Federal complaint record · Kia Sportage · model year 2008

2008 Kia Sportage

Owners submitted 98 federal complaint reports about this model year, placing it at the 30th percentile for complaint intensity within its 2006 to 2010 compact suv cohort. The largest reported component group is electrical. Sample sizes and limitations are shown below.

Electrical · 20% · group n = 27Brakes · 17% · group n = 23Engine · 16% · group n = 22Structure · 9% · group n = 13Powertrain · 9% · group n = 12
98
Complaint records on file
80,500
Median mileage at the reported problem · 64 complaints reported mileage
20%
Of classified component reports name electrical · group n = 27
30th
Complaint-intensity percentile in a cohort of 38 model years

Electrical · 2 in ten classified complaints

Where this record concentrates

All failure files
Component group 01 · Electrical20%

Electrical reports

Kia Sportage · model year 2008

Reports in this group27
Share of classified reports20%
Component groups on file6
Open the failure files

Adjacent model years · same badge, different data

The complaint signal has a shape

Compare model years
2007
0.1complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
77 matched incidents
This car
2008
0.2complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
98 matched incidents
2009
0.1complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
80 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
Fire or smoke · 28 reports

Reports describe smoke, burning smells, or fire

Cluster 1 of 32008 Kia Sportage
Brake performance · 22 reports

Reports describe braking performance concerns

Cluster 2 of 32008 Kia Sportage
Transmission behavior · 7 reports

Reports describe harsh shifting, slipping, or shuddering

Cluster 3 of 32008 Kia Sportage

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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