On the other side of the coin, Kia are not stupid and know full well what the issue is here, and the fact they are not offering decent replacement slotted rotors tells you just about all you need to know about them as a business and company, surely ?
Welcome to the forum.
Kia, definitely not stupid. And the fact that no class action over brakes on the Stinger has happened, or that the threat of the same has compelled Kia to send out a TSB to upgrade to better pads and rotors, says something about the commonality of this issue. It isn't common enough. And after three years it isn't likely to ever involve enough vehicles to require a TSB.
"Warped rotors." No.
Myths of the Braking System | Brakes-shop.com This is discussed at length on the "premier brake thread" here:
FAQ: Vibration under braking: warped rotors? NO!
Simple, tl;dr version is this: cementite develops under high heat (no road car ever comes close to developing extreme heat to actually risk physically warping a rotor), and when this phenomenon occurs the rotor is trashed and beyond saving. But cementite is rare, and far more commonly a rotor can be turned (resurfaced) to remove the pad deposits.
Slotted and drilled is more of a fad for appearance sake and not a direct benefit or a sure sign of quality. The rotors on the Stinger are good. Pads appear to be a crap shoot. Mine are excellent; over 41K miles and not a trace of noise or vibration; and I've stood on them a few times really hard too (but never sat afterward with the brakes applied; that is key).
I think there is a possibility that some Stingers are just garbage from the factory ... I don't blame you not wanting to get another Kia in the future. ... I do find it tiring when others are saying that the problem is with the driver and not the car itself. I drive very calmly and slowly and it happened to me far too many times. It's easy to say the issue is driver related when the problem hasn't happened to the person because they got lucky.
What does "garbage from the factory" mean to you? To me it means the odd "lemon". Every manufacturer of mass market cars puts out "lemons". Should we even discuss these? They are aberrations.
To not want another Kia based on shuddering brakes that can be fixed is taking a narrow, hard line, in my opinion: when Kia ranks at the top year after year of reliability. The service experience, granted, can be improved a lot. But again, according to owners' opinions (Consumer Reports), Kia's customer experience rating is very close to three out of four satisfied customers (730-something points on a 1,000 points scale). This satisfaction level is not unimpressive when compared to other manufacturers; only a few rank higher; and virtually one or two (can't recall two years later, but pretty sure one was Porsche) reach into the low 90s%. Probably most of that satisfaction is the lack of customer service!? The Kia most people drive doesn't require much in the way of service beyond regular maintenance: and bog standard maintenance (i.e. nothing is wrong) is what Kia service personnel can do routinely without screwing up. That plus Kia customers are not expecting concierge-level attention, explains Kia's relatively competitive service reputation.
My daughter rides her brakes, "calmly and slowly".
Seriously, this whole discussion is based on subjective reasoning. We are used to ourselves. A true, scientific comparison is the only way that this could possibly be resolved. Unless such a study occurs to show me wrong, I will assert that the driver's "braking style" is a component in the shuddering brakes issue. It varies across the spectrum of drivers: for some the fault is almost entirely theirs; for others, it is a combination of how they use their brakes and the "quality" of the pads on their vehicle. I've opined/speculated in the past that Kia's source for brake pads is variable: and therefore quality control is likely an issue. For the most part the US spec pads work as intended; less stopping power traded for less dust and noise. Our new friend,
@nmorris , is almost a unicorn: I doubt that s/he appreciates this fact: off the top of my head I can't think of a single other member on here in well over two years of my experience, out of Europe, that has had "warped" rotors (shuddering brakes); there was one, possibly two, from Aus. Nearly all cases (well over 99%, based only on my recollection of forum anecdotes) of shuddering brakes are out of N. America.
