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Kia Transmission & Clutch

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Rachel of Beaverton OR (4/26/04):
My 2002 Kia Spectra has 31,000 miles on it. Two days ago my clutch went out, with no warning, leaving me stranded for 3 hours because Kia towing is not normally opened on Saturday. Naturally, my warranty doesn't cover it, and Kia wants to charge me three times the estimate of four other repair shops. They also want $120.00, just to turn off my check engine light.

I have to pay Kia for looking at my car, even though I specifically wrote that I would not authorize charges. I have to do this before I can even take it to a real repair shop. My warranty doesn't actually cover anything, and I am terrified that anything else will go wrong in the future, creating more costly bills for me. I am a college student, and I bought a Kia because of the warranty, hoping for the peace of mind that any repairs would be covered. The clutch in a 2002 car with 30,000 on it does not normally go out.

William of Conover NC (1/30/04):
My son and I purchased a 2002 Kia Rio from this dealership on 1/3/04. We also purchased the extended warranty for an additional $1,000. Last week, on or around 1/25/04, David (my son) noticed that the transmission would not go into reverse. The service department told us that the transmission had gone bad because the TCU was not bolted to the body of the car and therefore was not properly grounded. They are saying that this caused the TCU to fail which in turn caused the transmission to fail. They are refusing to honor the warranty because David had installed fog lights and did not remount the TCU when he was finished.

David says that he did not dismount the unit, it was not mounted when he started working on the car. The service manager says that he does not understand why there are no trouble codes listed anywhere in the ECU or TCU, but that doesn't change why the problem occured. I am an electronics technician and I find it difficult to believe that the sole ground source for this unit comes from the physical mounting to the body and not from any offboard wiring. Also even if the TCU were malfunctioning, would the week or two between the time David installed the lights and when he noticed the transmission failure be sufficient for this problem?

I am stuck with the probability of a repair bill in excess of $2900 for the TCU and the transmission, and am out $1,000 for the extended warranty that is no longer valid.

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