enjoy driving the car BUT.......
I leased a brand new Kona Limited on 8/9/2021. As of today, the car has 132 miles on it so you can see I'm not a road runner. While still in the dealership, my salesperson could not get the Blue Link to register to me and promised me to keep working on it and get back to me. Not a word from anyone for several days so I attempted to register it myself. NO LUCK!! None of my information or even the vehicle itself was recognized through everything I did. I finally filled out an online form asking for assistance. Next day I get an email telling me to get it fixed through the dealer....they wouldn't do a thing. I called Hyundai customer service at that point and got a sympathetic CSR who promised to get a solution ASAP. I then called my salesperson and found out that they were having problems too but they hadn't even called Hyundai at that point. They promised to do so. Almost a week went by and I hadn't heard from anyone so I called Hyundai back and got the same song and dance about the dealership needs to solve it. At that point, I was pissed and refused to take no for an answer. The CSR promised to escalate the issue and re-opened my original ticket number for help. I called my salesperson back and found out that they had an open help ticket on it, too. It took a total of 3 weeks to get this issue solved and get me hooked up to Blue Link. Without Blue Link, the vehicle is not being monitored so imagine my surprise when I finally needed to drive the car and a warning message came up that there was an engine issue which meant a service call. I tried to use both the app and an online site to request an appointment but there was no area to copy/paste the information from the email I got from Blue Link so I decided to call but the dealership was already closed.
The next day, 9/2/21, I called the service department and the phone rang and rang and rang. I finally got a recorded message that the service department could not answer my call and to leave a detailed message......which I did. Since the service department appeared to be open late that night, I figured I would get a call that evening......but no, nothing!! Next morning.....more nothing....early afternoon....still nothing. So I called back around the same time I had called the previous day and had the same experience....no answer and I left another message.....this one a bit more heated. I also called my salesperson with no answer for her phone and left another message. Well, today is Saturday and according to their website, they are open for business and I HAVE NOT HEARD A DAMNED THING FROM ANYONE!!!
I decided to join a Kona Owners group after going through this and heard some horror stories about Blue Link problems including the car stopping while driving down the road....lucky for that person that they weren't on the freeway or busy road. I've also read about a recall that involves the 2 liter engine and what problems you could face with that. Numerous people reported that their engines needed to be replaced or worse yet, having to wait for parts to repair thing....for a month or more.
I love driving this car.....it's fun.....but I am very sorry that despite all the research and talking to a friend that had one, that I leased this car. I was seeking the reliability of a new car and liked the fact that it had a long warranty and 3 years free maintenance but if you can't even get a return call from the service department, I'm back to having an expensive old piece of junk.
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