Faults:

Just brakes and tires.

General Comments:

I work at a chevy/kia dealership and when our chevy venture shuttle van died at 200,000 miles, I was surprised when they grabbed a new kia sedona van off our lot as its replacement. I thought to myself "this will be a true test of kia quality or lack there of." You see, a shuttle van is driven by the service department to take customers back and fourth all day, everyday from 7am to 5pm. That is why after 20 months in service our sedona has over 100,000 miles on it. These are not easy miles... these are city and highway miles and this van gets the crap driven out of it. I know when I drive it I never hesitate to hit a huge pot-hole or fly over railroad tracks or put the petal to the metal from stoplight to stoplight (when the van is empty of course!) Everyone else who drives it shows no mercy either. Other than brakes and tires this van has been a trooper and I believe it will make it to 200k with no problems. Kia DOES make a quality product!

Faults:

I got this car when it had almost 5000 miles on it and within 3000 miles it started vibrating when I would hit the brakes I had the rotors replaced at 9000 miles, again at around 18000 and had them turned down today at 26200. When I asked at the 2nd replacement what could be causing this I was told that it was my driving style. I have been driving for 24 yrs and have never had to replace rotors on any of the other 7 cars that I have driven. When I asked again today if there have been any problems with other Sedonas I was told no. Thanks to this site, I know that that is untrue.

Faults:

The main problem we had with our brand new Sedona Van was the driver side sliding door would not latch properly. This problem occurred within 2 days of purchase. Within 1 week of purchase the door would OPEN WHILE DRIVING!!! This would happen at various speeds and road conditons. The van was brought in for service to fix the problem 5 times in a 5 month period, with no resolution.

Faults:

The back seat belt is stuck.

There is a recall on this vehicle for a potentially deadly problem - a throttle that can stick in cold weather.

General Comments:

I'm not sure how real the "value" proposition actually is.

I recently got rid of my Sedona because I was tired of the lousy gas mileage it got. At best, I averaged about 22 on the highway. Around town, it was much, much worse than that.

Still, if I were going to stay with a minivan, I would have kept the Sedona. (I traded it in for a sedan).

In my view, it's a no frills car that gets the job done with an average level of comfort. There is also a lot of storage space. That's a good feature for a minivan.

Having said that, I will add this: the workmanship and materials used to build the Sedona aren't the best. The plastics on the inside scratch and break with distressing ease.

And then there are the dashboard lights. Some of them make no sense, and others are just downright annoying. Why, for instance, do you need, TWO lights to light up when you turn on the defroster? I mention that because I think that a bit more thought could have significantly ironed out the annoyances in this car.

And while my Sedona was always reliable - it started whenever I needed it to and got me where I needed to go with no breakdowns - I didn't own it for that long. I have some questions about how it would have held up over time.

One other thing about the Sedona: it doesn't have a lot of re-sale value.