New to the forum. Just picked up my new 2025 Kia Sportage Hybrid SX Prestige on 12/28/24 (after a 6 month wait) and on 12/20/24 I had it towed back to the dealer-car/battery died. Driving about a mile and then the engine light came on...car started hesitating and I pulled over and that was it. No power...no nothing. Vehicle still at dealer and I've heard nothing back. Christmas week...what a great time for car trouble.
Any idea as to what could have happened? I was told that the vehicle was sitting in the port of Philadelphia for 3-4 moths for whatever reason.
Joseph here, I had a similar problem with our PHEV 2024 SX Sportage. After driving 65-70km continuously in EV mode at about 75 km/hr on country roads (easily eclipsing the 54 km battery range), my 'engine overheating' light would come on each time I exceeded 60+ km of continuous driving on EV mode, and for the remainder of that day, the vehicle would refuse to go back into EV mode, even after charged. My dealer could not replicate the issue, and so we could not get any information on what was occurring.
After trial and error, I now understand what's happening with Sportage PHEVs flagging an 'overheating' engine light, after driving 60+ kilometers on a single battery in a single drive. It turns out that the car's computer automatically shuts down the EV function every time the vehicle is driven more that 60km continuously in 1 day on EV mode, not because the battery or motor is overheating, but as a failsafe for the hybrid system. You can easily get around this, if you drive country roads like me in your PHEV, by simply switching your PHEV into hybrid mode with the center console button manually when you've driven about 55km continuously on a single drive and in a single day.
Then, just 1 km after you've manually activated the engine on your drive, switch back into EV mode with the center console button and keep saving gas for the remaining 10-15 km of your quiet and smooth ride. This works like a charm, as the engine computer never registers an uninterrupted 60+ km EV drive when you use this technique. For anybody interested. I live 70km from work in southern Ontario, and so I drive ALOT, but I still get amazing economy from our PHEV, currently I'm sitting with 33% fuel since my last fill up 1 month ago and I have driven 2900+ km in the time, getting an average of 1 liter/ 100 km (Canadian), equivalent to 235 mpg.
Because the Canadian government gave an incentive of $5000 when we bought over a year ago, we only had to spend a little more than the price of a Hybrid SX to get the PHEV SX. In the fist full year of driving, we saved $2000 in fuel expenses, even taking into account the cost of charging, which covered the delta in price we paid. We now don't watch the price of gas at all, it's just not a concern anymore because of the PHEV's efficiency. If you're wandering if you should take the plunge and go Electric with a PHEV!.. Just do it, and then thank me later!
