Electrical problem since first year - advice?

[tdsherman]

I'm posting this to ask for advice on how to best move forward. Here are the key points:

I am based in Seattle WA and own a 2022 Telluride that I bought new in Jan 2022. Love the car but within the first year it would frequently have a dead battery and need to be jump-started. The problem continues to this day.

The car has 29K miles.

Kia has repeatedly identified a "parasitic draw" on the battery that will competely drain the battery, almost overnight.

I have jump-started the car hundreds of times. Many times that would not work and required hours of recharging prior to starting.

It has been in the dealer's repair service 8 separate times for a total of 124 days and counting... The last repair was from the first week of November '25 through the end of December '25 for a total of 52 days. The week after I got it back it in Dec it had the same problem - dead battery in the morning. It has been back with the dealer since then.

Each time the Telluride was returned to me by the dealer as fixed which repeatedly consisted of replacing one or more electrical components.

The battery has been replaced twice - at my expense.

They provided a loaner car twice - which came with restriction of 50 miles per day and no dogs were allowed (one of the reasons we bought the Telluride). Currently no loaner car.

It is still under warranty - until next week. Kia Corporate has said that they will likely continue to repair the Telluride as a "goodwill" gesture. While I am skeptical of this commitment it does nothing to solve the fact that the car frequently doesn't start and cannot be relied on.

I have been in contact with Kia Corporate Consumer group. My situation is currently in "escalation" and has been for months but nothing has happened. In fact, they have not responded in the last two weeks despite repeately telling me I would hear back within 24 hours.

I have no confidence that the problem will be solved. Neither does the dealer.

My very clear ask is a replacement car or a buy back - using common calculations under varioius lemon laws. That does not seem unreasonable considering Kia sold sold me a defective vehicle and that have proven they are unable to resolve the problem. At this point, I am also concerned about safety issues as some electical systems, such as the digital dashboard, have gone blank while driving.

So... I'm looking for guidance and potential next steps.

Any/all help appreciated.

 

[KMiles]

Are you within the time-frame for the Washington State Lemon Law? Link

 

[RobK]

My wife had a 2022 Hyundai Tucson which as we know Hyundai is owned by the same parent company as Kia. We had the same issue with her battery draining and being dead even if I charged the car overnight, by the evening it would not start. After many trips and long stays at the dealer they finally figured out that it was some battery draw that they couldn't locate and finally decided to replace the car with a new one. Unfortunately for us at that time new cars were still in short supply due to covid so they bought the car back from us and we had to order a new one. They replaced the battery twice at their expense and even when we went in to get all of our belongings out of the car and do the paper work, they drove the car to the front and when they tried to move it back after we left it was dead again. We are located in North Idaho and the dealer was very helpful but did try everything they could before finally giving in. I got the impression from the person at the dealer I was working with that ours was not the first car Hyundai was seeing with this issue. Makes you wonder if there was a bad batch of something that was installed in some cars that year. I say keep pushing for the lemon law.