AtWhatMileage
Body · 38 owner reports

Other body or interior problem on the 2012 Kia Sorento

2 crashes 4 fires 2 injuries 8 of the 38 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.

Reports of this failure 38
With an odometer reading 25
Reports per 1,000 built 0.3 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 40%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 8
Typical repair $200–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 8th

When other body or interior problem gets reported

Owners of the 2012 Kia Sorento report other body or interior problem at a median of 60,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 85,000 miles, from 25 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 8th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 500 miles at the tenth percentile to 107,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 106,088 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.

40% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 25 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
532 miles 14,980 miles 60,000 miles 85,000 miles 106,620 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, 2 a crash, 4 a fire and 2 an injury are 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 $200–$2,000 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 35,000 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 145,000 miles.

By volume the 2011 carries the most reports, with 209; the 2012 has 38. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Tl* the contact owns a 2012 kia sorento. While driving approximately 30 MPH, the contact depressed the brake pedal but the brakes would not respond. The failure recurred while driving at various speeds. The contact had to apply excessive pressure to the brakes for the vehicle to stop. The vehicle was taken to the dealer for diagnostic testing three times. The technician was unable to diagnose a failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 20. ..updated 11/01/12 *bf updated updated 11/02/2012 *js

20 miles NHTSA complaint 940871 filed 2012-09-24

Tl* the contact owns a 2012 kia sorento. While driving approximately 30 MPH, the contact depressed the brake pedal but the brakes would not respond. The failure recurred while driving at various speeds. The contact had to apply excessive pressure to the brakes for the vehicle to stop. The vehicle was taken to the dealer for diagnostic testing three times. The technician was unable to diagnose a failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 20. ..updated 11/01/12 *bf updated updated 11/02/2012 *js

20 miles NHTSA complaint 940872 filed 2012-09-24

Tl* the contact owns a 2012 kia sorento. While driving approximately 30 MPH, the contact depressed the brake pedal but the brakes would not respond. The failure recurred while driving at various speeds. The contact had to apply excessive pressure to the brakes for the vehicle to stop. The vehicle was taken to the dealer for diagnostic testing three times. The technician was unable to diagnose a failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 20. ..updated 11/01/12 *bf updated updated 11/02/2012 *js

20 miles NHTSA complaint 940874 filed 2012-09-24

Also reported on the 2012 Kia Sorento

Other engine problem

294 reports median 98k

Other brake problem

75 reports median 78k

Other electrical problem

74 reports median 66k

Complete engine failure or seizure

71 reports median 97k

Headlight failure or clouding

47 reports median 101k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 38 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 other body or interior problem happen on the 2012 Kia Sorento?

Across 25 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 60,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 85,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other body or interior problem on the 2012 Kia Sorento?

38 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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