1 year with my Kia EV6: Good, bad of ownership & other updates

January 13, 2024

Parallely, got the BMW iX in May which offers a bunch of new gimmicks.

BHPian CarbonFume recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hi Bhpians,

It’s the one-year ownership update time of the year and boy do I have updates for y’all.

Not sure where to start to be honest but I think I would like to start by saying I miss my 330i which I sold 6 months into Ev6 ownership. She was not being used. And I say that because she clocked 1500 KMS in 6 months. I did not want her to sit all her life, neglected and have all rubber parts go bad. Hope the new owner takes great care of her like I have. (Also got a GREAT deal after 4 years and kept the carbon parts to set up as neat display units at work/home)

Coming to this silent elephant in the room, I’ve managed to tweak small bits in the car to my liking, (will get into the details).

Let’s start with the BAD, BAD and BAD.

SMS- Custom-made abbreviation for – STUPIDEST music system. Please Kia gods, this car is now @80 lakhs in Hyderabad with tax coming in. This speaker is great but the subwoofer is crap. I’ve come to realize that apart from a weak sub, the placement under 2-3 layers of boot floor (with sound insulation) was a horrible choice. Compounded, these make it worse for Ev6 in terms of superior sound quality. Believe me, seltos GT Line speakers sound better. Attached is a picture to show this mess up. Attached below are pictures to express how buried the sub is. Layer 1 rubber mat. Layer 2 hardwood boot floor. Layer 3 plastic trims covering the sub WHICH HAS SOUND INSULATION for excessive vibration I think? Parallely, got the iX in May with a bunch of new gimmicks such as BMW connected, air suspension and soft close. Hard to believe this was not standard earlier. But let’s save the IX review for later. All I brought it up for was to say, that the system in the BMW feels like you’re in the first row of tomorrow’s land with speakers melting your face off and vibrating every bit of your body. This quality came at a price but Ev6 isn’t a 30-40 lakh car like BYD or Ioniq.
Spare wheel- other Ev6 owners, particularly one from Hyderabad have managed to get all weather mats and spare wheels from KIA USA. What happened to Kia India? They still offer cloth mats saying all weather mats. How stupid do they think we are? Sure Kia has good RSA (Roadside assistance) and insurance too will provide RSA but you market EV6 as a 700 kms potential EV and you want us to try this on Indian roads with no spare? Also, I get it. Custom spare is not at all a difficult thing to do but come on. Not all Ev6 buyers are going to be young Petrolheads (EV-heads) who have the time to think or break their heads over this.
“So-called sleep mode”- The whackiest thing to ever happen to any EV6 owner would be the car refusing to start. When I say refusing to start, I mean, AC, Infotainment, lights and EVERYthing works. But the car stays in N or P. Do not engage in drive mode. Kia themselves are not able to explain what this is. Sleep mode of some sort is not what Kia has told us but something EV6 owners have come up with. Has happened with at least 7-8 of us. Very random. No specific pattern. The solution is to lock the car, walk away, and try again after 5-10 mins. Sure, Kia, I will do that if there is an emergency or panic. I will sit and wait staring at the beauty you have made. Extreme solution- disconnect 12V battery and reset? Sorry, but This alone makes me never let my family take the car far away. So much for a 700 km range.
Jinxed or just bad luck? Either the Ev6 looks like Tarzan the wonder car for Hyderabadi Bikers, or I just have terrible luck, but god damn these guys come so close, scrape your bumper and run away. Has happened 6-7 times in the last 2 months alone. ALL in traffic and speeds under 20kmph. I am in no way a sedate calm driver. I have a heavy right foot and this car has never given me over 450 kms. (I am not about to “save” range now, that practice was nonexistent even in an ICE car). But mind-boggling that despite all this rash driving, all impacts have been with impatient bikers at low speeds.
Front collision Intervention- hate it. It is stupid. I don’t need the car to brake every time someone cuts you on Indian roads, which is 2-3 times every day. I drive usually with this off but this one thing has to be turned off every time you start the car.
ABS- Yes, Kia has tried to “adjust the setting” for ABS. The reasoning is that a strong region along with braking on bad roads makes ABS kick regardless of speed. What nonsense. IX, MG EV or KONA do NOT do this. Yes, the car is damn Quick but this one thing alone makes me Not trust the braking on this car even after 1 full year. A slight bump or bad road will do the job.
OTA UPDATES. No OTA like Bmw. You gotta send the car to Kia or download the update on a pen drive and connect it to the car. Tedious process because it may fail a couple of times. I did it just to try and experience it but will not be bothered to do this again. What if I do something wrong and the car says sorry mate you gotta tow me now. Big nope.
TPMS. The Kia TPMS is a joke. To reset it- “fill 3-4 PSI higher than normal” pls KIA go jump in some well. Also if you are unlucky, this may not work and for weeks the error won’t go, when, to begin with, there was no low pressure. Same issue with Seltos or Carnival. A lot of the owners had low-pressure issues but most were good. But always some issue creeping up every 6-7 months. To make it worse, a couple of us have had random air leaks in the car with no visible puncture. Kia managed to fix this and I did not bother to check what the issue was after the first time they said no puncture. Took me 2 days.
SEAT ADJUSTMENT- so my driver seat recline adjuster failed in a sense. The seat would go down but not come up. Would work 1 out of 10 times. Kia said they would replace it, and ordered the part from Korea, On the day of fitment they said we have reprogrammed it, works fine now. Took them 25 days to program it and not replace, however, the car was at the service centre for 3 days only, not 25.

THE GOOD

Coming to the Good, after clocking nearly 11000 in a year. Gotta give It to Kia, they have been extremely prompt with their response and quick with their service.

Things I did to the car

FULL BLACK OUT hell yes. The little chrome on the car, the badges, the wheels.

De-badged the rear completely.

TINTS- 20-30% tints because Hyderabad coppers are annoyingly strict with this now. Took a chance, let’s wait for the summertime crackdown to start again.

VESS fuse removed- VESS is Kias “vehicle’s external sound system. This is what makes EV cars sound like spaceships from the outside. And Ev6 has the most annoying and loud Reverse sound. I get the logic, Silent cars need this to warn pedestrians. But who knew a simple fuse and blackout would give you bat-mobile vibes?

Internal EV sound. Managed to adjust the setting and turn this off. Love the silence.

Year 1 service- technically it IS free and you have nothing to do. But I went ahead with AC filter replacement because I have dusty roads on my daily commute, open windows most of the time and AC is usually on even with open windows at low speed. HOWEVER, other owners have told me you can vacuum the filter using a Dyson maybe and you do not need to spend 4K on a filter.

Alignment balancing- based on how I drive on good AND bad roads, I just went for it and turns out there was a bit of adjustment needed. Not a lot but it still did. Overall, 1 year of service was 6.7K. some owners out there paid maybe 100-200 to tip pick-up and drop-off drivers but that’s about it.

CLARIFICATIONS AND CORRECTIONS FROM THE LAST POST

I thought Eco mode is MAYBE rear wheel biased but no, it’s always AWD. Your throttle and speed make a difference with this. From a standstill especially, it’s fully AWD-focused. I was wrong with the observation earlier.
HUD quality is very very average compared to Germans. The letters and numbers are not as clear as a 5er or any other German with the option.
V2L- yes I can charge another EV or power even a fridge with this car but I have not even taken the adaptor out in 1 year.

BOTTOM LINE

To answer everyone’s questions and end this post:

The drive on this car is amazing. Ground clearance is more than decent for our roads, especially after driving 330i for 4 years. The car is insanely quick and battery weight helps it be stable on high-speed turns, a low centre of gravity as they say. The body roll is not bad at all. I get a range of max 450. 550 if my family use the car. Over all this car with its acceleration, handling, comfort, tech and practicality makes this an extremely good daily. Being an EV, this one has saved me from horrible city water clogging as well.

BUT…

Ev6 is a great car and great eye candy. But this is no German and for 69 lakhs, the lack of quality Does show after a year. Again, this is my opinion. Other Ev6 owners may not feel this way. What is worse is, that even the Kia India team, specifically EV6 engineers and advisors themselves are very new to a lot of the issues. Not just in Hyderabad, but all over India. At least the KIA Raidurg HYD team is extremely polite and fast. Their approach balances it out.

I will suggest everyone buy the car if you are not obsessed with German build and quality. After selling 330i and with M3 out of Bmw India plan for 2024, I will be moving to something else But Ev6 is here to stay.