Kia Mechanical Breakdown Protection, and battery

[DavidGOnBowen]

We bought a Kia 2016 EV back in 2020. It was off-lease, and in good shape, and the dealership had a lot, so we were able to get a reasonable price.

I love the car (except in the snow), and the payments on it have been offset by not buying gas (we have very cheap electricity where we live).

When we bought the car, we purchased the Kia extended warranty that included the "Mechanical Breakdown Protection". It was not cheap - maybe a fifth of the purchase price of the car? It covers the electric motor, the high voltage cables, power converter and inverter, home charging unit, the battery, the battery charger and generators

Anyway, our battery used to show 140km range in the summer, 105-110km in the winter. This winter, it' dropped to 71km. I purchased the Kia EV Spy software, and discovered our SOH is 66.8%.

The regular warranty, which has probably expired (I am going to pull out the manual and check), says the battery is to be replaced if the SOH is under 70%. Does anyone know if the same applies to the extended warranty?

 

[IanL]

I can't say for sure, but it would be pretty indefensible if it did not, and I would expect a court to find in your favor if KIA tried to apply a lower definition (unless, they had predefined it in the warranty terms, which you have presumably checked).

OTOH, if the warranty is provided by a third party, and just called a KIA warranty because it is applied to KIA cars, you may have a more difficult argument.

 

[DavidGOnBowen]

Thanks. The warranty documentation all says Kia, and I bought it at the dealership.

I pulled out our warranty info, and the car has an 8-year, 140,000 km warranty on the battery, so it might be covered under the basic warranty.

If we don't do any claims against our extended warranty, we get a portion of the money back, so the basic warranty would be the way to go.

Yes - the conditions under which the warranty kick in should be identical. I just have to make sure that they test the battery (and get the details) first, prior to software updates, or disconnecting the battery.

 

[Nigel]

We purchased our 2016 Soul EV new in 2016 with a 160,000km, 8 year warranty. This is transferable with the car so you shouldn't have any trouble making a claim as your car is probably less than 8 years old. Check the original registration if you can to determine the warranty start date.

As the Soul EV was relatively new technology and we tend to keep our vehicles for 10+ years we also purchased the Kia Extended warranty that covers the drive train, battery, suspension components etc. for an additional 2 years over the Kia 8 year warranty. Like yours there is a refund if you don't make any claims and a clawback if you do. Consequently making minor claims doesn't make sense but for traction motor, on board charger, the 27kWh battery it provides valuable coverage. The Kia extended warranty is also transferable should you buy a new kia and have not made a claim.

Our initial traction battery fell off a cliff in terms of range in it's 5th year, declining rapidly from 160km summer range to 80km over a couple of months, much like yours seems to be doing. Dealer checked the SOH at 55% and authorized a replacement. Middle of Covid so it took about 8 months to get the battery but only a day to get it installed. E400 cells (Significant improvement over the original cells) and still going strong today.