Model years › Kia Rio

2015 Kia Rio

This year drew an ordinary 52 complaints for a Kia Rio — the model's median is 36. What they were about is the unusual part: 21.2% of them mention mechanic, against 7.6% across the model's other years.

NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.

What the complaints were about

• mechanic — 21.2% of this year's complaints, against 7.6% across the model's other years (2.8×).
• catalytic — 21.2% of this year's complaints, against 8% across the model's other years (2.6×). Owners wrote it as: catalytic, converter, catalytic converter, buy.
• locked — 11.5% of this year's complaints, against 2.4% across the model's other years (4.8×). Owners wrote it as: locked, motion, visible, overheating.

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

while driving at an undisclosed speed, the check engine warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic, who diagnosed a failure with the catalytic converter. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of th…

notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V652000 (Service Brakes, Hydraulic); however, the part to do the recall repair was unavailable. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The vehicle was ta…

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Recalls for this year

• 23V652000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.

Own a 2015 Kia Rio? What happened to yours?

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How this was worked out

Every year of the Kia Rio 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.

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