Kia Update

The car is not fixed, unfortunately, but last week after driving with no sound in the car and running my phone to record video, I did manage to capture the sound. I sent that to my Kia repair rep, and a few days later after some prodding, he told me he’d talked to Kia (presumably corporate?) and they said I could drop the car off again (not surprising as it’s still under warranty and not fixed). I asked how long it might take and he responded “No idea how long it will be here for. From what they told me the KIA Field Tech is going to need the vehicle and deal directly with KIA Engineers”

Engineers! That sounds….fancy?

It’s April 3. I while back I signed paperwork to move forward with getting my reimbursement for rental fees (upwards of $3100). The paperwork read Please allow approximately 45 days for completion of this process. Perhaps they’re being vague intentionally, but I feel like the process is me getting reimbursed. It has been 49 business days since I signed that paper and turned it in. 79 days if you’re counting regular days.

Still not reimbersed.

After about four months of waiting and a lot of attempts to talk to a human about it, I got an email from Kia about my Buyback Review request. This was basically me saying, look, I’ve had this car eight months and it’s been in the shop three times and it still isn’t fixed. Will you please take it back? Kia emailed me “After reviewing your case, Kia America is not in the position to offer a buyback on your vehicle is outside the presumption period to be considered a lemon in the state of Massachusetts. Due to this fact, the manufacturer is not obliged to repurchase your vehicle. At this time Kia is declining to offer a buyback on this case.”

To start with, that first sentence literally doesn’t make sense.

I proceeded to report them to the Better Business Bureau, the MA Attorney General, emailed the lemon lawyer I’d spoken to a while back, and I contacted three different news outlets. I also went online and left crap reviews for the dealership that sold me the car. Comically, the responded to my review telling me that they were sure something could have been arranged had I gotten in touch.

Yeah, Cydney, why didn’t you? They’re the ones who sold you the car!

Well, one day after I bought the car, I questioned the miles per gallon the car’s dashboard was reporting the car was averaging. I contacted the sales rep at the dealership and he responded with “The miles per gallon is Kia’s claim, not ours. And anyway you still have a Kia warranty on it”

Translation; Not our problem. Take it to Kia.

So when the other issue came up days later, I just took it straight to Kia. I truly thought Kia would be able to fix it (and hopefully they still can!). In order to return the car to the used dealership for lemon law, I would have had to have three failed repair attempts within the 90 day warranty period. After the first repair attempt which took the car out fo commission for two weeks, I had to wait another month to bring it to another Kia, because that was the earliest they could fit me in. There’s just no way three repair attempts would have happened in that window.

Furthermore, had I repaired it once and gone back to them and said “This car’s wonky I want a refund” I PROMISE you they would have found some way to deny refunding me.

And another furthermore, I know that dealership would have sold it to the next innocent person and I’m not OK with that.

Last week, after I was denied anything for my Buyback request from Kia, I returned to the lemon lawyer to discuss my situation. She called me back, unfortunately, on my birthday, and informed me I have no case and they cannot file anything against Kia.

Why? Because I signed a release.

Allow me to explain. Back in January, after I filed paperwork to get reimbursed, my escalated case manager sent me a form to sign to get my reimbursement. I was very concerned about the phrasing in the form, and contacted her immediately, “It says here that if I agree to accept this amount (which I am owed BTW), Kia will consider the case closed. It sounds like I get nothing if I sign this”

My ECM assured me “It is to reimburse you for the rental fees and it doesn’t affect your buyback review request.” I now realize that sure, it doesn’t effect the request for a buyback. The Buyback request did go through, and she didn’t actually say to me that my case won’t be closed if I signed it. She implied by telling me what the reimbursement was for, but she didn’t say “and yes, you have no recourse after you sign it” It was very calculated wording on her part, I now see.

So now I get nothing. Nada.

Hearing I had no case at all was really hard news to get on my birthday, which was yesterday. It felt like I’m out of options completely. My only option now is that the Kia gets fixed for real and I can trade it in knowing I’m not dumping this problem on anyone else.

Meanwhile, a reporter with The Boston Globe actually did respond to my email about the situation and has been digging in bigtime to the details of all that’s happened. We’ve spoken on the phone quite a few times at length. He also called right after the lemon lawyer dropped her doom bomb on me. He read me the article as it is at this point. I had thought it would be about my situation, the lengths I’ve gone to. My efforts to dot the Is and cross the Ts, but in the end, as he read the article, what I heard was “Cydney Scott bought a used car. And when it had issues, she took it to Kia to get it fixed because it’s still under Kia warranty. It turns out she shouldn’t have done that. What she should have done is…”

I feel as though I’m being used to set an example. That this is no longer make an opportunity for Kia to feel compelled to help me. That said, journalism isn’t always about one person, and the story shifting into a public service announcement for others, is, well, journalism! I would have benefitted from reading an article like this, and I have to be OK with that being the end game here. That it will help someone else.

But last night it was a lot of bummer at once. I wondered how I could go do my birthday dinner with my family with this news hanging over me, but it wasn’t long before we sat at a table and got some drinks, I ordered some fried pickles and we got to talking on all types of subjects. I felt much better.

The evening continued with more talking, dogs, and ice cream cake, and my spirit was lifted.