Federal complaint record · Kia Sportage · model year 2018

2018 Kia Sportage

Owners submitted 159 federal complaint reports about this model year, placing it at the 6th percentile for complaint intensity within its 2016 to 2020 compact suv cohort. The largest reported component group is engine. Sample sizes and limitations are shown below.

Engine · 41% · group n = 91Electrical · 13% · group n = 28Other · 10% · group n = 22Powertrain · 8% · group n = 17Brakes · 5% · group n = 11
159
Complaint records on file
18,200
Median mileage at the reported problem · 50 complaints reported mileage
41%
Of classified component reports name engine · group n = 91
6th
Complaint-intensity percentile in a cohort of 40 model years

Engine · 4 in ten classified complaints

Where this record concentrates

All failure files
Component group 01 · Engine41%

Engine reports

Kia Sportage · model year 2018

Reports in this group91
Share of classified reports41%
Component groups on file6
Open the failure files

Adjacent model years · same badge, different data

The complaint signal has a shape

Compare model years
2017
0.6complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
396 matched incidents
This car
2018
0.3complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
159 matched incidents
2019
0.1complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
68 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
Engine damage · 23 reports

Reports describe engine damage or oil consumption

Cluster 1 of 32018 Kia Sportage
Fire or smoke · 21 reports

Reports describe smoke, burning smells, or fire

Cluster 2 of 32018 Kia Sportage
Brake performance · 14 reports

Reports describe braking performance concerns

Cluster 3 of 32018 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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