10.0
really awful- Crashes / Fires:
- 1 / 0
- Injuries / Deaths:
- 1 / 0
- Average Mileage:
- 16,640 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
The NHTSA is the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints can be spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem. See the Back button — blue bar at the very top of the page — to explore more.
Upon acceleration from stop or low speed, brake warning message displayed instructing me to safely pull over and stop the vehicle. Additionally, essentially all warning lights displayed on the information screen. Warning lights began flashing and door locks began clicking on/off. Car became disabled after a short distance and car would not move forward when in drive. Required tow to dealer for service. Dealer scanned the vehicle and found over 20 history codes pointing towards a can issue. After vehicle was serviced and road tested, history codes were cleared by dealer on 5/24/2014. Same problem repeated under similar conditions on 5/28/2014 and again on 6/4/204. During the third incident, the car became disabled immediately after entering an intersection at low speed and could not be moved out of the intersection under its own power, creating a safety hazard with cross traffic waiting to enter the intersection. After the second occurrence, dealer service department was unable to diagnose the problem or repeat the conditions. After the third occurrence, the car became operable a short time after the incident after turning the car off and on again a few times. After each occurrence, the passenger air bag warning light remained in the history code. Currently awaiting response and diagnosis of problem by Kia district parts service manager.
- Oceanside, CA, USA
To whom it concerns, I have a great safety concern related to the optima 2013 hybrid braking system. I am not sure if the behavior I am going to describe is typical or defective. When traveling at speed, with the cruise set, I find that any sudden and hard hit to the brakes will activate some type of automatic braking system. The braking system feels like ABS and sounds very mechanical however the braking system does not deactivate after I remove my foot from the brake. The system continues to automatically reduces the car to a nearly complete stop (less than 15mph) without me having my foot on the brake. This has occurred multiple times, the most recent was 4/10/14. Earlier today I was traveling 50 mph on the highway, with the cruise set, when it appeared a person was going to walk into the highway. I hit the brakes hard to avoid the pedestrian, who eventually did not enter the road. The situation was not worthy of coming to a complete stop however the automatic braking system I described above activated. I removed my foot from the brake but the braking system continued to bring the car to a speed less than 15 mph. The vehicles behind me, understandably, had to slam on their brakes to avoid me as I could not speed back up until the system resumed to normal operation. Please let me know if this is typical operation or a potential defect. I feel this could be life threatening. Should I have to hit my brakes and this system activates, I could be severely rear-ended. Thank you.
- Silver Spring , MD, USA
- La Mesa, CA, USA