Kia Access 4+

Use of this app is free for me right now but in a few months they will be requiring a $20-30$ monthly fee, which is really crazy. This application is at best half baked and not worth paying money for. Remote Start requires you to have the doors locked before it will execute. So you have to remotely lock the doors and wait while the entire app is locked up for a few minutes so it knows the doors locked or not. Sometimes that doesn’t work. But when it does work you then can try to remote start it again which may or may not work. This should be a single command that locks your car and starts it. And it should do it in the background and not lock up the entire app. And it should support Siri and shortcuts so you don’t have to open their shoddy buggy app and spend 2 minutes just to remote start your car.

I love the Telluride, but this app is a joke and to charge a fee for something this broken and unreliable is insane. Hopefully they extend the free trial for users who have suffered using this dumpster fire of an application if they ever fix it to be usable.

We're so sorry to hear about your troubles with the Kia UVO app. Thank you for your feedback! You're welcome to reach out to us at uvo@kiaconsumeraffairs.com so we can gather more information about your vehicle, and help you resolve these issues. Have a good day! ^RC

I’ve had a 2020 Optima SX for about 5 months and i’ve had the Kia Connect subscription the whole time. I overall like the app and it does work, however I have a few complaints/suggestions. First of all, the biggest complaint is that when you use the app to start the car your hazards will flash (brightly) and continue to flash until the car is no longer running or you get in it. I find this to be irritating and I highly doubt my neighbors like it much either… maybe just leaving the running lights on would be less irritating… Another feature missing is the fact that I cannot turn on my heated (or cooled) seats from the app. I can turn on my defroster and heated steering wheel but not the seats which in my opinion are the best part. This could be a technical limitation but I would really like to know why that would be. Another thing is that I would like to see is maybe a home screen widget for iPhone to start/stop and lock/unlock the car right from the home screen. And finally the time from when you send a request to the car for it to actually execute it takes forever sometimes 2+ minutes even with great cell/GPS coverage in the wide open, and sometimes you’ll get an error that it can’t at all. Overall the app does work and is much better than nothing, but has some pretty irritating quirks that I feel could be ironed out.

Your software for your vehicle may need to be updated- update.kia.com Please contact us at https://ksupport.kiausa.com/ConsumerAffairs/Message/NewMessage *On step 3, Sub Category select Kia Connect so we can go over your other concerns. Thank you! ^KW

The frustration related to delay due to cellular or GPS connection many people expressed here is understandable. However, I agree that Kia should make Kia connect free for the first five years or lower the price forever….and maybe for those cars without immobilizer completely free forever and or update the security settings etc. I got a 2023 Sportage Hybrid in July 2022. After my purchase, I found out about the TikTok challenge of “how to steal a Kia or a Hyundai in one minute”. I went into panic and spent hours researching for added security and theft deterrence for my car, even though it is equipped with immobilizer. While being able to track the car’s location increases the recovery rate if the car is stolen, I think it’s still the manufacturer’s responsibility to have the state of the art security system. I have not looked into my insurance’s cost compared with, say, if I had purchased a RAV4 Hybrid, but I am sure the insurance company takes make/models that are frequently targeted into consideration. If the consumers had known this ahead of their new purchase, it would have really hurt Kia. So, I am shouting out to Kia to “give back and upgrade”.
Another note to the Kia keyless entry owners, make sure you put BOTH of your key fob in a faraday bag every night. Google this and you will see what I mean.

Thank you for your concerns on recent issues with vehicle thefts. Please contact is at https://ksupport.kiausa.com/ConsumerAffairs/Message/NewMessage *On step 3, Sub Category select Kia Connect or 844-886-9411 if you have any questions! ^KW