Federal complaint record · Kia Sorento · model year 2012

2012 Kia Sorento

Owners submitted 875 federal complaint reports about this model year, placing it at the 73th percentile for complaint intensity within its 2010 to 2014 midsize suv cohort. The largest reported component group is engine. Sample sizes and limitations are shown below.

Engine · 39% · group n = 475Electrical · 11% · group n = 127Brakes · 9% · group n = 104Other · 7% · group n = 86Airbags · 7% · group n = 79
875
Complaint records on file
90,000
Median mileage at the reported problem · 598 complaints reported mileage
39%
Of classified component reports name engine · group n = 475
73th
Complaint-intensity percentile in a cohort of 39 model years

Engine · 4 in ten classified complaints

Where this record concentrates

All failure files
Component group 01 · Engine39%

Engine reports

Kia Sorento · model year 2012

Reports in this group475
Share of classified reports39%
Component groups on file6
Open the failure files

Adjacent model years · same badge, different data

The complaint signal has a shape

Compare model years
2011
0.9complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
1,516 matched incidents
This car
2012
0.6complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
875 matched incidents
2013
0.8complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
977 matched incidents

The line compares submitted complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years, not failures per 1,000 cars. Vehicle-years use compiled US sales, a 0.25 prior-calendar-year plus 0.75 current-calendar-year model-year allocation, and the shipped survival curve. Rates appear only where estimated vehicles in operation are at least 5,000.

From the record · recurring narrative clusters

What recurring complaint clusters describe

How clusters are built
Stalling or shutdown · 161 reports

Reports describe the vehicle stalling or shutting off while driving

Cluster 1 of 32012 Kia Sorento
Fire or smoke · 143 reports

Reports describe smoke, burning smells, or fire

Cluster 2 of 32012 Kia Sorento
Brake performance · 100 reports

Reports describe braking performance concerns

Cluster 3 of 32012 Kia Sorento

Cluster summaries paraphrase recurring symptoms reported to NHTSA. They are aggregate descriptions, not individual verbatim reports.

Records through 2026-07-19Published 2026-08-02 · Updated 2026-07-19

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NHTSA consumer complaint records can reveal recurring patterns across published model years. MotorCensus summarizes those records as one complaint-signal index, with a 95% interval and sample size, updated with each data snapshot.

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