Transmission slips to Neutral by itself when driving

[Kia Stinger]

This message was intended to be posted by @CrisX but accidentally landed elsewhere...

A new issue surfaced recently with my Stinger GT. It happened a few times the past couple weeks but it was not that serious -- after i started the car and put it into Drive (dash showed D) and the car just started rolling, the transmission slipped to Neutral by itself and I have to put it back to Drive again. All were good afterward.

Today, the same situation happened after the car was already running for 2 to 3 minutes. All of a sudden the engine was free revving and the car was slowing down. I noticed from the dash that the transmission was in N. It was no doubt a scary moment given that I was driving at 80 km/h at the time with quite a bit of traffic around me. Luckily I could put it back to Drive without any hiccup. It did not re-surface for the rest of the trip.

Did anyone experience similar issue with the transmission? I also have other issues (ISG, Apple Carplay/USB port) and am wondering if there's an electrical gremlin hiding in my car.

 

[MikeyCanuck]

5700+ km in... no such experience for me...

 

[Terra]

Interesting....................4200km also haven't had that happen.

 

[DaJackson]

To clarify when you say it goes into N and you have to put it back into drive, is it...

A) The dash shows N and the shifter is in N so you have to move the shifter back into D

Or

B) The dash shows N but the shifter is in D so you have to move the shifter to N then back into d

 

[Marc Collins]

To clarify when you say it goes into N and you have to put it back into drive, is it...

A) The dash shows N and the shifter is in N so you have to move the shifter back into D

Or

B) The dash shows N but the shifter is in D so you have to move the shifter to N then back into d

I will guess it's the electronic shifter (drive by wire) that doesn't have physical positions relating to the mode...

 

[Freelancer]

What model do you have?

 

[Bear]

I have GT2 (shift by wire) and have not experienced any issue like this. Have 2k miles on the car.

 

[eflyguy]

That was my first thought as well, but he states "GT" so I'm assuming not.

 

[Freelancer]

That was my first thought as well, but he states "GT" so I'm assuming not.

I never make assumptions. DbW can be touchy, if he has a GT2, it might be a problem.

 

[Chris]

The OP is in Canada. Im pretty sure both the GT and the GT limited (the only two models in Canada) are shift by wire.

 

[BIGRED]

The OP is in Canada. Im pretty sure both the GT and the GT limited (the only two models in Canada) are shift by wire.

Yes, you are right. Canada has only AWD models in GT and GT LTD trims, and both are shift by wire.

 

[corradoMR2]

2500 kms on mine. No issues. Sorry to hear about yours. Definitely get it checked out.

 

[djfosfor]

Hello. Sorry in advance. my English is very bad. I on Russian forum wrote. and I was the only one with that problem. Exactly the same problem ! 1 in 1 . gt line.
3 times already so it was. I almost got into an accident. I was speeding out of the turn. the car abruptly stopped to pick up speed and shifted into neutral. I have 13000km mileage. All 3 times I was accelerating out of a turn. You have the same situation or you on a flat road went?
Have you learned anything during this time ? Are you sure you didn't touch it ? Because the Official dealer assures me that I hurt myself .. did diagnosis. There are no errors. Everything's fine...

 

[NS_Stinger]

Guys that this is happening to, was your hand resting on the shifter when it happened? Im just curious if you inadvertantly could have slipped it into neutral by accident.

 

[djfosfor]

Guys that this is happening to, was your hand resting on the shifter when it happened? Im just curious if you inadvertantly could have slipped it into neutral by accident.

I believe that there is no, because I keep hand on the armrest. Waiting for next time ...

 

[Kazz]

The only time I've heard of this is when the shifter is bumped or someone is resting their hand on the shifter (I've done it once myself). If you're confident it's not being touched, I'd talk to my service department.

Good luck!

 

[Audible Silence]

if its fairly common, maybe try catiching it on video with cell phone

 

[t1328]

This issue has been occurring more and more frequently for me now. Here's a video of it:
Stinger jumping From D to N repeatedly.mov

In addition, this issue happened in early pre-production units - see this article in Motor Trend: https://www.motortrend.com/cars/kia/stinger/2018/2018-kia-stinger-gt-long-term-update-4-review/

"The single worst thing about our long-termer is the transmission lever. The car pops itself into neutral constantly. Pull the handle back toward drive too aggressively, and bam, you're in neutral, not drive. Mind you, this is the optional, fancy shift-by-wire shifter. It drives me crazy in terms of annoyance, plus it's dangerous. Imagine expecting the car to go and instead it just rolls forward slowly. Terrible at an intersection. It's so bad that I called Kia. I was assured the bum shifter is because our car is an early build Stinger. To Kia's point, the Stinger still has a decal from the launch of the car. This red GT is definitely one of the first cars to come off the line ("pre-pro" as such machines are called in the biz).

Now, if the transmission lever were a model-wide defect, then the short-term replacement car would suffer from the same ill, right? Wrong. The short-term Stinger GT had no such troubles. Moreover, I spent a bunch of time trying to reproduce the flaw (violently putting the car in gear, whacking it forward with the palm of my hand) from the other car, and I couldn't.
"
I've got a case open for this with Kia Consumer Affairs, although I had to threaten them to get them to take action quickly, and they're pretending this is new to them despite the above article clearly showing Kia knows about this issue at least on pre-production models. Right now after the video, they finally acted. They're trying to reproduce the issue at the dealer. My view is that between my view and the article, they should look my car's production date, and if it's early, then replace the gearbox.

 

[StingaGT]

I never had an issue where the gear changes from D to N
but I did experience gear getting stuck at 3rd or 4th gear and revs all the way to 5000~6000 and wouldn't shift with paddle shifters.

 

[turboAWD]

One reason I got the GT1 (and replaced the shift lever knob).