2022 Kia Sorento: transmission slipping

Filed Apr 20, 2026 · Transmission · IN

The vehicle’s transmission failed. While driving on the highway, the transmission began slipping and then would not allow the vehicle to accelerate beyond approximately 10 mph. The vehicle also lost the ability to reverse. My family’s safety was put at significant risk. The incident occurred on a highway with a speed limit of 70 mph and low visibility. Due to the sudden loss of acceleration, our vehicle was unable to keep up with traffic, creating a dangerous situation with a high risk of being struck by other vehicles. The dealer reproduced and confirmed the issue. They documented very hard shifting, lack of reverse, and stated the transmission fluid smelled burnt. No diagnostic codes were present. The dealer advised replacement of the transmission. No warning lights or messages appeared on the dashboard prior to the failure.

Filed Oct 6, 2023 · Brakes, Driver assistance · AZ

1)Transmission keeps slipping on a car that is one year old. Typically it’s from a park>drive or park>reverse but it also happens while accelerating. The worse instance so far has been while I was pulling across an intersection and my gas pedal was to the floor and the car just froze like it was in neutral… rpms went up but car “disengaged” and I had to let off the gas and try again and it engaged. This was a HUGE safety issue as cars were coming at me and I was stuck. I have take the car to KIA FOUR times for this issue and they keep telling me that if there was an issue there would be a check engine light on and they can’t do anything. 2) Adaptive cruise control and lane assist functions keep randomly stopping and have to be reset. 3) Rotors are crap. I have had to to have them turned twice in the first year of ownership and they are making a squealing sound now for a 3rd time. There are tons of complaints about this online and Kia fails to consider it a warranty issue. 4) Two pieces of the car have randomly flown off… Kia says there are no known defects so they won’t help. A piece of windshield cowl came off at highway speeds and a rear axle plastic guard/cover came off and dragged for awhile before I had to zip tie it up…. Again normal highway driving, no off road- no excuse for this to be falling apart and flying off where it can cause harm to other drivers.

Filed Aug 7, 2023 · Acceleration, Electrical · MO

Warning lights go crazy. Power steering goes out for several seconds. Rpms and speedometer go nuts or lay on zero. Sometimes I can’t shift into drive for several minutes. sometimes it sounds and feels like (under the pedal, in acceleration) it’s losing power for a few seconds, almost like a slipping feeling but in power. The clock and profiles have reset overnight before where I had to reset clock and presets. Kia has had my car for many weeks already in January at just 2-3 thousand miles I’d say (I bought it brand new in October 2022). My dash cam was plugged in. They tried so many things…the “remedy” was to not use the dash cam a while to see if it happens again. After a few months, I plugged it back in. Issues returned. Took back to Kia who said they’ll need it to do it again without dash cam in so I unplugged it that night. Issue has returned at least three times since then. I’ve sent video to Kia and i guess I’m still waiting for them to get an extra loaner because they’ll need to keep it…when I went up there a couple weeks ago, I was told they didn’t have any loaners available so they would call me when they did.

Filed Nov 23, 2022 · Transmission · CA

This has happened to this car 2 times already. First when the vehicle only had 12k miles, an MIL showed up. Took it to the dealer and they said they could not find any DTC codes in there. When they gave it back to me the MIL light was off... Surprisingly. 2nd time, 16k miles, the transmission gear was slipping some of the gears and we have never taken this vehicle to off road. The MIL light came back on and also a message saying "Transmission system error! Check transmission oil immediately". After this message came to the dashboard , the transmission started to fail and like going into limp mode - could not drive this vehicle over 20mph. Fortunately , this issue happened during the day so I took my kia 2022 Sorento AWD to the dealer. Now my vehicle is there for 4 days now and they dont know what is really going on with it. They are now talking with the headquarters Engineers to see if they can figure this out but so far nothing yet. The dealer still have my vehicle trying to figure this out.

Filed Oct 19, 2022 · Transmission · GA

I purchased a new 2022 Kia Sorento in March of 2022. By the end of April, at 1626 miles, the vehicle started giving me a warning on the dash stating "Transmission System Error! Check transmission oil immediately." The problem was intermittent and the dealer was not able to reproduce it. The difficulty is that the transmission does not have a method to check the transmission oil level. I have returned this vehicle to the dealer three times for this same problem. When the message is displayed, the transmission only provides power to the wheels in the odd numbered gears (1, 3, 5, 7) and slips badly in the even numbered gears. During slippage, the engine revs to 4,000 RPM. Unknown damage has most likely been done to my transmission at this point and Kia refuses to take care of their customers.