I’d guess it’d be the 12v battery. Surprisingly common failure on hybrids. Can’t see Kia paying for one on a five year old car. Although the main warranty is seven years, I’m sure stuff like batteries, clutches (where applicable) and some other bits and bobs are warranted for a far shorter period.

I agree - it's a wear and tear part just like the clutch, and 5 years is well outside the (longer) warranty window that KIA provide for a clutch. If it's the hybrid battery, then that I would of thought would be covered, if it was maintained via the main dealer network on schedule.

I also distinctly remember someone commenting (at least) once about similar issues with their Yaris (?) hybrid, supposedly because they only did short journies and never did enough mileage each time to recharge the 12V battery after the start-up drain.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's a far more common problem, and an incrasing one as more people buy hybrids, given how many people's driving pattern is of that type - its the sort that my OAP parents would likely suffer from as they do about 2-3k miles pa normally, mostly made up of 1-2 mile trips to the local supermakret twice a week.

What surprised me was that their current (standard ICE) FIesta's OEM 12V battery lasted over 10 years on that very driving pattern.

Time was when there were none!

Before that there was only batteries.