all vehicles · every Forte year · method

Kia Forte 2021

Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.

0.35 per 1,000

1.0 times this nameplate’s own median · from 35 complaints filed in the first three years, of 68 ever. 95% lower bound 0.23.

Against its own model years

The model year carries far more information than the badge, so this is the comparison that matters.

Model year	Per 1,000	Complaints
2010	0.34	23
2011	0.25	18
2012	0.30	23
2013	0.30	21
2014	0.84	57
2015	0.30	22
2016	0.35	32
2017	0.62	68
2018	0.31	34
2019	0.72	71
2020	0.21	19
2021	0.35	35
2022	0.12	14
2023	0.41	48

What owners describe

No phrase appears often enough in these complaints to describe them reliably.

When it breaks

Too few complaints record mileage for this model year to show a pattern. NHTSA largely stopped capturing mileage after 2021.

What NHTSA did

No NHTSA investigation covers this model year.

That is not a clean bill of health, and not a criticism of the agency: investigations open for many reasons and complaint volume is only one of them.

What owners and forums say

Not built yet. This panel is meant to carry community sentiment beside the filed-complaint data, so the two can be compared. Showing something weaker here would defeat its purpose.

Check this yourself

Example records behind this page:

11397070 · 11403077 · 11422621 · 11422676 · 11427781 · 11428741

Limits of this figure. It counts safety complaints filed with the federal government, which is a floor on failures and not a census: problems that only cost money are under-reported. Complaint rates also reflect how likely a brand’s owners are to file, which cannot be separated from how often the car fails. Sales are calendar-year and the denominator for this nameplate is automated checks only, not verified against an external source.