Niro EV Service

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hererb23

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I don’t know if anybody else has come across this situation, but I found out about this the other day and I was completely astounded.


I took my Sportage in for regular routine maintenance. As I was checking out, I was talking to the Service Rep. and I innocently asked what do they do for regular maintenance on a Niro EV. The guy looked at me and said they don’t service EVs at this dealership. Immediately I countered with the fact that I bought it from this dealership (they had to drive it down from Maryland, since N. Carolina doesn’t sell them). After a few minutes the Service Rep. came back to me and verified the dealership cannot work on EVs because they are not authorized by Kia. When I was buying this vehicle, the Sales Rep. told me they had a technician who was fully trained to work on EVs.


After a couple of days to “cool off”, I called Kia. They confirmed what the Service Rep. told me. Now, this dealership was quick to take my money, but I wasn’t told the whole story. Whatever it takes, get that sale! Kia said all the dealership needs to do is request to be authorized (I’ll bet there’s more to it than that). I’m going to try to talk to whoever is in charge and request they get authorized. My feeling is when they sold this car to me, they became an EV dealer. The dealership in MD, where my dealer got the the vehicle from sold the car to my dealer and my dealer sold it to me.


Oh. The nearest dealer is 257 miles from me in Georgia. It’ll be a long ride just to get routine maintenance.


Has anybody else come across this?
 
Sorry to hear this happened to you. I live in Virginia, and am awaiting the arrival of the new Soul EV. I cannot buy it here, but I checked with the local dealer. They said that Kia had determined that I am in a "green zone", and so the local dealer was required to have their tech's trained to service EVs. Therefore, I was told that will not be an issue for me. Of course, I am counting on the fact that the car will need almost no service.;)
 
We are in a non-ZEV state/Kia Niro EV no sale state (Ohio). When we attempted a dealer to dealer transfer (what it sounds like you did), we were shut down by the regional sales rep. We were also blocked from ordering through the local dealership. We purchased in Maryland and drove it home ourselves.

Our local dealership has already seen our Niro EV for service and didn't have any troubles with it. The local dealership I use carries the PHEV version and the techs attended a training program for working on Hybrids/PHEVs/EVs and they have equipment for them. We are nearing our 7500 mile check up and they have said they can complete that.
 
davidtm said:
Sorry to hear this happened to you. I live in Virginia, and am awaiting the arrival of the new Soul EV. I cannot buy it here, but I checked with the local dealer. They said that Kia had determined that I am in a "green zone", and so the local dealer was required to have their tech's trained to service EVs. Therefore, I was told that will not be an issue for me. Of course, I am counting on the fact that the car will need almost no service.;)
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Thanks for sharing your experience. Too bad we don't have a "green zone" here in Greensboro, NC. At least I'll get the $7,500 tax break, but I'm not done with this.
 
TandM said:
We are in a non-ZEV state/Kia Niro EV no sale state (Ohio). When we attempted a dealer to dealer transfer (what it sounds like you did), we were shut down by the regional sales rep. We were also blocked from ordering through the local dealership. We purchased in Maryland and drove it home ourselves.

Our local dealership has already seen our Niro EV for service and didn't have any troubles with it. The local dealership I use carries the PHEV version and the techs attended a training program for working on Hybrids/PHEVs/EVs and they have equipment for them. We are nearing our 7500 mile check up and they have said they can complete that.
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Yes. This does sound similar to your experience. After I signed the purchase agreement, the Sales Manager told me they may not be allowed to sell it to me. I got indignant and they agreed to go to MD to get it for me. That's interesting that your local dealer has no issues with working on yours. For the life of me, I don't understand how they get a person trained, but he's not allowed to work on it. At least your dealer seems willing to work with you. I do know there is someone in Greensboro who does work on EVs, so I may be OK. However, this point needs to be addressed. I'll let you know what happens.
 
hererb23 said:
Yes. This does sound similar to your experience. After I signed the purchase agreement, the Sales Manager told me they may not be allowed to sell it to me. I got indignant and they agreed to go to MD to get it for me. That's interesting that your local dealer has no issues with working on yours. For the life of me, I don't understand how they get a person trained, but he's not allowed to work on it. At least your dealer seems willing to work with you. I do know there is someone in Greensboro who does work on EVs, so I may be OK. However, this point needs to be addressed. I'll let you know what happens.
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What was the outcome of this? We bought my wife's Niro EV back in June. The dealer we went to has PHEVs, told us the same thing about getting serviced there for the BEV when they don't normally get any BEVs at all. They didn't even have a charger there because we purchased the vehicle with 80 miles of range left.
 
who.EV said:
What was the outcome of this? We bought my wife's Niro EV back in June. The dealer we went to has PHEVs, told us the same thing about getting serviced there for the BEV when they don't normally get any BEVs at all. They didn't even have a charger there because we purchased the vehicle with 80 miles of range left.
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We are quickly approaching our second service at 15,000. We were able to complete the 7500 at our local dealership (in Ohio which is a non-sale state). We also had a TSB on our model and they were able to order the part and complete that service with no issue.

Where are you located? Maybe someone can recommend a dealership in the area that is more EV friendly.
 
TandM said:
We are quickly approaching our second service at 15,000. We were able to complete the 7500 at our local dealership (in Ohio which is a non-sale state). We also had a TSB on our model and they were able to order the part and complete that service with no issue.

Where are you located? Maybe someone can recommend a dealership in the area that is more EV friendly.
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Thanks for the update. We're actually at 8300k, so it's overdue for service. We haven't been back to the dealer yet, so I guess we'll find out when we return.
 
So had my first issue with my Niro EV that I got back in June of 2019, only have about 4,900 miles on it. I live in Louisiana and traveled to Texas to by my Niro EV.

My driver electric seat is in the fully forward position and will not go back and I am 6'-3". So I take the car to my local KIA dealer to see what they can do about the seat. It is a seat how much difference can there be between ICE and EV car seats. When I drop it off they say sure, sure we can take care of this for you. Go to pick it up at the end of the day and they now say nope we can't do any work on it because we are not authorized. But some how they were about to do the technical bulletin for the water pump, not sure how that works.

So get home call the corporate phone number as suggested by the dealer. I talk with some one from corporate and they say they will look into it and it should take 2-3 days. After 3 days with nothing, I give them a call. Turns out that KIA will not pay for any warranty work unless it is an EV authorized dealer. I ask what is so different about this seat that requires special training to work on and was told that is policy. So now they want me to take my car to Texas(which I would have to quarantine myself for 14 day) for that dealer to try and "figure out what is wrong with my car". I am waiting to see if they will transport my car to the dealer or if they are going to try and make me take it myself.

I have loved my car (3rd KIA) but I am not sure I want to deal with them anymore. I could understand if it was drive train or electronics but it is a seat. So has anyone else had this issue or know someone in corporate that can help this have a better ending than where it is going? The only saving grace is that I am working from home and can use the wife's car when she is not at work.
 
What was your long term service strategy for this car, knowing that it was not officially sold in your state? Even if they made an exception for this seat issue, what about a more serious problem like gearbox or motor repairs? Buying out-of-state is fine if you're just looking to save money vs. local dealers but it's a bad idea if the car is not sold in your state at all. The idea that EVs will never need service is a myth perpetuated by clueless youtubers and media.
 
In truth I had hopped that the car would be as good as my first 2 KIAs. They did not need warranty work until year 3 and 4 and by that time KIA should have expanded its EV repair foot print. There are several local EV repair centers that can do the regular maintenance, that I would have to pay for anyhow. If it was something major that only EV KIA could fix i was per-paired to be without my car. But i can not for the life of me figure out why my local KIA dealer can fix a seat!
 
FergyEV said:
So had my first issue with my Niro EV that I got back in June of 2019, only have about 4,900 miles on it. I live in Louisiana and traveled to Texas to by my Niro EV.

My driver electric seat is in the fully forward position and will not go back and I am 6'-3". So I take the car to my local KIA dealer to see what they can do about the seat. It is a seat how much difference can there be between ICE and EV car seats. When I drop it off they say sure, sure we can take care of this for you. Go to pick it up at the end of the day and they now say nope we can't do any work on it because we are not authorized. But some how they were about to do the technical bulletin for the water pump, not sure how that works.

So get home call the corporate phone number as suggested by the dealer. I talk with some one from corporate and they say they will look into it and it should take 2-3 days. After 3 days with nothing, I give them a call. Turns out that KIA will not pay for any warranty work unless it is an EV authorized dealer. I ask what is so different about this seat that requires special training to work on and was told that is policy. So now they want me to take my car to Texas(which I would have to quarantine myself for 14 day) for that dealer to try and "figure out what is wrong with my car". I am waiting to see if they will transport my car to the dealer or if they are going to try and make me take it myself.

I have loved my car (3rd KIA) but I am not sure I want to deal with them anymore. I could understand if it was drive train or electronics but it is a seat. So has anyone else had this issue or know someone in corporate that can help this have a better ending than where it is going? The only saving grace is that I am working from home and can use the wife's car when she is not at work.
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This seems really odd to me. I have had warranty work on my Niro EV completed at my local dealership, had the TSB completed at my local dealership, and had extended coverage completed work (i.e. windshield replacement) at my local dealership. I am 400+ miles away from the original dealership (multiple states away) and solidly in the center of a non-sale state. They took care of every single thing with absolutely no issue at all.
 
So just got of the phone with Kia corporate for the second time. Kia has decided that not mater what is wrong only Kia EV certified dealers can make warranty repairs. So TandM your dealer must be EV certified or it has something to do with the extended warranty you purchased. So I have learned the hard way to never buy an EV from Kia and at this point I will not be buying any car from Kia. If you are on a road trip and need warranty work on your car, good luck with that.
 
FergyEV said:
So just got of the phone with Kia corporate for the second time. Kia has decided that not mater what is wrong only Kia EV certified dealers can make warranty repairs. So TandM your dealer must be EV certified or it has something to do with the extended warranty you purchased.
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It is funny - I have a Hyundai, and am in the middle of a state where they don't sell the EV. I went to a llocal dealer, and they said they can't work on the power train, but anything else would be fine.

There is some special training involved for the techs, and I believe they may need some specialized equipment as well.
 
Well the local Hyundai dealer is EV approved but the Kona was just a bit too small for me. So now I am stuck waiting to see if Kia want to keep being silly about fixing my car seat.
 
FergyEV said:
Well the local Hyundai dealer is EV approved but the Kona was just a bit too small for me. So now I am stuck waiting to see if Kia want to keep being silly about fixing my car seat.
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One would expect better service than what you have reported. Kona is defiantly smaller but I have made it work for me despite some issues.
Maybe Kia will pull through for you for such an east fix ; it is possible given the current circumstances that some delays are unavoidable, patience may provide a remedy.
 
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I had a Kia soul before this Niro EV and was not willing to give up the rear leg room. I did visit the Hyundai and see if they could get me a Kona but they were not able to get one for less than 3k over list and the Kona states are a bit further away from me. After the service that I has received on my 2 other Kias, I did not think anything like this would happen. What make me question it all is they keep saying they want 25% of their fleet to be electric by 2025 but if they will only sell or service them in a few states it seem like that is just PR and nothing more.
 
USA is not their primary market and won't be unless emissions regulations and subsidies change drastically like you see in Europe and elsewhere.
 
So after dropping off my car on Friday it was just picked up today (six days later) to be taken to Texas to have the seat fixed.
 
I asked at a few KIA dealers in my area before deciding to buy and have the car shipped to me from out of state. I found one near by that did have two qualified technicians, and spoke to one of them before deciding to buy. None of the Hyundai dealers were certified when considering, so that was a deciding factor in the purchase of the Nero over a Kona. The technician let me know that only certified techs can work on anything for the car, even if it's just something in common with the hybrid version. I'm guessing they probably don't want anyone without proper training near it due to liability and risk of electrical shock.
 
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