[naveen.raju]

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Failure of ABS sensors will have no difference on regular braking / brake feel. The only difference is that the ABS will not kick in when required (situations where wheels lock up and the resultant pulsing action). Even if all 4 sensors fail there will be no reduction in braking, except that there will be no ABS effect.

Exactly. This was my argument with them. If you recall, I had posted a picture from the manual. When I had gone to the HASS, I showed this to the SA and said that ABS sensor alone won't be the culprit. I even demanded them to update the manual as it's giving a false claim.

This was why I was behind them - to find the real cause of the brake failure.

[fiat_tarun]

It is very concerning that the same issue is still present which just shows Hyundai has not taken this issue seriously enough and has ported the parts as is to the Seltos. A hard brake pedal can only mean there is no vacuum in the system.

ABS as a system will only monitor current braking pressures based on wheel speeds and then intervene to distribute this force or prevent slip. It should not influence the core braking action which is the job of the brake booster and master cylinder.

For all the seriousness Hyundai / Kia are giving the Indian market, they should not be taking such issues lightly. There is something really wrong with the Booster design which needs to be fixed on top priority.

With so many Creta's and Seltos' on the road, many lives are at risk.

[drsnt]

Sorry for going OTT. I had this Issue with my original Santro, God saved me two times before I decided to sell it as service center never was able to find it. The same thing in minor form happened in my S Cross twice. First time I hit a tempo at its rear corner, second was scary. But thanfully in my both cases it was not complete failure of brakes, I would say that 20-30% was still left.

[swarnava.ch]

Originally Posted by drsnt

The same thing in minor form happened in my S Cross twice. First time I hit a tempo at its rear corner, second was scary. But thanfully in my both cases it was not complete failure of brakes, I would say that 20-30% was still left.

What was the reason in the SCross ? Did you ever get it diagnosed for the root cause of the failure ? 30% braking and hard pedal can be due to multiple reasons and correct diagnostics is required to nail it down to the real culprit.

[Nithesh_M]

Originally Posted by jetsetgo08

The Hyundai technicians comment on the traditional way of braking may convince a consumer who hasn't owned or never driven for long enough an ABS equipped car.

But-
Do other cars with ABS equipped behave like Creta/Seltos on hard braking?
Have people not owned ABS equipped cars prior to upgrading to Creta/Seltos to comment on poor braking?

P.S.: I owned a humble 2nd gen. Wagon-R (with ABS) in the past and it had spot on brake feel and stopping power.

Not sure about cars but if you compare the old RTR180 ABS with CBR250R ABS they were chalk and cheese. With the Honda the brake lever doesn't pulse and you'll hardly notice it kicking in until you see the ABS light on the console.

The TVS one was very intrusive. You'd know it kicked in when your brake lever starts vibrating. Ofcourse the Honda ABS had a 30000 rupee premium while the TVS unit costed I think about 8000. This was 2011 when I owned both.

[F150]

Originally Posted by Brishti

This is exactly to the letter how my Seltos behaves . On any bad roads when the brake is pressed its ABS activates and makes the pedal rock hard "Random" to which I reacted by pressing harder.

Have almost hit a car and a bike due to this dam bug. KIA hope that you do something about this mess.

I think this is a ABS sensor bug. KIA should run a campaign to replace the ABS sensors for the impacted batches.

[JithinR]

I think it's time the mods start highlighting this issue in the Hyundai/Kia car reviews. We have stuff like this highlighted in our reviews

Impressive kit (360 degree camera, HUD, front parking sensors, Bose sound system, cooled seats, cabin air purifier & loads more)

Of course this is true. Korean cars are loaded wih features but it's also true that multiple members facing the same issue across different generation cars can't be a batch defect or down to how people use their brakes.

These individual threads only gain so much traction outside Team BHP members.

Consumers today (atleast the young ones) will try to look at reviews before deciding on a car and they deserve to know this. Let them know the good with the bad.

I was looking at Sonet or i20 for my parents but I am not so sure now. I certainly don't like Hyundai/Kia attitude is not acknowledging the issue.

[drsnt]

Originally Posted by swarnava.ch

What was the reason in the SCross ? Did you ever get it diagnosed for the root cause of the failure ? 30% braking and hard pedal can be due to multiple reasons and correct diagnostics is required to nail it down to the real culprit.

Tried it in service center but couldn't emulate. I drove the vehicle for total 38k before selling. But after first incident it left a constant apprehension and subconsicious doubt on brakes. I think in both the cases the ABS overacted as the padel acted normally, I could hear the grinding noise but felt that car was just sliding instead of slowing down. Surprisingly both times speed was not high, must be around 50-60 kmph. 1st time I was able to stear right and avoid banging in the tempo in front who had suddenly cut lanes and reason for me to appply brakes.
Second was real scary, it was narrow broken road, both sides were rocks. I was at 50-60 kmph max, suddenly a black Scorpio jumped lanes to overtake a slow moving tractor. I slammed brakes, The car just skidded/ slided without any stopping, thankfully in nick of time the Scorpio guy went back into his lane else it would have been head on collision. I stopped using the vehicle on highways after that. That makes me remember that i have faced 2-3 similar incidences even at high speed but of low intensity, I used to blame the hard tyre compound for loosing grip whereas now I feel it was ABS causing loss of braking ability.

[Godzilla]

A webpage talking about different ABS and brake related issues.

It has some potential solutions to the Kia brake issue do check this out.

https://www.ecutesting.com/categories/abs-pump-modules/

[jithin23]

Yikes! Another brake failure thread and this time it's Kia . The brakes are very crucial in a car and it can be a life and death situation. It gets me wondering what are the testing norms of a car before launch apart from ARAI test for mileage(which is not realistic in real world driving scenarios)

I'd suggest all the owners who are facing this issue to file a consumer complaint/petition and this way Kia will be held responsible for finding out the actual cause for brake failure.

High time that potential car owners need to start checking for safety parameters rather than bling or tech features. The Korean twins are getting away by not even providing basic features like adjustable rear headrests/rear wiper for their base and mid models, Additionally the AT variants(Except GTX DCT) do not get ESP, Traction control and hill hold which are again important in an AT car. Especially for the price they're charging (17-19L OTR Bangalore)

[apache_aayush]

Originally Posted by jithin23

Yikes! Another brake failure thread and this time it's Kia . The brakes are very crucial in a car and it can be a life and death situation. It gets me wondering what are the testing norms of a car before launch apart from ARAI test for mileage(which is not realistic in real world driving scenarios)

I'd suggest all the owners who are facing this issue to file a consumer complaint/petition and this way Kia will be held responsible for finding out the actual cause for brake failure.

High time that potential car owners need to start checking for safety parameters rather than bling or tech features. The Korean twins are getting away by not even providing basic features like adjustable rear headrests/rear wiper for their base and mid models, Additionally the AT variants(Except GTX DCT) do not get ESP, Traction control and hill hold which are again important in an AT car. Especially for the price they're charging (17-19L OTR Bangalore)

Very apt observation.. Both creta s and seltos htk+ cost 15 lacs on the road still both of them do not give adjustable headrests. People simply ignore these deliberate cost cutting but i can not subject my passangers to such discomfort after spending 15 big ones.

[poloman]

I think lot of hearsay and inexperience in ABS braking involved here. Since both Seltos and Creta sell in significant volumes, if there was a braking issue, there would have been a significant number of accidents involving these two cars? No data is available to suggest that.

ABS kicking in can be very unnerving if you are not used to that. The pedal will look like it it is hard and stuck. There can be vibrations on the pedal. Now there can be a sub conscious level action to let the pedal go. This will happen in 1-2 seconds and you can have a very different afterthought of the whole event as a brake failure. The right approach is to stomp on the pedal even if it pulses or vibrate or hard till the vehicle stops.

I am not exonerating KIA or Hyundai. But it is very unlikely that reputed brands will have such grave issues not investigated and get to the root of the problem.

[Ph03nix]

I think it is high time our consumer protection laws are made stricter. Atleast in cases similar to these where it could be a matter of life and death.

Companies/corporations will do what they do best, gun for margins. They will dilly dally until the warranty is over and then replace the part at the cost of buyers. They will only wake up if their sales figures are hit, right now these cars are selling by the droves.

Conscientious businessmen like the Tata's are extremely rare. Even for known issues and recalls in developed countries, these issues will get brushed under the carpet in India.

But kudos to forums like TeamBhp for giving a unbiased platform for such information. So at the least informed buyers who do basic research will know better.

[Shwet]

So there goes one Adage of Koreans taking over the Japanese. While i always believed the previous Gen Creta to be Overpriced for what it offered, i always felt the Seltos was like a breath of fresh air that the Segment so critically needed. Now this seems eerily similar to the brakiing issues reported on the Creta. Since both use the same underpinnings it seems the problem is shared as well.

When we talk about reliability, its important to acknowledge and admire the Japanese philosophy of designing an automobile which runs from point A to B flawlessly for years. Toyota pioneered it and it slowly but surely got inbuilt into their DNA. How often have we heard even a Maruti product facing such basic mechanical issues? For all their criticism even they have mastered the art of making reliable products which don't fail you at critical moments.

I guess this is now too common an occurence to take lightly. This also steers one away from any Korean products for quite a long time. I would rather have a reliable workhorse from Toyota or MSIL (in the Seltos, Creta range) than any of the Koreans. What use are these Gizmos and fluidic designs if they can't master the basics correct. Its like a great looking actress with zero acting chops.

[Stribog]

My personal opinion is that there is just way too much fearmongering on the basis of 2 complaints from unknown elements.

I say unknown in the sense that we have our own BHP Seltos thread (both the official review one and the concept car one) where 100's of BHP'ian owners have contributed their reports / feedback on all aspects of the car and nothing on this issue.

Personally if someone like a Bibendum or any other BHP'ian owner faced and reported it, I would truly be alarmed, but as of now, this could even be other circumstances the people reporting these cases are omitting or missed to share.

The Seltos has sold upwards of 100,000 Seltos' so far in India and if the alarmist feedback from this thread is to be extrapolated there should have been at least 100 serious accidents involving these cars assuming it is a 1% failure rate and still we don't have anything even remotely close to this.


To clarify, I say I will take a BHP'ian owner more seriously is because in general we are a far more informed lot about all things cars (to varying degrees) and as enthusiasts who take the time to register and contribute to the forum, that to me reduces the chances of bad driving and thus increasing the seriousness of the complaint.

The service GM of Kun Kia is well known to me (and is always truthful, and I have known him for 15+ years now as he was the SA to the first ever car I owned, a Santro) and he says that in the past year he has not handled, nor has his team come across any such cases.

One thing about the first case though intrigues me,

Using cruise in the city at 50 kmph driving on 6th gear and coming up at a red signal?

So many questions here,

1) Even on brilliant highways one can barely hold cruise as you constantly need to break, even on otherwise empty city roads, cruise is an impossibility (unless it is something like the Hyd or Chennai ORR's),

2) 6th gear at 50 kmph will mean super low RPM's and I personally can sense the vehicle is near stalling, the gear shift indicator will also be asking you to down shift, so why even do this

3) The post claims that the driver had 3-4 seconds at 50 kmph to slow down for the signal (by eventually using the handbrake), this translates to almost 230-300 mtrs traveled and still make the signal, but without hitting anyone in a city road?

Sorry but the questions that this first incident raises are just too many.

Disclaimer- I don't work for Kia in any capacity, I do own a Seltos' and while BS4 creta (with its known issues, including those raised by many BHP'ians) was a known and troubling issue, I am not yet alarmed in any capacity at this point. That being said, I will anyway get my brakes checked as a I have a 1000 km run coming up in TN Monsoon season - doesnt hurt to be precautious I guess.

Open to having my arguments disproved, I made them only in the spirit of playing the devils advocate