2024 Kia Telluride: What to check before buying

The instrument cluster goes black without warning. Drivers lose the speedometer, fuel gauge, engine temperature, and safety alerts, and some also lose cruise control. Navigation often acts up at the same moment, showing the car going the wrong way. Several owners say it happened more than once, and one report puts the first failure near 2,100 miles. The fuel gauge sometimes reads empty on a full or half tank. One fire report describes smoke pouring from the front passenger seat while driving, causing an injury, after a recall repair had been done.

Windshield cracking is the dominant complaint. Cracks appear while the car sits parked in a garage, start at the edge under the trim, or follow a pop while driving. They then spread quickly, sometimes across half the glass within hours. Small rocks also cause cracks far larger than owners expect, and replacement glass has failed the same way. Many reports come from cars with only a few hundred to a few thousand miles. Other issues include a cracked washer hose near the firewall that drains fluid behind the front wheel liner, and sunroof glass that shatters while driving.

Exterior trim along the door and window edges comes loose and can fly off at highway speed, leaving rubber or jagged metal exposed. One report says a child was scratched by a protruding trim piece. Most complaints concern recall 25V494000: owners get the notice but dealers have no parts, so cars wait unrepaired while dealers tape the trim back on. Sunroof glass also shatters on its own while closed. One owner was told warranty would not cover it and got an $8260 repair estimate. A detached exterior key lock is also reported.

In Snow Mode, the car stops responding to the gas pedal, often when pulling away or turning, at mileages between 1,748 and 3,898. Restarting or switching modes brings power back, and dealers rarely reproduce it. Transmissions stick in 5th gear, slip, and shift with a jolt. One car went through two transmission replacements. An engine seized at 684 miles, and another needed a new engine under the 24V077 valve spring recall. Two reports describe the car rolling while in Park, and one ended in a crash.

Automatic emergency braking slams on the brakes with nothing ahead, on highways, in city traffic, and at low cruise speeds. Drivers describe near rear-end collisions. Dealers often cannot replicate it, and one dealer simply disabled the navigation-based braking. Adaptive cruise sometimes misses stopped or slower cars until it is very close. Navigation glitches set off repeated wrong-way alerts. Sensor-based systems shut off in rain, snow, or wet roads. One crash report says neither the warning nor the braking activated in a low-speed collision.

Seizures happen at very low mileage, as early as 300 miles. The car loses power on the highway, and steering and electrical systems shut down with it. Other cars lose power and stay below 30 MPH with a check engine light, or shake and make abnormal noise. One car caught fire while parked, starting at the driver's seat, and was a total loss; the owner tied it to a recall. Snow Mode cuts throttle on inclines. Isolated reports cite a cracked oil pan at 5,066 miles and an evaporative emissions leak near 10,000.

In Snow Mode, the car fails to accelerate from a stop or at low speed. The pedal goes to the floor with no response and no warning light, sometimes leaving the car stuck in an intersection. Restarting or switching to Sport Mode restores power. With cruise control set at 35 to 45 mph, the car brakes on false collision warnings, and one driver reports a hard stop at 65 mph that swung the rear out. Speed-limit detection can misread a junction as 90mph and push cruise toward 95mph.

A driver's belt unlatches on its own during slow right turns, with no warning chime. Reports here are few and varied. A second-row anchor bolt works loose and falls out. The third-row right buckle gets crushed when the seat folds down with the buckle slipped behind the backrest, and the dealer blamed misuse. Second-row buckles sit so low that children struggle to buckle or unbuckle themselves. One filing also reports a front bumper sensor bracket that detached without any impact.