Sunroof failure or glass breakage on the 2011 Kia Sorento
1 injury 1 of the 26 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When sunroof failure or glass breakage gets reported
Owners of the 2011 Kia Sorento report sunroof failure or glass breakage at a median of 60,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles, from 24 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 19th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 105,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 102,900 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
33% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,000 miles | 12,075 miles | 60,265 miles | 81,250 miles | 105,900 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
Of these reports, 1 an injury is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $700–$4,500 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 on other years
The same failure is reported on 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2014, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2015 at 75,000 miles.
By volume the 2012 carries the most reports, with 34; the 2011 has 26. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
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.
The car is a 2011 and is only 3 months old had just pulled out of a driveway and was going down the road when I heard a crack and a loud pop. After that noise the whole sunroof fell in on me as I was driving, all of the glass and metal holding the glass. It seems the glass had popped up before it fell in on me. My back was scratched and the vehicle was damaged. The sunroof was replaced by the dealership and also a gouged door panel. There are still small scratched on the interior and the roof of the car from the glass. *tr
My 2011 kia sorento's rear sunroof shattered. I went to open the main sunroof it shuttered then I heard a pop. The entire rear section shattered I was less than a mile from a local kia dealership (pinehurst kia) I left the car with the service dept I was contacted later that from the dealership I was told that glass was not covered and that they felt that nothing was wrong with there product. I contacted kia directly and was told glass was covered then I was called back from kia stating that the repair would not be warranty $1280.00 was the cost for repairs> I was advised by the service director that the proper repair would include glass replacement and I should replace the frame housing. I found other cases of this same problem with the rear sunroof glass shattering at least nobody's been hurt yet. Is kia waiting for someone to be injured before addressing this problem? *tr
Sitting in the drive way opening the sunroof and it shattered on me and my family, the glass fell on me and my wife. The seats were scratched as well as the dash, I also had scraches on my forehead as I was looking at the switch. The car had aprox 400 miles. The dealer fixed the roof replaced the scratched pannels, the car also has a slight pull to the right they said they couldnt replicate the problem. It took aprox 12 days to get the car back. Two days after recieving the car back we took a trip and with 914 miles a small rock hit the wind shield at aprox 55 to 60 MPH and it cracked about 9 inches long. Does kia use an inferior glass in there vehicles and why the pull to the right? *tr
Also reported on the 2011 Kia Sorento
Other body or interior problem
Other engine problem
Other powertrain problem
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Other electrical problem
Door latch or handle failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 26 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 sunroof failure or glass breakage happen on the 2011 Kia Sorento?
Across 24 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 60,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is sunroof failure or glass breakage on the 2011 Kia Sorento?
26 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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