Fuel injector failure on the 2014 Kia Optima
Only 5 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When fuel injector failure gets reported
There are 5 reports of fuel injector failure on the 2014 Kia Optima, 5 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 31st most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 75,000 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Putting it right typically runs $450–$2,800 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure, every year of the Kia Optima
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Less than 30,000 and my engine is shot! I took my car for service in january 2016, told them I was seeing black smoke and I was told it was nothing. I actually was told to put fuel injector cleaner in with every fill-up. I continued to have the problem and took it back in february 15, 2016. Now they say I have sludge in my engine and warranty won't cover, because we used the wrong oil doing our own oil changes. I provided copies of the pages from the owner's manual showing that we used the correct oil, but no luck. After a week I was told the engine would be replaced via a "goodwill gesture", but a rental will not be covered. I was also told my car would be out within 7 days....ffwd 35 days...still no car and when I get someone on the phone from the service dept, I'm given the run-around and promised that I will be called back within a few hours with an update. Well, it's been 96 hours this time and I'm still waiting. Not only do you not have calls returned, emails are not responded to either. This has been the worst experience with a service department ever. Thankfully I only kept the rental that they made me pay for 15 days. (I…
We started reporting issues this past july to our dealership, kia rivergate in madison, tn. They have had our car in three times and keep telling us theres things "we" need to fix.my car is still on warranty and is under a total engine recall. The car started with a knocking sound in the engine and had issues when we would accelerate. The car did not want to accelerate at all causing us to stall in the middle of the highway several times. They told us nothing was wrong but they replaced a sensor. The car continued to knock and stall. I asked them if it was my transmission and they said no, it's fine. They said we could try replacing the battery and they changed the oil (at our expense). The car has had battery replaced three times because they told us that was the issue the first two times. The car has gotten much worse in the last few months. The last time we took it in to them they are now saying that it might be the fuel injector. Once again they are stating that we must pay for it. I've called them because the car had huge clouds of smoke coming out the back and is shaking even worse. Once again they said there's nothing they…
We started reporting issues this past july to our dealership, kia rivergate in madison, tn. They have had our car in three times and keep telling us theres things "we" need to fix.my car is still on warranty and is under a total engine recall. The car started with a knocking sound in the engine and had issues when we would accelerate. The car did not want to accelerate at all causing us to stall in the middle of the highway several times. They told us nothing was wrong but they replaced a sensor. The car continued to knock and stall. I asked them if it was my transmission and they said no, it's fine. They said we could try replacing the battery and they changed the oil (at our expense). The car has had battery replaced three times because they told us that was the issue the first two times. The car has gotten much worse in the last few months. The last time we took it in to them they are now saying that it might be the fuel injector. Once again they are stating that we must pay for it. I've called them because the car had huge clouds of smoke coming out the back and is shaking even worse. Once again they said there's nothing they…
Also reported on the 2014 Kia Optima
Other engine problem
Other steering problem
Other body or interior problem
Other electrical problem
Complete engine failure or seizure
Other fuel system problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 5 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 5 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does fuel injector failure happen on the 2014 Kia Optima?
Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is fuel injector failure on the 2014 Kia Optima?
5 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed