Federal complaint record · Kia Forte · model year 2015

2015 Kia Forte

Owners submitted 258 federal complaint reports about this model year, placing it at the 31th percentile for complaint intensity within its 2013 to 2017 compact sedan cohort. The largest reported component group is engine. Sample sizes and limitations are shown below.

Engine · 49% · group n = 160Other · 10% · group n = 31Electrical · 9% · group n = 29Airbags · 7% · group n = 23Powertrain · 5% · group n = 17
258
Complaint records on file
75,000
Median mileage at the reported problem · 149 complaints reported mileage
49%
Of classified component reports name engine · group n = 160
31th
Complaint-intensity percentile in a cohort of 40 model years

Engine · 5 in ten classified complaints

Where this record concentrates

All failure files
Component group 01 · Engine49%

Engine reports

Kia Forte · model year 2015

Reports in this group160
Share of classified reports49%
Component groups on file6
Open the failure files

Adjacent model years · same badge, different data

The complaint signal has a shape

Compare model years
2014
0.6complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
437 matched incidents
This car
2015
0.3complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
258 matched incidents
2016
0.1complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
132 matched incidents

The line compares submitted complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years, not failures per 1,000 cars. Vehicle-years use compiled US sales, a 0.25 prior-calendar-year plus 0.75 current-calendar-year model-year allocation, and the shipped survival curve. Rates appear only where estimated vehicles in operation are at least 5,000.

From the record · recurring narrative clusters

What recurring complaint clusters describe

How clusters are built
Fire or smoke · 42 reports

Reports describe smoke, burning smells, or fire

Cluster 1 of 32015 Kia Forte
Stalling or shutdown · 39 reports

Reports describe the vehicle stalling or shutting off while driving

Cluster 2 of 32015 Kia Forte
Engine damage · 32 reports

Reports describe engine damage or oil consumption

Cluster 3 of 32015 Kia Forte

Cluster summaries paraphrase recurring symptoms reported to NHTSA. They are aggregate descriptions, not individual verbatim reports.

Records through 2026-07-19Published 2026-08-02 · Updated 2026-07-19

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NHTSA consumer complaint records can reveal recurring patterns across published model years. MotorCensus summarizes those records as one complaint-signal index, with a 95% interval and sample size, updated with each data snapshot.

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