KIA
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2016 Kia Sportage Paint Flaking and Rusting. Warranty Denied
Our 2016 Kia Sportage with 33,000 miles on the clock has severe issues with paint flaking from the bottom of both rear doors. The paint has been slowly eroded by small particles being thrown up from the front wheels towards the back of the rear doors which flare out towards the rear wheel arch. In fact, there is a protective clear sticker on all Sportages to help reduce this effect but on our car, the stickers have been affixed approximately 1cm too high on both sides which has stopped them from serving their purpose. We took the car to Ken Jervis to claim under Kia's supposedly industry-leading warranty but it was rejected by the service manager as his opinion was that we or a previous owner had knocked both of the doors on high kerbs. There is absolutely no evidence that the doors have been bashed and the car was immaculate when we purchased it from an authorised Kia dealer with only a few miles on the clock. Even to a layman, it is obvious that the damage has been caused by the sandblasting effect of fine particles eroding the paint surface where the stickers should have been protecting it but Ken Jervis flatly rejects this theory even though I have pointed out to them that every other Sportage on their forecourt have the stickers fitted in a lower position along the base of the doors. If the doors had been chipped by scraping them on kerbs then surely the paint would have been scraped at the far corners and the damage would not have been consistently in the same place on both sides. The paint is perfectly intact in the far corners and has only come away in the places where the stickers should be protecting it from erosion. I am the first to admit that we haven't had the required 24 monthly anti-corrosion checks carried out by a dealer but the underlying cause of the issue clearly lies with the fact that the stickers were put in the wrong place at manufacture and I would have expected Ken Jervis and Kia to acknowledge this fact and show some goodwill but sadly this has not been the case. We have simply been brushed aside with a shrug of the shoulders and a pathetic excuse. Quite frankly, their attitude towards us stinks! I am sure that most Kias are purchased on the promise of the extended warranty they offer but please be warned that in our case it's not been worth the paper it's written on. I am now taking this matter up with the motor ombudsman and will be looking at purchasing a new car through the Holdcroft group who have recently been very helpful in fixing an issue on my sons Corsa which was dealt with efficiently, free of charge and without question or quibble.