2021 Kia Telluride1st gen (2020–2025), pre-facelift

Updated 2026-08-28NHTSA counts read on this date — 349 complaints. They rise over time.

The 2021 Kia Telluride Traded Headlight Complaints for Sunroofs

Mechanically, the 2021 Telluride is the 2020 Telluride. Same 3.8-liter V6, same eight-speed, same body, same 21 cubic feet behind the third row. Kia added a black trim package, put a remote start button on the key fob, and changed the tow hitch harness. That’s the model year.

Owners have filed 349 complaints with NHTSA about the 2021, against 746 for the 2020. The mix moved too: headlights went from 168 filings to ten, and sunroofs from 66 to 101. Same car, different top of the list.

The basics

Built in West Point, Georgia. The 2020 through 2022 cars share a body and dashboard; the 2023 refresh brought the restyle, the dual widescreens, and the X-Line and X-Pro trims.

What actually changed for 2021:

• Nightfall Edition on EX and SX — gloss black wheels, grille and trim
• Remote start moved onto the key fob
• Trailering harness went from four-pin to seven-pin
• LED headlights spread to more trims

Kia sold 93,705 Tellurides in calendar 2021, up from 75,119 the year before. Model years and sales years don’t line up cleanly, so treat any complaint rate here as an approximation.

Specs

Nothing here moved from 2020, so the short version:

The full 2021 spec sheet is on Kia’s media site. Four trims, one engine, no upgrade to buy. LX seats eight, the rest seat seven with captain’s chairs, and the EX can be optioned back to eight.

How it was received

Another IIHS Top Safety Pick and another five stars overall from NHTSA. Worth noting that through 2022 the Telluride never earned Top Safety Pick+, the higher award — good ratings, not the best ones. That changed with the 2023 refresh. IIHS later added a tougher side-impact test that did not exist when this car was rated. The Telluride scores Marginal on it, a rating that covers the 2020 through 2022 cars and comes from crashing the structurally similar Hyundai Palisade. It is on the ratings page today and was not part of the award.

The headlights are the thing to watch. IIHS awards depend partly on headlight performance, and for 2021 Kia pushed LED headlights down into more trims. On paper that means more cars carrying the exact hardware that generated 168 complaints on the 2020.

That is not what happened.

What owners filed

NHTSA’s database only collects complaints. Nobody files a report to say the car is fine, so what follows is a list of failures, not a portrait of ownership. The overwhelming majority of 2021 Tellurides aren’t in here.

Ranked by count:

Sunroof — 101 complaints

The single largest category here, and the count went up even though total complaints fell by more than half. The failure is consistent: the wind deflector or its arm breaks, the glass comes off its track, and it will not close. (Counted as filings naming the sunroof, the moonroof, or the wind deflector and its arm. The 2020 had 66 by the same rule.)

From a filing in August 2026 (ODI 11756864):

“Sunroof broke when trying to open it. Now it’s in the open, venting, position unable to close. Dealership can’t look at it for a week so I’m risking water damage. Vehicle only has 31,000 miles on it and is just past the 5 yr warranty of course”

Another owner (ODI 11755668) described the glass as loose on the tracks and thought it might leave the car entirely:

“The sunroof is stuck open and is loose on the tracks, if even on the tracks at all. Very dangerous, as it could fly off while I am driving. This is a common problem with the Telluride, and I believe it should be recalled.”

There is no recall. Kia bulletin BOD319 covers the mechanism. One 2020 owner reported being quoted $7,000 for the repair.

Windshield cracking — 60 complaints

Same story as the 2020, at roughly half the volume — 122 there. Cracks that owners insist didn’t come from road debris. (Counted as filings that name the windshield and describe it cracking, chipping, spidering, or shattering.) From ODI 11714959:

“Windshield developed a multipronged crack that does not resemble a normal road hazard crack.”

Engine shutdown or power loss — 26 complaints

The only one on the list that can leave you stopped in an active lane of traffic — counted as filings describing a stall, a shutdown, or a loss of power while driving. It overlaps the oil section below: 10 of the 26 also mention oil, because a filing that says the engine ran dry and then quit belongs in both. From ODI 11700236, filed after the car stopped accelerating past 60 mph on the highway:

“the engine contained zero oil—yet no oil light, check-engine light, temperature warning, or sensor alerts were triggered at any point. There were no visible oil leaks, suggesting internal oil consumption, which I had reported to Kia in October of 2024.”

A smaller group stalls at low speed rather than on the highway. ODI 11715428 reports it repeatedly, with the dealer finding oil leaking from the pan and the filter housing and saying that replacing both might not resolve it:

“The vehicle has repeatedly experienced sudden engine shutdown while stopped at traffic lights and during low-speed operation.”

Worth separating this from the 2025 car, where stalling is also the largest category but the filings describe an electronic fault with its own dashboard message. On the 2021 it reads mechanical, and it reads like oil.

Oil consumption — 25 complaints

Down sharply from the 78 on the 2020, counted the same way — but not gone, and worse in one specific way: it shows up later, closer to the edge of the powertrain warranty. From ODI 11757571:

“At approximately 60,000–80,000 miles, the engine began consuming excessive oil. I reported the condition to the Kia dealer at approximately 80,000 miles, while the vehicle was still within Kia’s 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty.”

Kia’s bulletin ENG222 puts the threshold for excessive consumption at a quart per 1,000 miles. Another owner reports adding oil every two weeks with no leak and no warning light (ODI 11756506). The light not coming on is a detail that repeats across model years.

Brakes — 14 complaints, three involving a crash

Three filings describe a crash, and no two describe the same failure. NHTSA files fourteen 2021 complaints under SERVICE BRAKES. The count table at the top of this page puts each filing in one group only, so nine show up there. From ODI 11433328, filed September 2021:

“The brakes on my 2021 Kia Telluride failed while pulling into my side entry garage. The Telluride’s brakes went limp, losing pressure and dropped to the floorboard. The Telluride crashed into the interior of the garage, coming to a complete stop after slamming into the foundation of the house. Once stopped, the Telluride could be put in park and braking was restored.”

That owner attached a link to home surveillance video of it happening. A second (ODI 11515156) describes the dashboard lighting up first and the brakes going afterward, on a parking garage ramp:

“all of the lights on my dashboard popped on and the brakes stopped working. The emergency brakes failed to work, and we crashed into a wall/air conditioning unit.”

The third (ODI 11570087) struck the car in the next lane on a wet turn. The owner describes pressing the pedal and the Telluride carrying on “as if I hadn’t hit it at all,” with no skid and no pulsing from the ABS.

Fourteen filings out of 349 is not the sunroof, and NHTSA has not opened an investigation into any of it.

Headlights — 10 complaints

Down from 168 on the 2020, counted the same way. NHTSA files eight of this year’s filings under exterior lighting; on the 2020 it was 179.

Recalls

NHTSA lists five recall campaigns against the 2021 Telluride. All five stay open on any VIN where the work was never done, so the question is never “is this recall old” but “was it completed on this car.”

The one in the news is the power seat motor fire, campaign 26V430000. A dislodged seat slide knob can run the motor until it overheats. Kia recalled roughly 463,000 vehicles for it in June 2024, then recalled 462,869 of the same cars again in July 2026, this time because an internal investigation found further switch failure modes and also found that some dealers hadn’t completed the original repair correctly. Seven seat fires and eleven melted motors have been reported. NHTSA is telling owners to park outside until the second repair is done.

The tow hitch harness recall, 22V626000, covers 2020–2022 Tellurides equipped with the genuine Kia four-pin harness, where debris and moisture on the circuit board can start a fire. The timing is the interesting part. 2021 is the year Kia moved the factory harness to seven-pin, so a four-pin one on a 2021 was most likely installed after the car left the factory. The recall covers these cars either way.

Two more are worth a VIN check even though nobody talks about them. 24V214000 covers 2020–2024 Tellurides whose intermediate shaft and right front driveshaft may not be fully engaged, which can let the car roll away while it’s in PARK. Four complaints on 2021 cars read like that. And 21V164000, which began March 18, 2021, covers the occupant classification system: it may fail to detect a child restraint in the front passenger seat, which means the airbag can deploy when it shouldn’t.

24V407000 is the June 2024 seat fire recall that 26V430000 replaced. If a seller shows you paperwork for it, that’s the repair Kia later found wasn’t good enough.

What doesn’t show up in the complaints

Nothing about the third row, the ride, the interior, or the equipment list — the reasons people buy this car. The transmission appears eight times in 349 filings. Paint delamination, which generated 48 complaints on the 2020, shows up four times here.

Kia put LED headlights on more 2021 Tellurides than 2020 Tellurides, and complaints fell by 94%. Whatever was wrong with the early housings — owners described seals degrading and letting condensation in — stops showing up in the filings after the first model year. The complaint record shows that; it does not show what Kia changed.

What the complaint curve says

Filings by year: 17 in 2020, 52 in 2021, 35 in 2022, 36 in 2023, then 72 in 2024, 61 in 2025, and 76 so far in 2026.

The 2020 model year had the same shape — quiet middle, sharp rise after year three. But the cause is different. On the 2020 it was headlight assemblies and paint. Here it is overwhelmingly sunroofs, and the reason is in that first quote: just past the 5 yr warranty of course.

Kia’s basic bumper-to-bumper warranty is five years or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. A three-row SUV doing 15,000 miles a year hits the mileage limit in 2024 and the calendar limit in 2026 — which is exactly where both jumps land. The mechanism that breaks is one Kia has a service bulletin for and no recall on, so either way the bill is the owner’s. Two jumps, both landing on a warranty line. Whether owners file more once the bill is theirs, or the parts simply fail at that mileage, the filings cannot separate the two — but the timing is the same either way.

If you’re looking at one

All of this comes out of the complaint data above. It isn’t a verdict on the car — a Top Safety Pick that broke its own sales record. It’s what to spend ten minutes on.

Ask whether it has ever stalled or lost power while driving. Twenty-six filings describe it, and several of them say no warning light came on at all. The sunroof is the expensive problem on this car. This is the dangerous one.

Open and close the sunroof. Twice, fully. The largest failure category by a wide margin, and it lands after the five-year warranty is gone, which makes it your bill rather than Kia’s. Listen for the mechanism binding at the ends of travel. If the seller says they never open it, open it anyway.

Brake firmly a few times on the test drive, and watch for warning lights. Fourteen filings name the brakes and three of them describe a crash, one with the pedal going to the floor. Small numbers against 349, but three of the seven filings NHTSA flags as crashes on this model year are brake complaints. A single drive won’t surface an intermittent fault — the service history is what will.

Ask whether recall 26V430000 is completed, and get the answer in writing. Second attempt at the seat fire fix, and NHTSA is telling owners to park outside until it’s done. “Scheduled” and “done” are different answers, and a 2026 filing shows an owner waiting on parts.

Pull the dipstick cold, before you drive. Oil consumption is much less common here than on the 2020 but it hasn’t disappeared, and owners report it arriving between 60,000 and 80,000 miles, closer to the end of the 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain coverage. Ask whether a dealer ever ran an oil consumption test.

Check whether the car has a four-pin tow hitch harness. If it does, it falls under recall 22V626000. Kia moved to a seven-pin harness for 2021, so a four-pin one was most likely added later. Run the VIN rather than guessing from the plug.

Look at the windshield you’re buying. Sixty filings describe these cracking without an impact, and the replacement you pay for may not be the last one.

Worry less about the headlights. On the 2020 this was the first thing to check. Here it’s ten complaints out of 349.

Numbers worth writing down

Recalls are per-VIN and free to check at nhtsa.gov/recalls, which also holds all 349 complaints, searchable by the ODI numbers above.

Next we’ll do the 2022, the last year before the refresh.

Sources

• NHTSA complaint database — 349 complaints for the 2021 Telluride, retrieved 2026-08-26
• Kia Media — 2021 Telluride (official)
• GoodCarBadCar — Telluride US sales figures
• IIHS — 2021 Kia Telluride ratings
• NHTSA — Park Outside recall, Kia Telluride
• Cars.com — 2021 Kia Telluride recalls

Specs and pricing checked against Kia’s media site. Complaint counts and quotes come from NHTSA’s public database, retrieved 2026-08-26, with ODI numbers attached. Model years and calendar sales years don’t align, so complaint rates here are approximate. This summarizes what owners and reviewers reported; it isn’t buying or repair advice.