While accumulating break-in miles and testing our
Forte Koup, several of our drivers encountered a problem with our test car. When stopped at an intersection, it was easy to shift the manual transmission into reverse instead of first gear. The reverse lockout ring around the shift lever moved way too easily, allowing us to select reverse. We contacted Kia about the potential hazard, and we set out to confirm that our test car was behaving normally.
Kia's engineers asked us if our car had a lockout ring spring. This spring pushes the lockout ring down so that you need to definitively pull up on the ring to engage reverse. Sure enough, our car was missing one. Kia started checking manual-transmission Fortes in their inventory and did not find any others with this issue. So why was our car unique?
The solution, oddly enough, was on the window sticker. Turns out our Forte Koup went to Kia's Marketing Shows and Exhibits department and was shipped to the Connecticut International Auto Show where it went on display. This alone didn't pose a problem for us since there was no damage to the car and it only had 100 miles on the odometer when we bought it—a bit high, but not exactly unusual for a new car.
The culprit turned out to be in the show prep. Exhibitors often take off easily-removable interior parts, like radio and shift knobs, before the car goes on public display. This deters souvenir hunters from taking a keepsake of their visit. Although we can't know for sure, it seems very likely that when our Koup's shift knob was removed -- which would have left the spring exposed—the spring was removed, as well. The knob made its way back on the car, but not the spring.
Kia told us that they'll set up a checklist for post-auto show processing to make sure this doesn't happen again. The lesson for consumers: if something doesn't work right, it's worth a trip to the dealer. Often times you might get told "they all do that"— but like our Koup, sometimes they don't.
—
Tom Mutchler
