. Now the isg kicks itself back on after it has been disabled. The light is still amber, not green, indicating there is still a problem. Loss of power has happened twice 6/25/23 and 8/28/23. I have service reports and videos of flashing lights. Unfortunately, I was not able to load at this time.

I had reported a momentary loss of power when driving the first time I took my vehicle for an oil change. Dealer said the car was just getting accustomed to my driving habits. I said I was in an intersection and the car lost power for a moment and I was almost rear-ended. It has happened many more times and it seemed as though it usually happened between 25-30 mph. Recently it has become more frequent. It’s happening at all speeds. Yesterday it seemed like it was choking like when you’re out of gas (it had 3/4 tank of gas). Today I was making a turn at a heavily traveled intersection, when rounding the corner vehicle lost power then banged into gear. I’ve never heard it bang like that before. Seems to be getting progressively worse and I’m now concerned for myself and others safety. I work 45 miles from home and depend on this vehicle. This is my 3rd Sorento and have always liked and recommended them. I’m making an appointment for a diagnostic service soon but can’t afford to be without my car. I saw there was a recall for “loss of power” but my VIN isn’t included. Please help.

The contact owns a 2021 kia Sorento. The contact stated while driving at an undisclosed speed, several unknown warning lights illuminated. The contact stated while the vehicle was parked, the vehicle failed to shift into the intended gear and stalled. The vehicle was taken to the dealer to be diagnosed. The contact was informed that the wiring harness for the remote starting system had malfunctioned and needed to be replaced. The wiring harness was replaced; however, the contact stated that after driving for an undisclosed period and parking the vehicle, the contact was unable to shift the gear shifter. The vehicle was taken back to the dealer but was not diagnosed. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and referred the contact to the state attorney general who then referred the contact to the NHTSA hotline. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 34,256.

The contact owns a 2021 kia Sorento. The contact stated while driving at various speeds the vehicle suddenly lost motive power and the vehicle decelerated and would not accelerate above 30 mph. During the failure, the idle stop light continued to flash off and on. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer who diagnosed that the transmission was faulty and needed to be replaced. The transmission was replaced but the failure reoccurred within a month of the repair being performed. The vehicle was taken back to the dealer who diagnosed that the transmission needed to be replaced a second time. The vehicle was not yet repaired. The manufacturer was not yet contacted. The failure mileage was 20,000.

Our issues include not shifting into second gear with no warning lights on the dash to indicate a faul. It goes completely in to neutral at all speeds without any warning. Never recovers until stopped and turned off. Again, nothing happens, no sounds , no lights, no flashes. Just no transmission at all. My wife was almost rear ended on when it stopped functioning in traffic. Someone is going to get killed.

Vehicle shut off on interstate while slowing for a wreck and almost caused our own acda crash. Entire gauge cluster flashed and started back up after stopping in the roadway for approximately 5 minutes without restarting. The vehicle was able to be driven home and was taken to a local kia dealership where after 3 days has not been able to replicate the issue.

The transmission has failed there has been a recall involving the transmission on this car. My car has been in the shop for a month because it needs a transmission replacement.

Vehicle transmission completely failed immediately after long (~4 hr, 224 mile) highway drive. During drive vehicle hesitated slightly when downshifting to accelerate. After arriving at destination, vehicle showed a check engine light and would not consistently accelerate. After sitting for ~36 hrs, vehicle would not shift into any gear (drive or reverse). Had to have vehicle towed. After unsuccessfully attempting to update and flush transmission, and consulting with kia engineers, future kia in fresno, CA informed me that the dual clutches in the transmission had “melted and fused. ” failure occurred the day after a transmission software update by the kia dealer in carson, CA.

10/25/2022 started the SUV at a wal-mart parking lot and as I drove out of the parking lot onto a street my SUV made a motorcycle sound then it started to loss power with my foot still on the gas pedal. SUV came to a complete stop and was towed home. 11/03/2022 picked up SUV from kia dealership. Drove 43 minutes home and parked inside garage. An hour later started the SUV to go pick up kids from school. The SUV wouldn't reverse out of the garage. I restarted the engine 4 times then it finally reverse out of the garage then when I put it on drive. There was no power to drive. I restarted the engine again 2 more times then it finally drive and I parked it back inside the garage. 11-04-2022 I attempted to drive SUV to kia dealership for help. I made it onto the freeway with a speed of 74 mph for about 8 minutes then my SUV started to loose power with my foot still on the gas pedal. I almost got rear ended by a big rig before I can even put my hazard light on and pulled safely to the side of the freeway. My SUV was towed into kia dealership that same day. 11-12-2022 picked up the SUV from kia, drove it 43 minutes then stopped at chevron to top off gas. When restarted the SUV my engine light came on the dash board. I drove it back to my house. I notified kia ASAP with a picture of my dash board and it's been in my garage since yesterday. Today is 11/13/2022. All incidents are not able to be duplicated by the dealership's mechanic everytime they had the SUV. No actions were taken. I showed them videos and picture of the proof that I do have but because it's not happening for them while they have my SUV. They can't fix my SUV problem. It's an accident waiting to happen and I already had a near miss on the freeway. An extremely concerned 2021 kia seronto owner.

Vehicle suddenly displayed the message "stop safely immediately" and then lost all traction to the wheels. This happened as I was entering a busy street and could have resulted in an accident. I had to coast to the side of the road where the car would not drive. I took the vehicle to my kia dealer and they performed a software update as part of a recall. The update or "fix" only prevents the immediate loss of traction and does not address the underlying cause. My car is now back at the dealer with a failing transmission.

As I was taking off from stop sign car dropped into lower gear jerking car and lowered speed. Did this twice almost causing an accident. Knowing something was very wrong we proceed to dealership. SUV stalled out 3 times on the way. Third time it stalled out was in front of service writer in front of dealership. This car has been very dangerous to drive from the delivery to now. It hesitates when you give it gas at stop and vibrates as you pic k up speed. This car is very dangerous to drive. Has been in shop for a week tring to figure out the problem. I have complained to service department about this ever since I have owned the car. Thanks for any help. I know I,m not the only one with this problem. Pat mcgrath.

On oct 5th, 2022, I was driving home from work on interstate 75, when I heard a chime from my dashboard. When I looked at the dashboard there was a message to “stop safely immediately,” and the check engine light came on. I happened to be at my exit and took the next exit off the highway. Whiling getting to the off ramp the vehicle randomly shut off. I stopped the SUV with the brake with no incident. Thankfully no one was behind me. However, the car wouldn't turn on. After several tries the car turned on again. I immediately drove it to kia which was about 2 miles away for immediate service. They did a multi-point inspection, checked fluids. The tech came back saying the vehicle need a software update. They did a software update and returned the SUV. I was told everything should be fine. Within a day of the update the check engine light came back on. This time when I accelerate the rpms are going up but the speed is not increasing. The Sorento hesitates to accelerate from a stop. The vehicle has issues shifting in the lower gears until it jolts forward. I returned the SUV to kia where now I am told it needs a new transmission. I was given no indication as to when this fix would happen. I ask for a rental car they have none. Tech at kia says its okay to keep driving this SUV. Did I miss something? as of oct 22, they want to recheck transmission fluid which they have already checked. I have been given the run around with no fix for the problem insight.

Kia has been chasing transmission problems on this vehicle for several months and now the transmission has completely failed.

Transmission quit engaging and had service light that said to stop vehicle immediately on September 24, 2022. The vehicle was then towed off to nearest dealer for inspection/diagnosis. Software update was applied on September 30. We picked car up on oct 01 and drove home with no issues. On oct 02, I started noticing car was not shifting properly from 2nd to 3rd gear. I had to delicately drive in a certain manner to get it to shift to next gear. Oct 03 engine light came back on, had vehicle towed back to dealer. Oct 04 received call from dealer and after diagnostic was completed, they said they had ordered a new transmission for us with an unknown eta. Safety of us and others was put at risk due to the transmission behaving erratically. No warning lamps, or messages had been received prior to transmission disengaging initially on Sep. 24. However, there were some symptoms prior to that incident, so I had a strong notion that it was only a matter of time until we were going to experience a transmission issue.

While driving car dropped to 20 miles pe hour pressed gas harder and rpm stayed at 2 and car failed to accelerate, loss of driving power. It intermittently will drop rpms and lose speed with no warning no light or indicators. This is the 2nd transmission the original failed on 09/11/21 with only 12,000 miles on the car and had to be replaced. This transmission only has 14, 00 miles on it and is a replacement from the valley kia dealer. This car is unsafe to drive you dont know if you press the gas pedal it will actually accelerate or stall.

The transmission failed; it is at the dealership awaiting a replacement transmission, and, if needed and if possible, I would authorize for it to be inspected. While in a parking garage, the instrument cluster displayed a "safely stop immediately" message and a check engine light, and the vehicle began to lose momentum and roll to a stop, regardless of accelerator input. The problem was was replicated and confirmed by a kia dealership. The vehicle has not been inspected beyond the service department at the dealership.

I have a 2021 sx with 6000 miles sitting at the dealership with a failing transmission. Yesterday September 2, 2022, my vehicle lost 100% of power and I was left at a traffic light with no power. The dashboard said, "stop safely immediately". The engine light came on and thank god I was not on the highway. Got towing service to kia dealer in houston. It is a very dangerous situation for any driver to lose all power suddenly. I went to the internet and this is a common problem with this model. It is related to the dct transmission.

On Aug. 24, 2022 I was out shopping at a few different places. My car at this point had never given me any issues, still practically brand new with barely a little over 10000 miles on it. I got in it and started it up. I go to put it into gear and it would not go. I tried again and again then noticed a check engine light on. I turned it off then started vehicle again. I tried putting in reverse, it would not move, drive, it would not move. I called dealership and they sent over service tech along with wrecker driver. The service tech duplicated the same issue I had. He drove me back to dealership to put me in a loaner. Next day he said the wrecker driver said it started and drove just fine however the check engine light was still on so service tech said they were going to look into it. Finally by sept. 1, 2022 I was told it was ready to be picked up. Was told that the engine computer needed a software update for transmission and it cleared out the light. I picked up vehicle on sept. 2 and along the way home all of a sudden my car went from 70 mph to a sudden halt! I managed to move off the freeway after almost being rear ended and stopped the car. Frantically I called dealership but they were already closed for the day. Once my fiancé showed up he was able to get it to go into drive but the max speed was around 15 mph which he drove to our house which was about another 7-8 miles as I followed in his vehicle. Had car towed to dealership next day on sept. 3. Finally on 16th of sept. I was told a new transmission was needed, which was going to be on back order. Now, as of Nov. 6, 2022 I am still waiting for my car to be fixed and returned to me. So in summary, my 2021 kia Sorento which is barely a yr old and a little over 10,000 miles is waiting to have the transmission replaced. I was told it would have to be a re-built one, not even a brand new one, go figure!.

Car fails to shift gears. Will not allow to switch to manual and get stuck in first gear. Car has less than 12,000 miles.

1) automatic braking: twice, car has auto braked in the middle of a 4-way intersection when a car was stopping at the light. Car has auto braked in the middle of the 3rd lane (fast lane) on the highway during rain. Car has auto braked multiple times when reversing out of a parking spot. In one of those incidents, I have to drive forward in order for the car to move; turning it off and on does not reset the vehicle. The auto-braking while driving especially on the highway causing rapid decceleration could result in another vehicle rear-ending me. 2) many transmission issues: jerky transmission, car moving backwards while in drive (usually uphill, doesn't have to be steep), car stalling in park or when going up steep hills, traction control kicking on and engine downshifting (even though the roads were dry).

On my way to the grocery store less than a mile from my home an alarm and dash alert popped up "safely stop immediately. " the vehicle was stuck in first gear and the rpms revved up. Almost immediately I lost power and it was stuck in neutral even though it was in drive. Then the engine shut down. When I restarted it I could not move. This is extremely dangerous and should never happen. The vehicle has 17,802 miles on it and now my wife and I are afraid to drive it. After sitting for about 20 minutes I was able to start it and return home. It has not moved since. We called the dealer and they were backed up for over a month on service. This is a new vehicle? upon investigating this issue I found just on one website over 43 reports of the same incident. One person said that a dealership has an entire row of these vehicles with the same problem and transmissions are on backorder. It's been 3 days and still waiting for a reply from my local dealer. This is not safe!.

Vehicle went into limp mode suddenly while driving on the road and would only go 10 mph. We were able to pull vehicle aside and within a minute the car would not move. Check engine light came on with a warning message to pull vehicle to the side of the road. We were able to drive the vehicle home 7 miles after waiting about 1 hour after the issue and the next day drove it to the dealership. Car has been at dealership since 8/8/22 and service advisor and kia engineer have yet to figure out what went wrong. We have no eta as of today when we will get car back. This issue is concerning as the vehicle came to a complete stop with traffic around us.

I have owned this vehicle for about 1 yr & 7 months now. It's been great but all of a sudden last Friday, the dashboard started producing an engine overheat warning with an alarm sound when I was driving under normal conditions. So then I pulled out of the highway and went to the nearest parking lot, and checked the engine. The coolant color was normal & max level. No sign of leaking. Then we resumed driving and nothing happened. Later on the way back home. . . The same thing happened. The alarm sounded for a while and the temperature indicator reached red at the max level then it went away. It was already too late for us to reach out to either dealership or kia, so I was going to get in touch later. The next day afternoon, I got a diagnostic appointment for the coming Wednesday with the nearest kia dealership and went out to take care of a few other stuff. The alarm sound with the temperature gauge reaching the red max level happened again after merging into the highway, and it went off after a while. This occurrence has happened 3 times already and I'm a bit worried that it may happen again and something else may happen even though the engine and other fluid levels were fine based on the visual inspection. Not sure if this is fixable. . .

Vehicle randomly losses power when trying to accelerate from a stop. This creates a risk of being rear ended or struck while attempting to merge into traffic. Power loss is 100%. May last from a couple seconds to several minutes. No warning lights come on. The vehicle is currently at the dealership awaiting diagnosis which I was told could take several weeks due to a “backlog of vehicles awaiting repair and a shortage of repair technicians”. Dealer refused to offer a loaner car and kia will not provide a loaner or rental vehicle until the car is diagnosed by the dealer.

My 2021 kia Sorento with 15,500 miles suddenly displayed a “stop safely immediately” warning with no other lights or indicators as to an issue. My husband and I were trying to find a safe place to stop when the vehicle suddenly stopped accelerating and would not shift out of first gear and the rpms increased to over 5000. We then lost all drivability in the middle of the road and couldn’t move at all. The dealership said a sensor was dirty and “cleaned it” and sent us on our way. Less than a week later, with my four year old daughter in the car with me, the same thing happened again but the “stop safely immediately” warning displayed briefly, disappeared, and then the car again lost all drivability in the middle of a busy highway.

Vehicle randomly looses power to the wheels while driving vehicle. This has occurred while in drive and reverse. Engine check light is lit (not blinking) and message appears on instrument panel of "stop safely immediately" at time of occurrence. This first started on 7/4/2022. This occurred while in heavy traffic which put myself in a dangerous position as it did for other drivers around me. Vehicle is at the dealer service department for the third time. They are having difficulty recreating the issue. On first visit technician found history code p1c2d03 described as "incorrect gear ratio". Transmission software was updated, I picked up car on 7/7/2022 and did not make the 4 mile trip home before it occurred again. The last occurrence was on 7/27/2022. Problem occurred while backing out of driveway.

Wet clutch went out causing the car to stall and stutter, that has been replaced and now it is struggling to shift into 2nd gear. Jerry shifting and high rpms.

Transmission started slipping after 25,000 miles, very scary in traffic. Got home and transmission completely failed.

Vehicle stuck in high rpm until I parked and restarted vehicle. Additionally continues to rock back and forth while parked and jumps forward significantly upon braking and acceleration.