2019 KIA NIRO EV — Complaint #1890302
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about EQUIPMENT ADAPTIVE/MOBILITY:VEHICLE CONTROLS:BRAKING filed April 25, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1890302 (ODI reference 11518843) concerns a 2019 KIA NIRO EV and was filed on April 25, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 17, 2023. The vehicle had 90,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Massachusetts based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as equipment adaptive/mobility:vehicle controls:braking, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same KIA NIRO EV cohort independently describe similar equipment adaptive/mobility:vehicle controls:braking failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2019 KIA NIRO EV shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2019 Kia Niro. The contact stated that upon starting the vehicle, the engine seized. The contact stated that the vehicle failed to shift into gear. The check regenerative braking system message was displayed. The vehicle was towed to the local dealer where it was diagnosed that the transition motor needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was contacted, and the contact was informed that the repair was not covered under warranty. The failure mileage was approximately 90,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1890302 |
| ODI Number | 11518843 |
| Date Filed | April 25, 2023 |
| Failure Date | April 17, 2023 |
| VIN | KNDCC3LG3K5 |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.