Kia disappoints (for the first time)

We purchased a Kia Sedona (van) in September 2001. Although it was the first time either of us has bought a vehicle from a dealer and the first time I've owned a car with fewer than 60K miles on it, a brand new Kia was a better choice than a 2-3 year old Chevy or Ford van (good luck with that!) or a 4-5 year old Toyota or Honda. In many ways, a Kia is a good choice for us-- solid, safe (at least the vans), and relatively inexpensive because they don't require you to get so many options. We don't want the bells and whistles-- or at least, we don't want to pay for them. So, we paid less than $20K for a brand new van, tied for safest in its class, with the best warranty in the business. It's performed well for the first 97K miles; we've had few problems; and we look forward to many more miles of van-nish driving bliss.

And until today, we've been quite happy. We had a seat belt that would not retract and a sliding door that was increasingly getting stuck. Taking it in, I figured there might be a modest charge-- or it might even be fixed for free (whether under warranty or not). I mean, could they charge me to fix a broken door and especially a seat belt if neither was any fault of ours? Well, it turns out they could and they would: $560 worth of repairs for those two! (We must get the door fixed, but will stick with our seat belt rigged solution-- to avoid another $260.) That's simply unacceptable and will greatly lessen the probability that we'll buy a Kia in the future.

By the way, if you want to read something shocking, look up "kea". At least in the Webster's Unabridged, it's staggering. We looked that up when we were playing Boggle one time and were horrified with what we learned!