2020 Kia Forte
This year drew an ordinary 71 complaints for a Kia Forte — the model's median is 146. What they were about is the unusual part: 25.4% of them mention open, against 8.5% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 3 of the Kia Forte, which began in 2019. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 71 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 146 |
| Involving a crash | 9 |
| Involving a fire | 2 |
| Recalls | 0 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 31 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- open — 25.4% of this year's complaints, against 8.5% across the other years of this generation (3×). Owners wrote it as: open, response, trunk, malfunction.
- alarm — 7% of this year's complaints, against 0% across the other years of this generation (35.2×).
- stolen — 11.3% of this year's complaints, against 2.1% across the other years of this generation (5.5×). Owners wrote it as: stolen, steal, car stolen, easy.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
My Kia has been stolen once and vandalized and almost stolen a second time because Kia doesn’t have the alarm connected to the back windows and Kia has made the car easy to steal. I have even been denied renewal of my car insurance because of this!
The antitheft software upgrade that Kia installed in my vehicle after it was stolen the first time DID NOT WORK. My car was stolen again WITH the software upgrade installed. The car was locked and parked in my apartment parking lot and the Kia Boys smashed the…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Kia Forte was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2020 Kia Forte? What happened to yours?
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