General Information
Year
2012
Make
Kia
Model
Optima
Color
Titanium Silver
Packages
Everything except Navigation and heated steering wheel
History
I bought the car in November of 2011, kind of an early Christmas present, from Turnersville Kia.
I fell in love with the car immediately it was the third car my wife and I had looked at the other two were the Ford Fusion which was very nice and the Hyundai Sonata I almost went with the Ford but it was missing several options that both the Optima and Sonata had so I eliminated the Fusion and the Hyundai dealer was completely obnoxious even though I told them I was just shopping at the moment the salesperson called over and over again at home as well as at work so that was a huge strike against the Sonata even though my wife drives a Santa Fe that came from that very same dealership I was completely in love with the Kia!!!
So that's what I went with it was an extremely easy process to buy the car I did the credit app electronically so other than the visit to test drive the car the only other time I had to go to the dealership was to actually sign the paperwork and pick up my car I would recommend Turnersville Kia to anyone in South Jersey.
It was all perfect till about 1300 miles I was at a drive thru grabbing a snack when I felt a miss in the engine I had recently filed up so I thought maybe a little water in the gas something like that but on the way home the miss returned and I had lost power felt like I was running on 3 cylinders.
I contacted the service deptartment told them the story and because I did not drive the car much they thought maybe it was loaded up and I should take it out on the highway and get it up to speed to see if it cleared out.
Years ago I had a friend who worked at a Porsche dealer and I remember him telling me how older owners of 911 turbos would bring the car in complaining of no power and they would take the car out on 295 and drive it hard to clear it out and hand it back to the owner with a $150 bill so the "take it out on the highway" request seemed reasonable to me so I did it but saw no improvement so to the dealer it went.
While I waited they diagnosed it as a bad spark plug which sounded right but they had to order the plug so they arranged a rental for me.
They called me a day later to explain that the plug was not just bad but the electrode had broken off and I had a quarter inch hole in the top of the number 3 piston.
I was shocked but the next thing they told me floored me they told me they had to replace the entire motor!!!
Needless to say I was extremely upset I have seen what engine compartments look like after an engine swap and rarely have I seen a good one SO I proceeded to explain what a pain in the ass I am and that I wanted them to give this project to their most experienced technician and if it wasn't perfect I wouldn't accept the car blah blah blah.
They went over and above ensuring me and trying to allay my fears within and hour of the service manager talking to me on the phone I got a call from Kia corporate and spoke to the head of east coast customer relations and she told me exactly what was going to happen gave me her direct number and her cell and said it would be perfect or it would be replaced...so I said can we just go straight to the replacement?? But that wasn't an option so I got daily progress reports I was emailed when the engine reached the different points it went thru on its trip across the country and I was happy to find out the decided to do the long block replacement and not the short block so basically I was getting EVERYTHING brand new instead of them reusing parts from the original motor.
Once the motor arrived at the dealer I had my car back 36 hours later when I arrived to pick it up the service manager and the tech were on hand to go over everything that was done and it was perfect.
Doing the paperwork I was again shocked to find out it was more than $9000 to complete this job WOW!!!!!
Well I now have a little over 12000 miles on the car and they have been trouble free other than a few oil changes and a waste gate reprogramming due to a TSB the car has been flawless.
I fell in love with the car immediately it was the third car my wife and I had looked at the other two were the Ford Fusion which was very nice and the Hyundai Sonata I almost went with the Ford but it was missing several options that both the Optima and Sonata had so I eliminated the Fusion and the Hyundai dealer was completely obnoxious even though I told them I was just shopping at the moment the salesperson called over and over again at home as well as at work so that was a huge strike against the Sonata even though my wife drives a Santa Fe that came from that very same dealership I was completely in love with the Kia!!!
So that's what I went with it was an extremely easy process to buy the car I did the credit app electronically so other than the visit to test drive the car the only other time I had to go to the dealership was to actually sign the paperwork and pick up my car I would recommend Turnersville Kia to anyone in South Jersey.
It was all perfect till about 1300 miles I was at a drive thru grabbing a snack when I felt a miss in the engine I had recently filed up so I thought maybe a little water in the gas something like that but on the way home the miss returned and I had lost power felt like I was running on 3 cylinders.
I contacted the service deptartment told them the story and because I did not drive the car much they thought maybe it was loaded up and I should take it out on the highway and get it up to speed to see if it cleared out.
Years ago I had a friend who worked at a Porsche dealer and I remember him telling me how older owners of 911 turbos would bring the car in complaining of no power and they would take the car out on 295 and drive it hard to clear it out and hand it back to the owner with a $150 bill so the "take it out on the highway" request seemed reasonable to me so I did it but saw no improvement so to the dealer it went.
While I waited they diagnosed it as a bad spark plug which sounded right but they had to order the plug so they arranged a rental for me.
They called me a day later to explain that the plug was not just bad but the electrode had broken off and I had a quarter inch hole in the top of the number 3 piston.
I was shocked but the next thing they told me floored me they told me they had to replace the entire motor!!!
Needless to say I was extremely upset I have seen what engine compartments look like after an engine swap and rarely have I seen a good one SO I proceeded to explain what a pain in the ass I am and that I wanted them to give this project to their most experienced technician and if it wasn't perfect I wouldn't accept the car blah blah blah.
They went over and above ensuring me and trying to allay my fears within and hour of the service manager talking to me on the phone I got a call from Kia corporate and spoke to the head of east coast customer relations and she told me exactly what was going to happen gave me her direct number and her cell and said it would be perfect or it would be replaced...so I said can we just go straight to the replacement?? But that wasn't an option so I got daily progress reports I was emailed when the engine reached the different points it went thru on its trip across the country and I was happy to find out the decided to do the long block replacement and not the short block so basically I was getting EVERYTHING brand new instead of them reusing parts from the original motor.
Once the motor arrived at the dealer I had my car back 36 hours later when I arrived to pick it up the service manager and the tech were on hand to go over everything that was done and it was perfect.
Doing the paperwork I was again shocked to find out it was more than $9000 to complete this job WOW!!!!!
Well I now have a little over 12000 miles on the car and they have been trouble free other than a few oil changes and a waste gate reprogramming due to a TSB the car has been flawless.
2012 Kia Optima (Titanium Silver)
Modifications
Exterior
I am in the process of upgrading all of the lighting on the car, some things for the second time, and I added the led lights in the rear bumper which just look like they should have come from the factory that way.
