Other fuel system problem on the 2015 Kia Sorento
1 crash 1 fire 1 injury 3 of the 22 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 other fuel system problem gets reported
Owners of the 2015 Kia Sorento report other fuel system problem at a median of 55,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles, from 8 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 90,000 miles. It is the 9th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 15,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 70,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 56,181 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.
38% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13,019 miles | 24,500 miles | 53,500 miles | 63,341 miles | 69,200 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 crash, 1 a fire and 1 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 $300–$2,200 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 2022, at a median of 28 miles, and latest on the 2018 at 170,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 32; the 2015 has 22. 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.
How can NHTSA give a 5-star safety rating to a 2015 kia sorrento based on a 2013 crash test done on this model vehicle when there is obvious a problem with this vehicle in the 2014/2015 kia sorrento models. Since 2014, there has been at least 2 serious injuries and other complaints due to this defect and its non-deployent of airbags, etc. (please look at the photos, video & small overlay crash report at http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/kia/sorento-4-door-SUV/2015)..the manufactiurer was well aware of this since they redesigned the 2016 model. This defect should be made public for all vehicles affected with these issues which should repaired or recalled to avoid further risk of serious injuries and/or loss of life. It is completely wrongful, harmful and negligent of NHTSA to give an "5-star safety rating" on a later model vehicle based on an outdated test & without fully and appropriatel testing; rendering false misrepresentation to the vehicle shopper.....updated 06/21/17 *bf *js
While driving approximately 50mph in my sorrento the car hesitated and stalled when I pressed the gas to pass a car next to me. Ithe felt like a slip. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but over the next 4 days it started happening more frequently. I went to turn it on the 4th morning and a cloud of white smoke came out of my tailpipe. I decided it needed to go to kia immediately. My sorrento is a 2015 with 27xxx miles on it. This is not what I expected from a new car. I brought it to kia and was called 10 minutes after I received my courtesy ride back. I was told a diagnosis was sludge and they needed maintenence records. I brought my receipts (which I had to have my mechanic type back out as I hadn't saved any reciepts). When we brought those in I had a spare key to my car and noticed it was in the parking lot. I checked under the hood only to discover they hadn't even pulled the valve cover on the car (I know this because there was a dead wasp frozen to the top of the bolt you need to take off to remove the cover that was there when I brought it in). They informed me that they opened the cap and that's how they knew even though…
V6 engine stalls randomly when accelerating into or across traffic. . Kia service dept. Unable to find cause with using electronic testing equipment. Stalling is random and unable to replicate with service dept personnel. A real safety issue.
Also reported on the 2015 Kia Sorento
Other engine problem
Other body or interior problem
Headlight failure or clouding
Other lighting problem
Complete engine failure or seizure
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 22 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 fuel system problem happen on the 2015 Kia Sorento?
Across 8 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other fuel system problem on the 2015 Kia Sorento?
22 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