2011 Kia Forte problems
Owners have filed 215 complaints with NHTSA about the 2011 Kia Forte. Engine is the most reported problem area, at 22% of complaints. Next are air bags (16%) and brakes (13%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 215 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Engine 22% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 44 and 24
- Injuries and deaths
- 49 and 2
- Typical mileage
- 84,000 miles 134 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 20 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 14 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 17 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 14 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 25 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 17 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 8 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 7 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 2 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 0 |
| 200k+ miles | 10 |
What the data shows
Of the 134 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 84,000 miles. For engine specifically, the median reported mileage is about 105,000 miles (27 complaints with mileage).
Safety-related details: 44 complaints mention a crash; 24 complaints mention a fire; 49 injuries reported; 2 deaths reported. Its complaints are more severe on average than those of 97% of model years in our database.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2011 ranks 13th most-complained-about out of 15 model years of the Kia Forte with enough data (76 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 3 safety recall campaigns.
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
Other air bag recall. The vehicle was in motion and was struck by another vehicle that traveled left of the centerline on a two lane roadway. The vehicles were involved in an off-set, head-on collision. The driver air bag and driver seat belt pretensioner failed to deploy / activate during the severe frontal impact. The driver sustained fatal injury.
Kia forte 2011,accelerated on its own,and cause me to hit the car in front of me,kept accelerated,until I shut the engine off. Went from 30 MPH to 50 MPH,and totaled my car. I was in motion on a city street,when the incident occurred. No warning,no engine light,and it never happened before.
Tl* the contact owns a 2011 kia forte. The contact stated that while driving approximately 35 to 45 MPH, the vehicle lost power and the odometer read 40 MPH. The vehicle would not accelerate or reverse. There were no warning lights illuminated during or after the failure. The vehicle was towed to the dealer to have a diagnostic test performed. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure and current mileages were 24,000.
The check engine light came on, I heard a sound like metal scraping metal, I was driving about 20MPH going straight down s. Main st downtown warrenton, oregon and was planning to pull over when suddenly my car stopped dead after a horrible noise of what sounded like a heavy metal snapping/crunching noise. I looked under the hood and everything looked ok, but some black fluid was dripping onto the ground. The oil had been changed about four days before this and they said it was 2.5 quarts low.