Here's How Reliable Kias Are, According To Consumer Reports

Kia's journey, especially on American shores, has been a fascinating one spread over decades. It didn't start out perfectly, at least from a reputation standpoint, as Kia first focused on selling remarkably cheap cars, instead of trying to compete within the more luxurious and premium segments. However, as the years rolled on, Kia became more adventurous, opting to add SUVs, well-equipped sedans, hatchbacks, and eventually a smattering of hybrid models into its ever-growing model range. This continual improvement and expansion of cars offered has resulted in Kia's brand image taking a complete 180, as the Korean automaker now sits among the more highly recommended and reliable brands currently in the U.S.

Reputation only goes so far, though. For prospective buyers who are thinking of switching from their current preferred brand to Kia, they'd likely rather see hard evidence on just how reliable Kia cars are. Thankfully, Consumer Reports (CR) offers us just such data. CR has ranked 22 leading automakers according to their reliability, and this information tells us exactly how Kia fares against key competitors.

The top performers are still comfortably ahead of the Korean automaker — this includes brands like Toyota, Subaru, and Honda – but Kia isn't lagging too far behind. In fact, Kia sits in a fairly middling position, just at the tail end of the top 40%, outperforming some big names, like Ford, Volvo, and Volkswagen. Surprisingly, Kia is only marginally behind some really aspirational and premium brands, namely BMW and Audi, which speaks volumes about the quality on offer from Kia's much more attainable models.

Interestingly, Consumer Reports has also ranked a total of 26 automakers according to their used car reliability, whereas the aforementioned report deals only with new cars. The used car research, which looks at the reliability of five- to ten-year-old models, shows Kia as one of the very worst out there. This might sound like bad news at first, and if you're thinking of buying an older Kia, then yes, it likely is. However, what it also shows is how far Kia has come as an automaker in the last five to ten years, to now be able to sit among some of the better performers within the industry.

Consumer Reports is not the only third-party firm to recognize the improved reliability of recent Kia models. Both the 2025 Kia Telluride and 2025 Kia EV9 — which we test-drove and reviewed last year – have picked up awards in the U.S. News Best Car Rankings. While these awards aren't solely reliability-focused, U.S. News says that reliability ratings do come into the mix, alongside factors such as safety, space, comfort, convenience, and connectivity.