Marquita McClain
says driving her new Kia Sephia is no problem, but getting it
to stop is another story. "It takes forever to stop,"
explains McClain. "I have to start braking before I need
to. It' s like -- dangerous."
The first
time she took her car in for repairs, workers told her the rotors
were the root of her problems. "Five months later I was having
problems again -- squeaking and it was taking a long time to stop,"
explains McClain, "so again I took it back and they said
it's fine."
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"If
they buy it back, that's fine -- if they fix the brakes, that's
fine.
Just so I don't have to be riding in fear."
-- Marquita McClain, Joined Class Action vs Kia
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McClain isn't
alone. In fact, a Pennsylvania law firm has filed two class action
suits against Kia Motors citing problems with its 1998, 1999 and
2000 Sephia models.
"All
these vehicles are having problems with the brakes," explains
Lemon Law Attorney Craig Kimmel, "very frequent rotor replacement
-- every 3- or 4-thousand miles on average -- rather than 50-to
60-thousand miles on average."
While Kia
does make repairs under its warranty, Kimmel says those repairs
often don't last.
"What
they have done historically is replaced the defective parts with
more defective parts or redesigned parts which they claim fix
the problem but really don't fix the problem at all -- just redesign."
Kimmel adds, "So what they are doing is letting the public
do their research and testing for them."
When McClain
heard that other Kias were having brake problems, she joined a
class action suit against the company. "If they buy it back,
that's fine -- if they fix the brakes, that's fine," McClain
adds, "just so I don't have to be riding in fear."
If you think
you might be driving a lemon, Kimmel says you should save all
your paperwork from the repeated repairs. Kimmel says he expects
the suit to expand to include more models.
Meanwhile,
representatives from Kia point out that the class action suit
has not been certified yet -- which means it's up to the judge
to decide.
Kia also says
consumers do better one-on-one with repairs and individual lemon
cases than they do as part of a class action suit.
