Kia Sorento

fred926

The electroluminescent speedometer isn't readable during daylight operation. This causes a very real safety situation when the driver has to take his eyes off the road for 3 or 4 seconds to figure out how fast he is going.

The display is entirely programmable by Kia. They have chosen to show the speed by a small dark red marker against a black background. During daylight driving you have to hunt for the marker. Put on sun glasses and it can take 5 or 6 seconds to find the marker. All that time you are not looking at the road.

Simple program changes and software updates could easily solve this problem. - Make the marker longer and/or bigger, make the marker lighter red, make the marker white, or show the speed numerically in the center of the speedometer. All these could be driver selectable from the existing “settings” menu.

Kia has been made aware of this problem since at least June 10, 2013 (case # K2502753 – customer service representatives Quinton and Robin). They are liable for accidents caused by this faulty product. The local Kia service people recognize the problem but only corporate Kia can fix it.

Other than this safety issue my $39,050 2014 Sorento Limited is perfectly assembled and excellently designed.

Update: The local service people were told by Kia that they are working on the problem. That means Kia is selling vehicles with known safety issues.

george24

While you are waiting for some change from Kia, do you know that, using the Settings section shown in that display, you can make the speedometer font larger and therefore much easier to read?

cottonwoodko1

I agree with you that the sun fades the ev display.. Mercedes had the same problem 2 years ago and now has a large ring, black numbers and a larger black speedometer needle.see google images Mercedes c speedometer..This would be a software change only..If Kia admits that there is a problem..Asians do not like to loose face..

bpwl

Very nice overview in the awdand4wd link. From studying the kia.infotech.com shop manuals, the XM (and XM/FL) Sorento have an "On Demand AWD (traverse)" which is in auto mode (activated when appropriate). With the lock button the Sorento goes into "Part Time 4WD" up to 30km/h (19mph). It goes into auto-mode above that speed to eliminate the drawbacks of "Part Time 4WD". Remember that the Sorento has no middle differential. The term locking differential is more for the front and rear differential, where the traction control, ESP and ABS do the locking for the otherwise open front and rear differentials to support left/right torque distribution.
The older Sorento (JB) looks like a "On-Demand AWD (longitudinal)" execution.