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Feds investigating Kia Sorento over shattered sunroofs

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into 64,000 Kia Sorento crossovers due to complaints from owners that the sunroof can shatter unexpectedly. This probe affects Sorento models from the 2011, 2012 and 2013 model years.
According to The Detroit News, NHTSA has received 15 complaints from Sorento owners citing sunroofs that shattered, 13 of which reportedly happened while the vehicle was in motion. No crashes have been reported from this problem, but one complaint did cite minor injuries - cuts from the shattered glass.
The automaker told The Detroit News that it "has been evaluating the performance of its panoramic sunroof as part of ongoing vehicle monitoring activities conducted as a standard practice on all Kia models." Kia's corporate cousin, Hyundai, recently had similar sunroof problems with its Veloster hatchback.

Kia sold 123 North American Soul EVs in October

How happy were those Kia hamsters last month? We're guessing they were pretty pleased, because reports are out that the South Korean automaker sold 123 Kia Soul electric vehicles in North America during the model's first month of sales on the continent. Now crank up that funky music. Kia sold 109 Soul EVs in the US and another 14 in Canada, Kia-World reports (the site is unaffiliated with the automaker). Kia's expected to move about 5,000 Soul EVs in North America by the end of next year. Kia spokesman James Hope, in an e-mail to AutoblogGreen, said the automaker doesn't specifically disclose the number of gas and electric Soul models it sells in North America. Those volume numbers are on par with lower-volume electric variants of conventional models that are generally positioned as "compliance" vehicles (i.e., vehicles sold specifically to comply with California's zero-emissions vehicle mandate). For instance, the Ford Focus Electric sold 186 units in the US last month, while the Smart ForTwo ED electric moved 150 vehicles. Honda sold 23 Fit EVs in October. The Kia Soul EV has base price of $33,700 and a single-charge range of 93 miles. You can read our Quick Spin impressions of the new EV here.

What do J.D. Power's quality ratings really measure?

Check these recently released J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS) results. Do they raise any questions in your mind? Premium sports-car maker Porsche sits in first place for the third straight year, so are Porsches really the best-built cars in the U.S. market? Korean brands Kia and Hyundai are second and fourth, so are Korean vehicles suddenly better than their US, European, and Japanese competitors? Are workaday Chevrolets (seventh place) better than premium Buicks (11th), and Buicks better than luxury Cadillacs (21st), even though all are assembled in General Motors plants with the same processes and many shared parts? Are Japanese Acuras (26th) worse than German Volkswagens (24th)? And is "quality" really what it used to be (and what most perceive it to be), a measure of build excellence? Or has it evolved into much more a measure of likeability and ease of use? To properly analyze these widely watched results, we must first understand what IQS actually studies, and what the numerical scores really mean. First, as its name indicates, it's all about "initial" quality, measured by problems reported by new-vehicle owners in their first 90 days of ownership. If something breaks or falls off four months in, it doesn't count here. Second, the scores are problems per 100 vehicles, or PP100. So Power's 2015 IQS industry average of 112 PP100 translates to just 1.12 reported problems per vehicle. Third, no attempt is made to differentiate BIG problems from minor ones. Thus a transmission or engine failure counts the same as a squeaky glove box door, tricky phone pairing, inconsistent voice recognition, or anything else that annoys the owner. Traditionally, a high-quality vehicle is one that is well-bolted together. It doesn't leak, squeak, rattle, shed parts, show gaps between panels, or break down and leave you stranded. By this standard, there are very few poor-quality new vehicles in today's U.S. market. But what "quality" should not mean, is subjective likeability: ease of operation of the radio, climate controls, or seat adjusters, phone pairing, music downloading, sizes of touch pads on an infotainment screen, quickness of system response, or accuracy of voice-recognition. These are ergonomic "human factors" issues, not "quality" problems. Yet these kinds of pleasability issues are now dominating today's JDP "quality" ratings.