2021 Kia Telluride: What to check before buying

Windshields chip and crack from small stones, often in the first few thousand miles. Cracks spread quickly across the driver's view. Some cracks appear while the car is parked, with no impact at all. Owners describe repeat chips and replacements, and dealers often decline warranty coverage. Sunroof glass also shatters while driving, sometimes dropping glass into the cabin. Sunroof tracks and wind deflectors break and leave the roof unable to close. Rear door glass bursting at highway speed shows up as well.

Front sunroof glass bursts at highway speed with a loud bang and no impact. A closed sunshade often keeps the glass out of the cabin. Sunroof tracks and hinges also break, and in one injury report a falling part hit the driver. Windshields crack from tiny chips or with no impact at all, sometimes overnight while parked. The cracks spread quickly into the driver's view. Replacement is expensive because the lane-keeping camera must be recalibrated, and one dealer quoted $1,600.

The main pattern is oil burning that ends in engine failure. Engines use several quarts between changes, often with no oil pressure or check engine warning, until the car sputters, stalls, or loses power on the highway. Reports cluster from about 63,000 to 116,000 miles. Several owners were told the engine needed replacing, with one quote of $10,500. Leaks from the oil pan gasket and oil filter housing also appear. There are 2 fire reports, one tied to a rod bearing failure that punched holes in the block.

Instrument clusters and infotainment screens go dark or freeze with colored blocks. When the screen fails, the backup camera and collision warnings go with it. Several reports describe every dash warning lighting at once, along with lost gauges, turn signals, power steering, or engine power. In one case a $2600 cluster replacement did not fix it. Other complaints cover no-start and stuck-in-park episodes, a driver door that loses power, child lock failure messages, and parking sensor errors. The one injury came from a rollaway after the car was put in park.

Sunroof hardware dominates this category. Plastic wind deflector arms snap, tracks bend or come off, and the roof sticks partly open in the rain. The fix often means a whole new assembly, with quotes over $5,000 and parts on backorder for weeks. Sunroof glass also shatters at highway speed. Other reports cover windows that flex at highway speed and roll back down, a fuel door that fell off, and peeling door belt molding. Owners note that later model years were recalled for that trim but 2021 was not.

Transmissions shift with a jerk, hesitate when pulling away or merging, rev without accelerating, and slip more as time goes on. Some cars do this from new, while others start in the middle of their life and get worse, and at least one ended in a full transmission replacement at 56,000 miles. A rhythmic vibration at 60 to 75 mph is covered by TSB 099 for early production cars. Other reports include sudden highway slowdowns from a failed high-pressure fuel pump, cracked plastic oil filter housings, surging at idle, and a rear AWD coupler that clunks and binds in slow turns.

Rear self-leveling shocks fail. They clunk, leak fluid, and leave the back end either rigid or bouncing hard over small bumps. Several owners say the car is hard to control on rough roads, and passengers in the rear rows get thrown around. More than one report places the failure around 65,000 miles, and replacement shocks sometimes fail again within a year. Kia's coverage varies, and one owner faced an $1800 bill. One report describes a broken rear frame weld found after repeated loud bangs.

The brake pedal sinks to the floor and the car keeps rolling. Three of 8 complaints involve crashes, mostly at low speed in garages or parking structures. In one, the dash lit up as both the brakes and the parking brake failed. Dealers often find no fault. Other reports involve rear caliper bolts or a newly installed caliper coming loose, an under-dash part falling onto the pedals, and a software update that leaves the parking brake on after the door is opened in drive.

Airbags fail to deploy in serious crashes. The reports include a front hit from a pickup, a broadside by a car going over 40 mph, and a 70 mph crash into a tree. All 3 complaints involve crashes, and 3 people were injured. One owner says automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning also failed to activate. The sample is small, and none of the reports gives a finding on why the airbags did not deploy.