With Corona Virus, not driving much. It's a new '19 Niro has 450 miles on it. Moved Niro out of Garage and back in 1 week ago just fine. Went out to use yesterday and NOTHING. No key unlock from FOB (was unlocke already, but checked), no interior lights, no dash activity, no START button work.
Pressed the magic 12V RESET button, waited 10 seconds and started car with button just fine.
Did I leave the car in 'acc' mode last time used as was looking at options on Dash? Did I leave a light on? Is this going to happen all the time?
Obviously, there is a problem with the 12V battery being smaller than most cars and not holding up under 'off' loads like we are use to. Kia KNOWNS this too, or they wouldn't have put the magic 12V RESET button on the dash and implemented some charge circuit to move power from traction battery when press this button.
I know GM has battery run down protection from the early 2000's, where ALL lights and acc are turned off after a time to protect the battery. Kia didn't do this as read the hatch light can cause problems if left open.
Having a problem with only 3 weeks ownership makes me scared for the little 12V battery life long term. I THINK it is covered by the 10/100k warranty, but not sure.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have the magic 12V reset button,but seems like a factory hack.
I have a 2019 Kia Niro hybrid - conventional, not plugin - and first let give Kia heavy criticism for producing the worst owner’s manual I’ve ever seen. The main flaw is that they made one manual for plug in and conventional hybrid with page headings interspersed throughout indicating which model a particular page is referring to. The other flaw is the worst index I’ve ever seen. Nothing is where you think it should be looked up. For example, instructions on how to jumpstart a Hybrid Niro with an (apparently) dead battery are not indexed under “battery” but under “emergency starting”. Who would think to look there?
anyway, last night I couldn’t even open my Niro with the smart key. I figured it was a dead battery but I couldn’t even get in to pop the hood. I was going to call a tow truck to jumpstart me but then I thought, how are THEY going to pop the hood? SlimJim? I quickly realized there must be a non-electronic physical key inside the smart key as indeed there was. This is clearly needed in any smart key system for this reason.
Then another guest at the party I was attending pulled some mini-battery charger thingy he had bought so I wouldn’t need to call a tow truck. But where to connect it? That led to the futile index search for battery location, until I was looking at YouTube videos that showed how to do it. But anyway the cables on this mini-charger were not long enough to properly connect it. So we abandoned that attempt and went to look for a regular jumper cable.
Before we could do that, ANOTHER party guest found on Google something about the 12 V Batt Reset button, which I’d never noticed before.
Bingo! That was the ticket. I pressed the button and the car came roaring back to life (annoyingly, in panic honking mode, which one press of the smart key unlock button fixed) and then the familiar step on brake and press start button started the car.
From what I’ve been able to gather this shutting down the battery is actually a FEATURE of the Niro (albeit poorly indexed and explained) to prevent running down the battery on the off-chance that you somehow manage to leave the car in “auxiliary” mode, which I must have done but don’t remember doing.
What a frustrating experience, but it’s all good now. Otherwise I love my Niro. But man, hire some professional documentation writers to make a good manual clearly explaining these situations, don’t leave it to the f**king engineers to write the manual.
