[Slickshift99]

Hi Team,
My close friend got the delivery of his Brand New Kia Sonet HTK+ petrol on 20th December 2020. I had accompanied him for the PDI at the stockyard, all looking good we gave a thumbs-up for the alloted car. Yesterday on the 27th of December while his father was driving the car, the engine mount broke leaving him stranded along the road. He says the car hit a small pothole and weird rattling sounds arose from the engine bay. Road side assistance was deployed by the company and the car was towed away with officials citing an approximate 5 days for the repair.
Such a breakdown in a brand new car is simply unacceptable. Bringing up the question about build quality of the product after the infamous Seltos brake failure issue.

Attaching a few photos that were clicked at the time of incident.










Looking forward to your valuable inputs on what should be done further in the matter.

Thanks.

[Tojo_GotBhp]

Originally Posted by Slickshift99

Yesterday on the 27th of December while his father was driving the car, the engine mount broke leaving him stranded along the road.

Very sorry for what your friend had to go through!

Did your friend's car go through the pathole at high speed? Anyways, this is just so scary!

Still, should it give up so soon? I remember few instances where our Verna had to go through some sharp patholes at high speed on the highway due to low visibility at nights. No issues cropped up ever.

Could this be any QC issue of mounts manufactured in a particular batch?

One thing I would recommend is to get in WRITTEN from the service centre on what caused this engine mount failure. This is a very critical issue and could even turn fatal had it happened at high speeds.
Also, ask your friend to shoot a mail to Kia.

There seems to be some serious QC issues with Hyundai recently. Creta and Seltos brake failure, Kona electrical issues and so many!

Do keep us updated.

[ChoosetoCruze]

Originally Posted by Slickshift99

My close friend got the delivery of his Brand New Kia Sonet HTK+ petrol on 20th December 2020. Yesterday on the 27th of December while his father was driving the car, the engine mount broke leaving him stranded along the road. He says the car hit a small pothole and weird rattling sounds arose from the engine bay.

Such a breakdown in a brand new car is simply unacceptable. Bringing up the question about build quality of the product

Nothing to see here. Don’t lose your sleep. Keep calm & continue scrolling. This is just a normal day in the life of Hyundai group vehicles. They have indeed got the pulse of the Indian market. They are selling Indians such truly world class products. They know exactly what the masses want.

Hopefully, the air purifier, sunroof & other segment leading features would’ve kept the distressed owner pacified, during this harrowing ordeal in a 7 day old vehicle.

The fatigue crack at the bottom of the engine mount started long before the owner took delivery of the vehicle (see attached image below). Good luck trying to catch that during the PDI.

At this juncture, I can only sit back, relax & laugh at the circus of an OEM Hyundai/Kia has become. This thread is going to provide some much needed hilarity at the end, of what has apparently been the year of the automobile enthusiast!

Originally Posted by Tojo_GotBhp

Did your friend's car go through the pathole at high speed?

Still, should it give up so soon?

Could this be any QC issue of mounts manufactured in a particular batch?

There seems to be some serious QC issues with Hyundai recently.

I’ve driven all our cars at speed on some of the worst roads, never has an engine mount ever failed. My 10 yr old Micra with 170,000+ kms is still running on the factory engine & transmission mounts and they’re yet to demonstrate any signs of needing replacement. And I drive pedal to the metal.

I have been saying since a long time, QC doesn’t mean a thing in the Hyundai group. Rather they don’t believe in QC. What they have is a killer PR department along with owners with blind faith in the brand. They’re showing me classic signs of going the JLR way.

Putting lipstick on a pig(s) is my new analogy of the Hyundai group!

Source - https://www.slideshare.net/e_gulfam/fracture-42137132

[VeluM]

This is both sad and unique. I have never heard of such a catastrophic failure in a new car. Are you sure it was a small pothole? Condition of the rims, tyres and suspension should be an indication.

Given all of the QC issues that the Tata group cars have been famous for, I’d like to share a story related to this for context of how bad a “pothole” one can hit without anything other than the alloy bending - no suspension trouble, nothing else - and bulged tyre in an Indigo.

My father was driving to Coimbatore from Bangalore via Salem in 2008 as far as I remember. The highway to Coimbatore post Salem was under construction in those days, and one new section ended in a drop to the old highway level without warning of the diversion to the left. The car launched off, landed on the unpaved rocky ground and stopped on maximum braking.

They then drove on to a roadside repair shop who took the bend out of the alloy, and then slowly on to a tyre shop where two bulged tyres were replaced. And that’s all that was ever needed.

The car was a rattle trap, with plastics and trim falling off from everywhere - no excuses - but mechanically that’s how you want a car to be.

On a lighter note, there is a video of a truck engine jumping out of the engine bay after ripping out its mounts - that could happen in a Kia too, apparently

[AirbusCapt]

Don't expect the owner to mollycoddle the car over bumps and potholes.

On a serious note, get the suspension mounts checked as well, if the engine mount broke on account of the shock, it means the suspension has done the full travel and hit it's stops.

[kiku007]

This is appalling. I really want to see the pothole that's capable of breaking an engine mount. I hope KIA resolves the issue for this particular customer and also investigate the part for inherent design or tolerance limitations. The entire system that includes the tires, suspension and the engine mounts need a re-look. How can the mount just break?!

Over time I wonder if the Hyundai-KIA Group has launched a budget KIA brand for India that looks the same as their international ones but not the same below the surface. I can't recollect the Santro having as many issues as the Seltos or the Sonet during the first two years. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[DeathPig]

As someone who's waiting for his KIA Sonet, this leaves me quite worried...

Please keep us in the loop as to what happens, if your friend shares the same with you.

Could this be due to KIA pushing cars off as fast as possible to meet the burgeoning demand their vehicles have? The mount seems to have sheared right off at an angle. I'm not familiar with metal working/breakages at this scale. Is this how it usually happens?

[Turbohead]

Safe to say that Hyundai and Kia have gone to the dogs!

This is really hard to believe. Either the past designed is not capable of withstanding high forces or there is a serious quality control issue at the factory.

Eitherway, this is really bad and it's an insult to the customers who pay through their nose for 'quality'.

[John316_WRC]

OMG !! Engine mounts ideally wear out or fail after prolonged wear & tear. Even with abuse, mounts should last around 60k kms. For normal use mounts should easily last 80k-100k kms.

This is completely unacceptable. Ask your friend to threaten to take legal action against Kia. Such a failure can easily become life threatening and can be a cause for a serious accident.

I'm at a loss for words, complete failure in a new car is just shocking and really raises questions on the quality of the car.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by Slickshift99

Looking forward to your valuable inputs on what should be done further in the matter.

Please get the tyres, alloys and suspension inspected as well. If these are fine, as them the question of how an engine mount could break with such a minor impact. Hyundai-Kia doesn't respond well to escalation - so your friend's best option is the goodwill of the dealership itself.

Originally Posted by DeathPig

The mount seems to have sheared right off at an angle. I'm not familiar with metal working/breakages at this scale. Is this how it usually happens?

In our family Hyundai Xcent run just 25k kms (and 10 similar examples of the 1.2 petrol shared with the Sonet that I could find on the forum) - the alternator assembly fell of the car, after the bolt got sheared off. Now this is a part which isn't load bearing, which doesn't get hit and also is thick metal. The material failed and the parts just fell off one fine day.

Why am I not surprised if a load bearing part shears off, especially after an impact! IMHO - Hyundai Kia cars are delicate and need to be treated as such.


What fell off from my 25k kms run car - that too in our garage itself.

[Rahul Rao]

Originally Posted by Slickshift99

Yesterday on the 27th of December while his father was driving the car, the engine mount broke leaving him stranded along the road.

He got what he paid for. Normal Hyundai Kia gimmics. Great finishing, lot of electronic gizmos and cost cutting in core engineering.
Not very common but this is not un heard off in Creta either.

Note that if there is a casting fault it can happen in a new car. If this does not happen in first 6 months 6-8 k km then chances of such fractures are very low.

Listen to what people doing heavy travels say, If you cannot afford an Innova you have a few Fords, Tata's and Mahindra's all others are just porch ornaments.

Originally Posted by John316_WRC

This is completely unacceptable. Ask your friend to threaten to take legal action against Kia. Such a failure can easily become life threatening and can be a cause for a serious accident.

You cannot do much against companies that bribe customers with lot of fast free replacements and manage the media.

Rahul

[SideView]

Do ask your friend to get additional extended warranty.( via goodwill if possible)

Engine mount failure is ridiculous that too on a brand new car.

Please do share the pics of the wheels too, want to know what kind of speed your friend’s father was going for this to happen.(but it could have been already cracking and pothole hit finally sheared it off) Like others mentioned do get the suspension components checked.

Since such components are manufactured in batches, I recommend other owners just do a precautionary check for cracks.

Please do keep this thread updated on the root cause the Kia says for this issue.

[arunramaswamy]

Wow!! The kind of comments that I see here is really sad.

You have a person who is in need of some valuable inputs from a learnt community and all we have here are comments that adds no value to the OP. Instead all we see is people slating off Kia/Hyundai. I think we already have another thread for such comments.

Coming to the situation, if there are no visible damage to suspension, alloys or tyres, then this must be a defective engine mount. I would suggest to have a good rapport with the dealership since Hyundai/Kia treat escalations like horse-shit.

[VeluM]

To be fair, this is what the initial warranty on a new car covers. However, the comment by the OP of a small pothole is concerning. That should have been caught in the initial component tests, or post vehicle assembly tests.

At the end of the day the customer experience is what matters, and Hyundai-Kia do a good job of handling this via in warranty and out of warranty goodwill replacements. If the customer is happy, there won’t be many complaints.

[Rahul Bhalgat]

Originally Posted by Slickshift99

Yesterday on the 27th of December while his father was driving the car, the engine mount broke leaving him stranded along the road.

Looking forward to your valuable inputs on what should be done further in the matter.

It seems that the broken part is the BRACKET and not the engine mount. This bracket, made of aluminium alloy, connects the engine mount to the engine.

Obviously, it is a manufacturing defect caused by faulty metallurgy of the bracket. I think that the company will replace the bracket without fuss. Such defects are not common, so you can hope that such incidence won't repeat.

Please suggest your friend to ask the company to replace all three (or four, whatever) engine mount brackets as all these might be from the same batch (if from the same supplier). Take your request on the record; it will be useful in case another bracket fails in the future.