New Kia's come with a 7 year warranty, but apparently if the owner has the car serviced outwith the dealer network, the chances of the warranty being honoured are slim

Having owned a Kia I know for a fact that there are clear requirements for owners who choose to have their cars serviced outside the network and still keep the warranty. Basically its to have the garage that do the work carry out the Kia schedule to the letter with proof that they have used lubricants and parts that meet Kia's OEM quality with proof for both the work and parts used. Do that and you will not have an issue and on the Kia forum there are plenty that have chosen to go that route and have still got warranty work done. Problem seems to be most garages don't have the Kia schedule (they simply do their normal work) and most garages use the same factors for their parts regardless of brand and have no interest in quality.

When we had Ceed some people on the Forum were claiming to have saved £50 or so on a local service but there were a couple of catches without considering the warranty. The annual service includes a body inspection and stamp for the 12 year warranty and this can only be done by a Kia dealer, take along after the indie service and they normally charge anywhere between £25 and £50 which pretty much wipes out any saving especially when you factor in the time taken to visit the Kia garage. Then there is the matter of what Kia call "Campaign Updates". These are not safety recalls but improvements that are free. We had one done that really did make the engine far more flexible, you could be a gear higher when driving along, before the update you need 5th in a M1 50 mph zone, after the update it would happily take 6th with a potential fuel saving, all for nothing. Indies cannot do this, to get the car checked its a visit to your local Kia dealer and more time wasted.

And don't forget that only Kia dealers can carry out warranty work. In the 5 years we had our car we only had one issue, the A/C condenser was holed, probably by a stone. I expected to be charged but the repair was carried out FOC with a promise to hire us a suitable car for our holiday should the part not arrive in time.

Would the saving of say £50 a year over 4 services, £200, have paid for a the A/C work, the part was more than that.