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Bought a new Kia Cerato sedan (Australia. In US Kia Forte). As part of the deal I got aftermarket wheels.

Initially I felt a lot of vibrations all over the car, so I took it to a tyre shop. They said dealership did a poor job fitting the tyres and balancing them.

They balanced the tyres and most of the vibrations went away, except a knock/vibration I can feel on the steering wheel at high speeds (100-110 Km/h) or sometimes when the road surface has small imperfections.

The knock/vibrations feels very strong at highway speeds when I turn the wheels slightly. Also at lower speed it is felt when turning.

Knock/vibration is subtle, but I drive 100km every day and it gets terribly annoying.

Took the car back to the tyre shop and they said tyres were bad (nexen). I replaced the tyres with bridgestone turanza tr001 ones.

Problem still there!

Argh!

Tyre shop says to bring it back to Kia under warranty, it could be a defective part, engine mount, rod, etc. They refuse to do any other work in the car as they have balanced the tyres many times.

I wonder what to do?

Is it the aftermarket wheels? Or they don't know how to fit them properly? Should I take the car somewhere else? Make a warranty claim with KIA (car is not factory spec as I fitted aftermarket wheels).

p.s. My wife has another Kia Cerato Hatch, factory specs, steel wheels, and drives flawlessly which is why I bought myself one.

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As the tyre shop stated, take it back to the dealership, it's under warranty. There is virtually no way for us to tell you what's going on as the tyre shop has done everything which I would have told you to do. The dealership fitted the wheels to begin with. If that alone would void the warranty, they'd be pushing it on everyone to get something done to their vehicle before it ever went out the door (like free upgrades). A warranty doesn't work like that.

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  • Hmmm. I bought the car from a dealership far away (200km) by using a car buying service... the dealership already was inept at fitting the tyres on the first place. I wonder if I can bring it to any closer KIA authorized service to make a warranty claim.
    – user2865315
    Commented Jan 21, 2017 at 22:23
  • Yes you should. In fact, you should be able to take it to either a Kia or a Hyundai service center for warranty claims ... I won't guarantee it, but since Hyundai owns Kia, it's a good bet (and most of the vehicles between the two utilize the same platform). If you go the Hyundai route, double check with them before taking it there to avoid issues.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Commented Jan 21, 2017 at 22:37
  • Took it to Kia's service. They said they tested the car at 80km/h and couldn't feel any vibration... (which I clearly said it happens after 100km/h)... but they agreed to test the car with me in two weeks time on a highway. So lets hope they can find something.
    – user2865315
    Commented Jan 31, 2017 at 8:43
  • Took the car to a different tyre place and did a "road force balancing" They found issues, rebalanced all tyres. Vibration still there.
    – user2865315
    Commented Feb 2, 2017 at 8:03
  • Took it to Kia and made a warranty claim. They booked me for a test drive. After waiting for two weeks, the guy doing the test drive said "the car feels normal to me" :/ I can not believe it, the vibration was still there, and he says is normal. So they obviously refused to even look at it.
    – user2865315
    Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 12:27

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