Hi Chris - maybe we can be of help.
Recall we have reported great details about the fiasco relating to our
2003 Sedona with the exploded battery 14 months ago (yes Kia has kept this going over a year - good news this week - see below).
One of the many safety issues documented in our case was what we called the motor plays 'I think I can, I think I can', sputtering and sometimes stalling. While we have signed, legal affidavits from many passengers in the car when it did occur, after over 100 days in Kia garages, they couldn't duplicate it once. So the Kia standard response is ' if we can't diagnose it, its not happening'. We were openly called liars by Kia. Sound similar?
We are in Toronto (no lemon laws in Canada) and were pushed into arbitration by Kia Canada when they were angered by us going direct to Kia Korea (quite helpful) - even though it was after allowing them 10 months and 100 days in their Kia garages to make the car safe.
The Arbitrator heard our case and ordered an independent inspection. And guess what? The Inspector duplicated your situation on the second day of testing!
Good News: the arbitrator has legally ordered Kia Canada to buy out the reminder of our lease!!! That means we have less than two weeks of Kia ownership and then all this will be a sad, so unnecessary memory of how to never treat a customer.
Hope that helps you too.
Here's what we learned: It is the company that matters, not the car! Buy a car from a company with a solid record of customer service satisfaction. Our experience shows Kia doesn't even rank on that list of serious players.
Their current claim is that they are the fastest growing car company - not something that to the customer. Reminds me of the joke about the country store with so many boxes of salt on the shelf. Customer says 'Wow, you must sell lots of salt!" Storekeeper shrugs and says: "No I don't sell much at all ... but the fellow who sells ME salt, boy, can he ever sell!" ;-)
... Paul