Kia Problems

It sounds like there’s either a problem with the throttle pedal, the throttle mechanism itself or, most likely, a glitch in the communication between the two. Instead of a throttle cable directly linking the pedal to the throttle, modern cars use what’s called fly-by-wire. In this case, that means a throttle pedal where input is converted to an electrical signal, which is then transferred by the computer to the throttle telling it to open. If there’s any wiring or software problem within this system, you could easily experience this sort of problem.

You’re quite right, too, that this represents a very dangerous situation. Many crashes have been caused by a following driver assuming the car in front was about to take off. And when, for whatever reason, it doesn’t…

If the computer won’t tell you what’s happening, an auto electrician should be able to take readings from the throttle pedal and the motor that actuates the throttle itself. From there, they should be able to discern which component is not playing the game properly.

It all depends on how you define long and bulky. But no seven-seater is going to be exactly small, is it? That’s because, to accommodate the third row of seats necessary to seat seven a vehicle physically has to be a certain length and there’s just no getting around that.

But I take your point; a lot of the seven-seat SUVs out there do seem pretty big. Again, however, that’s not a bad thing if you plan to fill all three rows of seats and still have some room left for luggage. The smaller seven-seaters aren’t all that good at this as the third row gobbles up the luggage space, making these cars best for those who only need seven seats on an occasional basis. If that’s your situation there are lots of mid-sized seven seaters around, but they’re pretty much all SUVs.

And while it goes against your preference for a smaller vehicle, the very best seven-seaters aren’t SUVs. They’re usually people-mover vans such as the Ford Tourneo, Kia Carnival and VW ID. Buzz. In fact, some of these even seat eight. They’re also a lot better for accessing the rearmost row of seats and they’ll still have lots of luggage space even with all seats occupied. And, yes, they look big, but that’s physics for you.

In the meantime, you could look at slightly less bulky options including the Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorento, Mazda CX-80 and Toyota Kluger. There’s also been speculation recently that Subaru’s seven-seat Tribeca might make a return to the Australian market.

In the good old days, cars had a wire (cable) linking the accelerator to the engine. When you stood on the throttle pedal, the cable tightened and pulled open the engine’s throttle. It was too simple to last, of course.

Now, in the interests of emissions and fuel economy, most cars use what’s called throttle-by-wire technology. In this case, the throttle pedal sends an electronic signal to the car’s computer, and the computer then sends a message to the throttle to physically open. If any tiny thing goes wrong with the sensors, wiring or computers that operate this system, you wind up with the very problem you’re seeing.

The good news is that this should be covered by your new car warranty and, therefore, is Kia’s problem to fix.

According to Kia, this message is most commonly displayed if any of the following conditions are present:

• The EV battery’s charge is too low
• The temperature of the EV battery is too high or too low
• The temperature of the electric motor is too high.

The smart money suggests you should report this to the dealership either now or at your next service. That way, the Kia technicians can figure out what happened and how to prevent it happening again.

Along with the warning on the dashboard, the car will also limit its performance to protect major systems. That’s why it refused to accelerate and would not go beyond a certain speed.

It’s true that the Nissan Qashqai has had a couple of safety recalls, but they didn’t affect 2025 models, so you should be okay there. But it’s worth mentioning that the Kia Seltos from the same era has also had its share of recalls and problems, including an engine glitch that saw a lot of examples needing new engines (which Kia did its best to put right). Again, though, by the time 2025 had rolled around, the problems were largely a thing of the past. Or should be.

Some Nissan owners have complained about failures of the brand’s CVT transmissions. But the reality is that these are both very new vehicles and, provided they’ve been serviced properly to this point, will also have a lot of factory warranty remaining.

Which means it really comes down to which of the two offers the space and features you need and which one you prefer to drive (which means checking things like the rear vision and anything else that is likely to annoy you). Take both for a decent test run, check the service record and go from there.

It’s possible that the same problem is causing both the check engine and oil light to light up. That’s because a low oil pressure or oil level light will sometimes trigger both the oil and check-engine lights. I assume the basics such as oil level (on the dipstick) have been checked.

Continuing to drive a car with a flashing oil light on the dashboard is asking for trouble, to be honest. This needs to be investigated and you might want to look for another dealership who can better manage this stuff.

Either way, it’s a dealership problem because this sort of thing should be covered by the factory warranty if there really is a problem. But even if it’s just a computer glitch that’s lighting the warning lights up now and then, you need to know what that is and put it right.

Plenty of makes and models have glitches with their touch-screens and other on-board functions. And it would seem Kias of this vintage are no different. Problems include the touch function becoming unresponsive and the entertainment unit even deciding for itself when to turn on the music or make a phone call!

Ultimately, you may need to replace the entire head unit, but at that point, you could go with something aftermarket that offers more features and better sound.

But before you do that, try this: Next to the volume or tuning knob on the central display unit, there should be a small, round indentation. By pressing this with something small but pointy (like a ball-point pen tip or small knitting needle) you’re effectively resetting or rebooting the unit. The screen will momentarily go blank, but when it returns, you might find everything working again. But while this may restore things back to normal, the symptoms may pop up again over time as this is known as a soft reset, not a hard reset.

It would also be worth checking with your Kia dealer to see if the factory has issued any software upgrades for your car that might make things work more reliably.

It doesn’t sound right, does it. And why would Kia even include a low-beam light indicator if it wasn’t to show that the low-beam lights were, in fact, on?

You should be able to figure it out by looking at the owner’s manual for your car. I managed to find such a thing online for your model Sportage, and it shows only a high-beam indicator light and a lights-on warning which covers both parking lights and low-beam. That suggests that your dealer is correct.

The other question, however, is what you’re looking at that makes you think it’s a low-beam warning light. The answer could be that there are two high-beam indicator lights, one for the manual high-beam operation and another for the automatic high-beam if your vehicle has that fitted. Perhaps it’s the fog-light indicator you’re seeing. Again, your owner’s manual should spell it out for you.

Both the Toyota and Kia have good reputations for quality and durability, while the Chery is more of an unknown quantity in Australia. The important thing to remember is that the cars you’ve short-listed are all near-new vehicles, so they’ll have plenty of factory warranty left to run.

The best way to avoid clear coat peeling is to buy a car in a solid, rather than metallic, colour, which doesn’t generally have the same peeling problems. That said, modern paint technology is much better than ever before, so this is less of a problem than it once was. Protecting a car’s interior means parking it out of the sun in the hotter months. Although, again, the durability of interior plastics has come a long, long way in recent years.

If you’re going to keep the car for a few years and then trade it in on a new car, retained value is more important than any of your other concerns. And in that sense, the Toyota traditionally moves to the front of the pack.