I have gotten a lawyer involved in the past, which has helped. I'm keeping that option open again.
If we do get it back repaired properly, we'll likely try to sell it ASAP before a new problem comes up. I think we got a dud, and I'm ready to get rid of it.
We really liked it when it was working though, and know lots of people who have been satisfied with theirs, so there's some temptation to try again with a 2023. But the battle wounds may be too much and we might be done...
Update about my saga. Long story short, I got it fixed but also traded it in for a 2023
- Took this to my closest Kia dealer (out of convenience), which was not the dealer where I originally purchased & had the first rounds of driveshaft/coupler repairs done
- That closer dealership was horribly mismanaged. They held my Telly for multiple days without touching it, no loaner, never answered the phone, etc. At one point I had to drive over there in my other car and walk into the service director's office just to talk to someone. That director happened to quit (or was fired) a few days later
- They eventually took a look at the Telluride, said some bolts from the last repair were crossthreaded and snapped, and it wouldn't be covered by warranty. They wanted 2500 for the repair
- I asked for the telly back, called the original dealer, and they agreed to take a look at it themselves to try to make it right
- I drove it over, they gave me a loaner, acknowledged the issue was their fault, but had it fixed for free within 24 hours (somehow they got a part in right away)
- While there I struck up a convo with my original salesman and asked about a trade-in deal
- He had a 2023 coming in within a month with the trim/colors I liked (SX X-Line in Jungle Green)
- Although I didn't get the perfect deal I desired, they offered a pretty reasonable value on our trade in so I put the deposit down.
Even though our 21 was working normally again after the most recent repair, we were too drained from all the issues we'd had with it and paranoid something would come up again.
I was hesitant to get another telluride, and started looking around again. But wife was against a minivan and there's still no concrete news about the redesigned Pilots. I was nervous about used car values dropping dramatically before we sorted anything out (they were already coming down a lot in October), so we decided to act quickly on a very fair tradein value from the dealer and a 23 that we could claim without a long wait. So here we go again!