2012 KIA SORENTO — Complaint #2141421
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE filed October 20, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2141421 (ODI reference 11694509) concerns a 2012 KIA SORENTO and was filed on October 20, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on October 18, 2025. The vehicle had 106,334 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Oregon based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine, 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: yes, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. 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 SORENTO cohort independently describe similar engine 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 2012 KIA SORENTO shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2012 Kia Sorento. The contact stated that, while driving at 60 MPH, she observed smoke emanating from the engine compartment, prompting her to attempt to pull to the shoulder of the roadway. During the attempt, the contact stated that she then heard an abnormal pop, after which the vehicle lost motive power, and within a moment, the entire front end of the vehicle was engulfed in flames. Upon exiting the vehicle and being assisted by bystanders, the contact was informed that the bystanders had attempted to alert her on the road as they had observed flames emanating from underneath the vehicle. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was towed to a storage facility but had yet to be deemed a total loss by the contact's insurance provider. A fire report was filed. A police report was not filed, and injuries were not reported. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 106,334.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2141421 |
| ODI Number | 11694509 |
| Date Filed | October 20, 2025 |
| Failure Date | October 18, 2025 |
| VIN | 5XYKUCA67CG |
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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.