[Shiggy]

This is why I reserved a Volvo EX30. I'm done with all the aggravation dealing with Hyundai.

 

[coder]

The Ex30 looks a bit like the Ionic 5, with the baseline rwd configuration. Volvo service quality or the Volvo brand EV reliability in general is unknown at this point. How do you guys feel about an rwd ev? Does it make sense? I imagine it is just as easy to put a single motor in the front as it is the rear, no?

I cant help thinking they make the rwd default on their entry level to corral the customer into the higher priced dual motor trim.

In the US, Volvo no longer qualifies for any Federal tax credit. Volvo is now majority owned by Geely, a Chinese company, having bought it from Ford in 2010.

In any case, back to my previus post, anybody has a suggestion how to deal with the rental company or my dealer?
The dealer swears my rental has been extended, they even give me a ticket number. But when I call the rental co to verify, I get a deer in the headlight, no trace of any renewal on their end. Should I call HMC corporate and open a case?

 

[Kiwi]

The dealer has told you they're covering it and I personally would accept that without feeling the need to micromanage their accounting process.

To evaluate Volvo perhaps monitor owner's forums? Although having said that I'm surprised how many first posts I see in Kona forums are from new owners who are doing their research after buying the car.

There are lots of Chineses EVs here and I'm not hearing of major complaints for any of them.

 

[coder]

The rental co is an independent business entity. They want their money, and the rental is not renewed since may 24.
Despite repeated assurances from the dealer that it "will be" or it "has been". I imagine if I start paying out of pocket, it would be an uphill battle to get my money back.

 

[coder]

I was able to get to the bottom of it... They let the first rental period run for more than 30 days. This caused a problem in the system when trying to renew, because over 30 days the system is trying to process the rental as a lease. I asked the rental manager to call the dealer, and they managed to sort the problem. They had to close out the first rental and start a new one. I think this is the reason why dealer-paid 3rd party rentals havew to be renewed every 30 days.

 

[coder]

In general, I find it useful to open a case with HMC. Once you have a case number and a case manager, the case manager can often help greasing the wheels at the local dealer.
My case manager called the dealer, and the problem got the attention it took to figure out what the problem was and then it was quickly resolved.

 

[coder]

An update: It has been over 3 months now that my 2018 Limited is in the shop. Battery is "backordered". There is no news or update what is going on with it.
If they ordered a new battery and manufactured it, should be here already. Did anybody have to wait this long? What do I need to do to initiate a buyback? I vaguely remember that Lemon law applies if the car is at the dealer for a certain length of time, regardless of the purchase date, no?

 

[MikeDoughney]

FWIW, I have a five month old 2023 Kona EV Limited that's been in the dealer's shop for about six weeks. Last charging session on a DCFC charger stopped before reaching the desired SOC and ever since then it won't accept a charge from any source. The OEM charger it came with shows a blinking red fault light. Thus far they have not diagnosed the problem, although I gather that the onboard charger was replaced and that didn't correct the issue. Vehicle didn't display any fault lights and is otherwise driveable, but with 17% battery remaining it isn't going very far.

This is complicated a bit by the fact that I live part time in a US state where the Kona EV isn't sold (only the Ioniq) which is where that failure happened; that shop has probably never seen one before.

I suspect the traction battery is throwing a fault and shutting down charging without telling anyone, but that hasn't been determined.

I'm learning how much I don't ever want to own a Toyota Camry, the rental I've been driving ever since.

 

[MikeDoughney]

What do I need to do to initiate a buyback? I vaguely remember that Lemon law applies if the car is at the dealer for a certain length of time, regardless of the purchase date, no?

That L-word law applies after thirty days in the three states that might apply to my situation - the state where it was sold, the state that's my formal residence, and the state where the car now sits. That's probably rather uniform across the US though I haven't looked.

I would prefer to get my car back in working order rather than initiatiating a buyback which from everything I've read can be a major hassle, that would be followed by obtaining a replacement. I had no other issues with the Kona and we loved the car, it perfectly suits us and what we want from it.

 

[ppaulick]

Ah man, I was a bit afraid of this situation. I just went through a multi-month wait for a 2019 Volt BECM issue where Carmax bought it back. I pulled the trigger in March of last year on a 2019 Kona EV Ultimate, and it's been running great. I took it in recently to have the charge door fixed (not unlocking regularly) and a delaminating LCD. But a days ago I started getting the "Check EV system" message and limited to ~80% charge rate. They just called me now and said they're discussing options with Hyundai, but it looks like a EV battery replacement. Apparently my 12v also died while it was there. Fun!

 

[coder]

If anybody here went through a buyback process, I have a few questions.
After waiting 3.5 months, my HMC "customer advocate" cannot give me any status on my pending replacement battery, only that it is "backordered". I am astonished that HMC does not know ( or most likely does not want to tell me) what is the status of the battery they back-ordered. Has it been manufactured? Is it in transit? What???

Meanwhile the dealer is making my life miserable whenever the rental they are paying for comes up for renewal. Takes me several days and on the average 15 phone calls to get it renewed. Most of the time they simply lie to me saying " yes it was renewed", when it was not.
Usually they give me another month, except last time they only renewed it for another 2 weeks. Perhaps simple incompetence and sloth on the part of my service reps, but maybe they are trying to aggrevate me to the point where I would figure out some other solution, such as buying a new car.

So I asked my HMC service rep "what about a buy-back"? She said: Oh I can transfer you do a different group that does that. But then she says she could not help me any more. (Not like she did, anything for me so far). So the question is: what do you folks expect to happen to my dealer provided rental? It would not surprise me if they just stopped paying for it as long as I am waiting for the buyback to run its course. I imagine the buy-back process takes a while to sort out, and we are absolutely screwed without something to drive.
At this point I am leaning towards a buy-back, since I also have a ticking reduction gear I will still have deal with.

 

[Kiwi]

Makes sense. There are many, many complaints (especially out of the US) about the time it takes to fix the 'wheel of fortune' noise and there's no point in signing up for that as well. It doesn't help that the TSB outlines 3 steps that take time, if observed to the letter. The unfortunate fact is that the Kona and older Niro have 2 or 3 fundamental defects in the motor and GRU that are expensive to repair if encountered out of warranty. From what I can determine from the engineering changes is that these risks have been addressed on the new models, including the upcoming 2024+ Kona.

 

[coder]

At this point a buyback would make more sense to me as well.The only problem I see is that we are utterly screwed without a rental.
We have 2 commuters in the family, and we would be down to one working vehicle without it. What do you think the endgame is for the wheel of fortune noise if goes unrepaired? Do you have the TSB posted already somewhere?

 

[Kiwi]

TSB here:

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2022/MC-10211676-0001.pdf

 

[coder]

The latest on my backordered battery: After nearly 4 months waiting on a backordered propulsion battery, the dealer's
parts department now says,the battery that was ordered "got lost" (whatever that means).
The net effect is that they have to start over from zero and order it again.

 

[Shiggy]

The latest on my backordered battery: After nearly 4 months waiting on a backordered propulsion battery, the dealer's
parts department now says,the battery that was ordered "got lost" (whatever that means).
The net effect is that they have to start over from zero and order it again.

Thank you for your posts. I feel for you. If I had any doubts that my Kona EV ownership was going to be short term, you have helped put that to rest. I can't wait to get as far away from Hyundai as quickly as I can.

 

[coder]

Shiggy, dont get me wrong. the Kona could be a fine EV, if they fixed the following 3 issues:

1) Unstable propulsion battery: Hopefully the latest (current) version takes care of this.
2) Excessive wear of the reduction gear and/or some design problem somewhere including the propulsion motor and the reduction gear. See the TSB posted above by Kiwi.
3) Misguided OEM tire brand selection (cost and rolling resistance seem to be their selection criteria). The Nexen tires are underwhelming.

Despite of the problems I am having now, I quite like the car.

 

[Kiwi]

The new model Kona (and current kia Niro) will fix #2 and I expect #3 as I think the Nexens are long gone. I really haven't had any issue with the tires but the powertrain reliability has been underwhelming and they should have gotten it right first time. Even with extra oil changes there's still a risk of failures and I'm well out of warranty.

I'm not sure I'd call the traction battery unstable but there certainly have been many complaints, perhaps even more than the powertrain. But we don't know what proportion those are of the total sold. On our national (NZ) FB groups I rarely hear of any reliability problems and we have many thousands of Konas on the road in the population of 5M, some with over 100,000 miles. If anything stands out it's the 12V battery.

The new Kona will have one less-obvious major change and that is that the blue coolant is no longer used, a significant improvement. VW already do this and apparently Tesla is going in that direction on some models.

 

[MikeDoughney]

FWIW, I have a five month old 2023 Kona EV Limited that's been in the dealer's shop for about six weeks. Last charging session on a DCFC charger stopped before reaching the desired SOC and ever since then it won't accept a charge from any source. The OEM charger it came with shows a blinking red fault light. Thus far they have not diagnosed the problem, although I gather that the onboard charger was replaced and that didn't correct the issue. Vehicle didn't display any fault lights and is otherwise driveable, but with 17% battery remaining it isn't going very far.

Resolution involved replacing the OBC, which didn't fix the problem, then testing and finding the continuity test (C14 pins 3 and 4) failed when it was OK before they replaced the OBC. So they replaced the OBC again along with the wiring harness that includes the charging connector. Got the car back after 66 days, it took a while for them to get those parts. This appears to be an unusual problem since I haven't seen any mention online of haivng to replace that wiring harness.

 

[Shiggy]

Shiggy, dont get me wrong. the Kona could be a fine EV, if they fixed the following 3 issues:

1) Unstable propulsion battery: Hopefully the latest (current) version takes care of this.
2) Excessive wear of the reduction gear and/or some design problem somewhere including the propulsion motor and the reduction gear. See the TSB posted above by Kiwi.
3) Misguided OEM tire brand selection (cost and rolling resistance seem to be their selection criteria). The Nexen tires are underwhelming.

Despite of the problems I am having now, I quite like the car.

The problem is not the Kona, it is Hyundai. If I could take the car to a mechanic like I (mostly) used to when I had my VW, I would probably not care, but there is only one place to take the Kona for servicing. For those of us who do not maintain the cars ourselves these dealer servicing issues are real problems. It will certainly sound different when I go to buy my next EV - many of my questions will be about servicing the car.