AtWhatMileage
Adas · 10 owner reports

Other driver assistance problem on the 2012 Kia Sorento

1 fire 1 of the 10 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 10
With an odometer reading 8
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 13%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $250–$1,800
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 24th

When other driver assistance problem gets reported

Owners of the 2012 Kia Sorento report other driver assistance problem at a median of 55,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles, from 8 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 45,000 miles. It is the 24th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 135,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 96,655 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.

13% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 8 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
37,445 miles 49,058 miles 57,000 miles 91,982 miles 134,100 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 a fire 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 $250–$1,800 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 on other years

The same failure is reported on 14 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2013 at 115,000 miles.

By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 30; the 2012 has 10. 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.

My family and I (wife, 4 year old daughter and 9 month old daughter) had just exited the freeway and entered our housing complex. While driving through the neighborhood our vehicle's engine as well as all electrical components turned off. We were in motion at the time it turned off. We had another vehicle behind us, but luckily they saw our vehicle slowing down and drove around us. My wife was driving and stated everything locked up and, as expected, she had to muscle the steering to pull to the side and out of the way of traffic. The brake pedal was also depressed all the way to the floor, and had no ABS. We had to wait for the vehicle to come to a complete stop then put the vehicle in park and start the engine back up. I initially told my wife to put it in neutral but after trying that, it did not work. After we got the vehicle back on we drove straight home. I contacted citrus kia that day and told them what had happened. I was told that they have not heard of that issue and would have no way confirming what happened unless it did it while they were inspecting it. My vehicle was being serviced from 4/10/13- 4/13/13. The end…

18,500 miles NHTSA complaint 973707 filed 2013-04-13

For the third time in a 2 month span, my 2012 kia sorento has completely shut down as we have been driving it. We are at the 60k miles mark. This is very dangerous. Two of the three times we have been doing around 40 MPH on very busy streets and thank god, we did not hit another car or get hit. The vehicle with zero warning, will just die and we will lose all power steering, we can't shift gears, and the brakes do not work like they normally do. The first time I thought it was just a battery, so I replaced it. But since then we have had it at the dealership twice and they do not know what is wrong with it. They will get it running again and then a couple of weeks later, it will die again. I have two babies that ride in this vehicle and I am looking at my options to getting rid of it. This vehicle is very dangerous!! *tr

59,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1070157 filed 2014-05-29

I was driving my 2012 kia sorento on a flat residential road in fair weather and came to stop at a stop sign. After going forward about 20ft after the stop sign my car just died. It completely turned off, all electrical, the engine, everything and I had to put it in park to restart the engine. This has happened on 4 separate occasions, 1 time on a hill, 1 time in rush hour traffic with a tractor trailer behind me, and again on my way home in a residential area. I took the vehicle to the kia dealership and was told that they could not re-create the problem and no error codes came up. I do not know what to do. I am scared for my life driving this car. *tr

45,564 miles NHTSA complaint 1076304 filed 2014-06-17

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 10 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 driver assistance problem happen on the 2012 Kia Sorento?

Across 8 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other driver assistance problem on the 2012 Kia Sorento?

10 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