As far as I can tell, Kia Customer Services, for all intensive purposes, are not related to Kia at all. Apparently, if you write a letter to the managing director in the UK or Korea it gets sent straight back to Customer Services. All they will do is get the dealership to fix the car. They won't care if your car came with a 1,000 faults. This is what the 7 year guarantee is for (so I was told).

Our new car had an unacceptable number of faults imo, and I realised that this didn't bode well long term. An engine balancer shaft failing at 1,500 miles is unforgivable. We expect our cars to last much longer than the guarantee period (even if it is 7 years).

We had enough after our car had been with dealership for a month in total. The dealership paid some of the money back we were owed. However, they still owe us a substancial amount of money. When the money is paid back I will edit this review accordingly.

We wrote to the managing director (who wouldn't have seen the letter anyway), to state that if kia refunded the money we were still owed we would avoid writing any poor reviews of the car. Customer Services stated that we couldn't do that. Just to prove we can, here is the list of faults that incurred in 2,000 miles:

Problems (month spent in dealership for attempted fixes):
- A significant rattle from the dashboard that progressively got worse.
- An annoying creaking noise from the arm rest/centre console between the seats.
- A rattle from the interior light (which could be stopped if you hit it).
- Balancer shaft failure.
- Central locking failure.
- Spare Key couldn't be recoded (required new one)

Secondary problems:
- Steering wheel replaced off centre.
- Problem with reverse selector on gear stick.
- Small dent in door after repairs (which dealership said was already there).
- Dashboard creaking slightly.
- Interior light never fixed.

Kia constantly stated that any non-technical problems were between the dealership and us. They fix the issues if they have to. That’s it! It seems legally they only need to fix your car. Might as well let the customers test your products I suppose.