2012 KIA OPTIMA — Complaint #2147735
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE filed November 11, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2147735 (ODI reference 11698800) concerns a 2012 KIA OPTIMA and was filed on November 11, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 26, 2025. The report was geocoded to Alabama 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: 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 OPTIMA 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 OPTIMA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
June 26th 2025 my Kia optima 2012 EX quit on interstate 65 in Alabama was towed to dealership 10 days later was requested that I turn in maintenance records which I did. 10 days after that I was contacted and I was told that they could not read some of the records i so resubmitted. No official diagnosis was told they just informed me that the motor would be replaced. They've since removes it from the dealership to a third location. Spoke with Kia consumer affairs in a three-way call to the dealership we were hung up on three times. Trying to find out where the car had been towed to. The car is now at Monrovia towing in Alabama at $40 a day. I have takwn good care of this Kia it falls under all the criteria there were no lights no warning signs it just shut down. Not only was the dealership evasive about their decision or the decision they made me feel as if I had done something wrong when I've only had the car 3 years taken very good care of it had the oil change by fiance the recor
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2147735 |
| ODI Number | 11698800 |
| Date Filed | November 11, 2025 |
| Failure Date | June 26, 2025 |
| VIN | 5XXGN4A78CG |
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Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
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