2025 KIA Carnival Hybrid

Too new to assess

The 2025 KIA Carnival Hybrid is too new for this measure. Almost every complaint about a vehicle this recent is a first-year complaint, because that is all the service life there has been, so the figure cannot separate a genuine early defect from simple youth. The complaint counts, systems and recalls below still stand on their own. The most-reported system is speed control (23 complaints), typically at 6 mo or about 3,000 miles.

Complaints: 104
Median age at failure: 7 mo
Median mileage: 3,000 n=4
Crash / fire / tow: 8.7% of reports
Safety recalls: 0

In owners’ own words

Electrical system mileage not reported 3 mo in service

The vehicle is brand new. We drove it home from the dealership and parked it in the garage, and after just a few days, the battery was totally dead and unresponsive.

Electrical system mileage not reported 4 mo in service

The vehicle(2025 Kia Carnival HEV) is brand new, just over one month old. We parked it in the garage, and after just 4 days of not driving, the battery was totally dead. We were not able to start the van. The battery was 4.5v when measured with a digital volt meter.

Electrical system mileage not reported 7 mo in service

2025 KIA Carnival Hybrid gets stuck in electric mode. This cause rapid draining of the electric vehicle battery, reduced maximum speed, and reduced acceleration. This has occurred while merging onto the highway. I had to pull over to the highway on ramp shoulder, turn the vehicle off and back, and then merge back until the highway. I have a video of it happening while picking up my kids from school, but it is too large to upload here.

Speed control mileage not reported 4 mo in service

On a day which had a high temperature of 16F our Kia Carnival Hybrid SXP, after not being used most of the day, when driving would not exceed 31 miles per hour. The engine would not rev loudly or give any indication of an error but would not go over 31 mph even with the gas pedal fully depressed. After pulling over and turning the car off and on the problem did not repeat.

How to read this

This is what owners reported, not a reliability rating. People file with NHTSA about alarming failures, not routine ones, and complaint volume tracks how many cars were sold.
Failure ages come from the incident date on each complaint, populated on about 83% of records. Mileage is shown where reported — NHTSA’s 2021 system change cut mileage capture to roughly 15%, so it thins out sharply after MY2020.
Every rank compares this vehicle only against others of the same model year. A 2025 car has not had time to accumulate five-year failures, so comparing early-failure share across years is meaningless.
Fourteen make-months distorted by media storms and mass recalls — Toyota in February 2010 ran 11× normal volume across 33 models — are excluded.
Recalls are manufacturer actions and authoritative; complaints are not. A recall listed here may already have been performed on any individual car. Check a specific VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls.

2025 KIA Carnival Hybrid

When each system is reported — middle 50% of complaints

In owners’ own words

How to read this