My Kia Optima broke down while I was driving home from a - orangeturtle622
My Kia Optima broke down while I was driving home from a trip to New York. It broke down in the Richmond area. I live 4 hours south of Richmond. I had it towed to a local family owned mechanic that I found on Google. They told me it was engine failure and that it needed to go to a Kia dealership. West Broad Kia was the closest one. This happened on July 15th. West Broad Kia said my car couldn't be towed to their dealership until August 5th because that was the earliest appointment available and they wouldn't accept my car until then. Thank goodness the family mechanic shop didn't charge me for storing my car until it could be towed. When my car finally got towed to the Kia place, it took a WEEK for me to speak to anybody to even acknowledge that my car arrived at the dealership. I called repeatedly and left message after message for a WEEK and not a single person called me back. I had to call the sales department and ask them to talk to the service department to call me. I just wanted to know that they even had my car. I finally got a call back and was told they would call me after they have time to diagnose my car.
When they called me back they confirmed that it needed a new engine and that it was under warranty but because there were 25 people ahead of me in line who also needed new engines, it would be early October before it was ready! They offered me a rental but said they could only offer me a rental for ONE week and I would have to drive the 4 hours up to them to pick up the rental from THEIR rental place. Where's the logic in that?!
When it got close to October, I called and checked to see if it was close to being ready because I live so far away, I would need to take time off work to come and get it. Every week since the first week of October, I texted the service department and every week I got the same answer...they are running a little behind, it should be ready next week. That was all the information I ever got. Fast forward to last week, the middle of NOVEMBER and I finally decided to call the service manager instead of the tech I had been interacting with, who told me that they were dealing with having to install rusty engines into cars because they were coming in rusted from their supplier. I don't know if a rusty one was put in my car but I know some poor car owners ahead of me in line got rusty ones. This past Monday I got the call that they were finally starting to work on my car. Found out that the serpentine belt was cracked and needed to be replaced. I can't be sure but I'm thinking the defective engine probably cracked it in the first place, but whatever. I picked up my car today and let me say how absolutely disappointed I was with their in-person customer service. Keep in mind, they have had my car for almost 4 months with very little information along the way and the tech who gave me the paperwork today to sign, spent only about 5 minutes with me. He offered no information other than answers to the questions that I specifically had to ask. When I got in the car, there were brown smudges all over the dashboard that they couldn't be bothered to wipe off. They left the dirty, crumpled paper floor mat in there AND when I turned the car on, the tire pressure warning alert came on showing me that three of my tires were low on air. They didn't even put air in my tires! The paperwork I got says they did one of those multi-point inspections and yet they didn't put air in my tires?! They must have only inspected the parts that cost money because they told me I also needed a cabin air filter for $79! I plan on taking it to my family mechanic who doesn't charge nearly as much.
My car made it the 4-hour drive back home just fine today, but my overall experience with the service department was absolutely terrible! I have already told everyone I can not to buy a Kia because this whole engine debacle, in addition to all the recalls before the engine failed, was insane and not worth it at all.
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