When it comes to popular car brands, Kia may be overlooked compared to the more popular brands like Ford or Toyota. However, Kia’s created a brand-new SUV, the Telluride, and it shouldn’t be overlooked. Here’s everything you need to know about how reliable the Telluride is. 

The Kia Telluride: new car, no problems 

As with many brand-new cars, the Telluride has very few problems so far. This could be because Kia simply designed a great SUV, or it could be that it’s so new that its owners haven’t discovered any issues yet. This doesn’t mean that the Telluride is problem-free, but it’s also nothing to scoff at either.

Sometimes, when an automaker creates a new car model or updates an old one, it comes with a lot of issues. This was what happened with the Ford Explorer. That said, as far as anyone can tell, the Telluride has very few problems. For example, Consumer Reports gave the Telluride an overall reliability verdict of 4 out of 5. 

According to Consumer Reports, the digital displays and touchscreens of the Telluride would sometimes simply not work. On top of that, Consumer Reports mentioned that if a child seat isn’t secured properly, then the child may suffer more severe injuries if an accident happened. Those were the only two issues that Consumer Reports mentioned about the Telluride. In every other aspect, it scored a perfect 5 out of 5 rating for reliability.

Will the Kia Telluride continue to be reliable?

Kia designed the Telluride for a perfect blend of performance, comfort, and safety. Based on what Consumer Reports has to say about the Telluride’s safety features, it seems Kia has hit a home run. The Telluride, due to all of its perks and features, earned itself a score of 92 out of 100, according to Consumer Reports.

This high score meant that the Telluride was Consumer Reports’s highest-ranked mid-sized SUV, beating 29 other competitors. This impressive feat shows that Kia’s definitely put a lot of work into the Telluride. Unless Telluride owners discover a terrible flaw with the SUV, we can deduce that the Telluride’s reliability will remain as great as the SUV is. 

However, not every car critic is giving the Telluride as much praise as Consumer Reports is. For example, U.S. News reports that J.D. Power and Associates gave the Telluride a 4 out of 5 for reliability. U.S. News considers that to be better than most, but when this number is combined with the other ratings that U.S. News gave the Telluride, the brand-new Kia SUV only scored 8.6 out of 10 overall.  

Kia’s overall reliability 

While the Telluride may seem perfect, Kia, as an automaker, doesn’t have a perfect track record when it comes to reliability. That said, no automaker, not even Toyota, is perfect when it comes to that. But when all’s said and done, Kia does have a pretty good track record for reliability. 

AutoList compiled a list of the most reliable car brands, and Kia was fifth on that list. The usual suspects when it comes to high reliability were first, but notably, Kia beat brands such as Chevy and Ford. Kia also beat some of its Asian competitors, such as Hyundai and Honda, according to AutoList. 

That said, while the Kia Sedona was ranked ninth in the “Most Reliable Vehicles” list, the Kia Cadenza was ranked fifth in the “Least Reliable Vehicles” list. These two examples show that while Kia is capable of creating a reliable car, Kia is also capable of doing the exact opposite.

It’ll take time to figure out where on that spectrum the Kia Telluride lands on, however. The more people who own and drive the Telluride, the sooner that we’ll know just how reliable of an SUV it really is.