Kia Access Reviews

I’ve had Optima since Dec. 8th. I like the remote feature however there’s a delay up to a minute to sync, 30 seconds would be best. I’ve found that the system shows the doors unlocked even though they are locked. That issue is that the system hasn’t updated to show locked. What needs to be done is the moment you log in KiaAccess should sync with the car immediately and I’m sure it will then show the doors are locked. One feature should be added is when the a/c is set on the windows should default down a 1/4 of an inch for a minute or two to exhaust the heat to cool the car down quicker when using the automatic remote. I would like to see a countdown feature once the remote has been used to to start the car showing you that you have 5-10 minutes or so and the vehicle will shut down. The one feature that doesn’t link is the finance feature. If you fiancé a car it doesn’t link to your Kia Acct. , feature not available. The only app that I have problems with is the UVO app. , can’t get it to work. The other issue that I see is in the locations app the car is facing always one direction and it’s white. How about allowing that color to be the color of you car? Contact me if you need to further discuss however I believe in a week all these issues can be fixed. I live KiaAccess and my car.

KiaAccess works with my Kia Telluride in an urban city with good cell service coverage, can’t speak for rural areas. I understand current cell communication technology won’t allow instant response times between KiaAccess and car. That’s fine. But instead of having a status refreshing symbol for what feels like forever in this modern age (any time longer than 10 sec) I would suggest simply acknowledging that the remote start or lock signal has been sent to the Kia servers. Then when the car is started or locked, have a response ping KiaAccess /email alert on the phone, this is a message confirming the car has been started/locked. That way, after sending the signal, we can just change out or KiaAccess and do other things while we await a confirmation message. The waiting to see if the signal was even sent out is what is mainly annoying.

My second suggestion for KiaAccess ’s future updates is to have an interior cabin temperature reading updated on KiaAccess when checking the status of the car. This would really help owners know how long to keep the remote start running. Also, adjusting the time for the remote start duration would be great as well. Some of us want longer than only a 10 minute run time.

Lastly, do push notifications even work on KiaAccess? It seems I am only receiving mainly email notifications.

STAY AWAY FROM KIA! Nothing but greedy. I mean they charge you $15/mo if you want to simply remote start your car on a cold morning. Keep in mind this is only $150 a year if you do it annually. It’s pathetic. And oh, you want to be warned that you 12V starter battery is low? Sorry that will be starting at $6/mo. Yes, that is right. Kia says “screw you, we would rather leave you stranded if you don’t cough up $6/mo.” What is in the next update? $15/mo if you want your side airbags to work? The brand is so unbelievably pathetic. But don’t worry! They will make sure you know when service is ready all for free, so you can go in and get ripped off at their dealerships. I have loved kia for so long through their rise to glory the past 2 decades. My Sorento was awesome, but after purchasing my wife’s new Kia Niro, they have officially lost my business. Stay away from companies like this, because once they realize they can gouge money from you, they are just going to keep doing it.

Also I am highly skeptical of the 4.6 stars due to the poor quality of KiaAccess and the terrible lag time. Also the sheer lack of features for the price you pay each month. Seriously, it is $6-$20/month. I am the go to car guy in my vast community of friends and never will I recommend kia until they remove this monthly cost to access features that should already exist on a $30,000 purchase. The greed is unrivaled and I am severely disappointed.

The application is a cool idea however I have found that it can turn into more of a hassle than a positive. First of all in a modern world we as the consumers are princesses and expect the doors to unlock the minute we press the button not a minute or two later. The major problem I have had besides the long delay waiting for the doors to lock or unlock it a problem with connection, I have locked my keys in the car a few times on purpose one being at an amusement park, when leaving for the day I tried to unlock my car and after a few minutes I got a notification that the car hasn’t been driven in a couple days and to start the car to connect. The 2nd time was river rafting, locked my keys in the car and when we got back hit the unlock button on my phone and nothing after waiting about 5 minutes I tried again this time I got a message that it could not connect to the server and two options, retry and cancel after clicking retry a hand ful of times I tried cancel which killed KiaAccess every time I clicked it. I tried calling the uvo number on the door window after a few minutes being on hold gave up and called for a family member to go to my house and bring my spare key. I have learned not to trust or rely on this application. Definitely not one that I would subscribe to after the first “free” year is done.

I have now had my 2020 Telluride for close to a year and just got an email letting me know that my trial UVO is coming to an end. I was shocked when I looked at the pricing to continue!!! 25 DOLLARS A MONTH FOR A SYSTEM THAT IS ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE! I thought it was a joke! The remote lock and start function is just plain pathetic. Kia should be embarrassed to put out such a poor product. When you use it to try to lock or start your car the amount of time it takes to execute the function is an excruciating 2 minutes plus! Often times it doesn’t even work! I’ve tried it in many locations! It you forget to lock the doors and also want to start it, it takes nearly 4 minutes to accomplish both! If you don’t think that’s a long, time out 4 minutes and see. By that point I could easily go out, start my car, and come back in! My brother has a Subaru and his system is nearly instantaneous.
I really believe Kia is crazy for asking customers to pay 25 dollars a month after the trial to get such a poor system. (You can’t even start the heat or ac in my car) It’s also very wrong to use it as a selling point to sell cars. The system should be free until they can make it better. Even then, 25 dollars a month is ridiculous.

KiaAccess was working fine for the initial free year. Literally as soon as I paid for the first month subscription, I haven’t been able to use ANY of the remote features. I mainly get the message ‘Remote request error! Your remote request failed to complete’ even though all conditions are met. I called customer service a few days ago and they were able to get it to work remotely. Next day I tried and it’s back to not working again. Today’s error message was ‘please start or move your vehicle. It may be in a low coverage area or may not have been started in a few days’. I just got home from work 10 min ago and parked in the my driveway, where I’ve parked the entire time I’ve owned the car. We’re going on week 3 of not being able to warm up my car in the dead of winter using a service that worked absolutely fine for an entire year parking in the same spot outside my house for no apparent reason. Please fix this immediately or reprogram the vehicles to maintain whatever climate control you have it set to when you turn it off when starting using the remote start via the key fob. 72 is not a useful temp for extreme cold or heat!

This feature worked great for all of three weeks when I purchased my new Optima. I was really enjoying the schedule feature as it made the daily process automatic. For the past two weeks it’s just a waste of space on my phone. As others have stated, the remote start was heavily touted during my sales experience and it wasn’t until afterwards I learned it only worked through KiaAccess and only last week did I hear about a monthly subscription to use it when my warranty expires. What a waste of time and money for Kia Motors to put such useless equipment on cars that can’t be accessed by the consumer without the hassle and added expense of a monthly subscription. But that’s a mute point because KiaAccess doesn’t work!! It constantly reads that my car is unlocked which it isn’t (every attempt to lock it from KiaAccess so it reads properly is returned with an error, failure to communicate)...I keep getting the start your car error but I drive my car daily...it will not remote start unless I’m standing 3-5 feet away from the car (a wall can’t be in between)...I even took it back to the dealership last week and they’re clueless as to how to make it function properly!! Again, what a waste, fool me once...first and last Kia that I’ll ever purchase!!

Well I just left a positive review recently and now have to change it. Apparently there has been ANOTHER update and now my car won’t start. It also says it’s just my heated steering wheel that will turn on and not my seat? And why is the rear defrost not a separate option? I rarely need th defrost period. This needs to be fixed

It’s definitely working much better now than it did the first few months. I’ve had my Telluride for 8 months now and it was a royal pain at first. It is still frustrating how long it can take to actually start the vehicle, but as I said, it is definitely better. Apparently I’ll have to start paying for this once my year is up but no one has ever been able to tell me a cost. I say another post that said $20-$30 a month. That would be insane to have to pay! Don’t force people to pay for an app and not give them the option of a keyfob for remote start! Come on, Kia! I paid a pretty penny for this vehicle and shouldn’t have to be sucked dry to remote start my car.

KiaAccess has been more frustrating than helpful. It barely works to start my car maybe 3 out of 10 times will it actually start it. My battery needed replaced on my brand new Telluride and in the diagnostic section it didn’t even tell me anything was wrong when my SUV wouldn’t start for two days in a row. Not sure what the point of the diagnostic is if it doesn’t work. When the car is locked it will tell me that it isn’t or that I need to lock it before I can start it ( when it’s locked) the. Still won’t start it. This is during our free trial and I’m also livid to find out that you have to pay for it to start your vehicle. I don’t think we’ll be paying for KiaAccess but getting an actual remote start put in via a different company unless by a miracle they figure out the problem. One of my musts is a remote start and it was a selling point- never thought KiaAccess could be such a disappointment.

My favorite features of KiaAccess are:
1) the remote start and schedules
2) the map of my car location and being able to remotely enter POI’s
3) getting notified that I forgot to lock my doors.

I am a working mom and constantly on the move. Between kids and work I just go go go all day and being able to preplan my days is important to me. I also have the memory of a goldfish so being reminded to lock my car is super nice.

Improvements I feel can be made:
1) can we get more schedules? I feel like two is nice but I don’t have just two standard schedules.
2) can we have a setting to auto lock the car after two minutes of the car being off and the doors open then close? An optional feature that can be set by the user...
3) $25 plus tax is a lot of money to pay just for the remote start function of a vehicle, I understand that developers need to be paid and there is an associated cost for development itself but $25 is outrageous when you remember that I just purchased a $30k+ vehicle.
4) I know in iOS 14 there will be widgets available, are you planning to make one? It would be nice to have functions like lock and start on my home screen.
5) the interface could use a little more color, it’s a personal preference I know but this always seems so clinical and sterile when I open it. Buying a car should be fun and the experience after should be fun too.

Over all I love my Soul and the functions KiaAccess provides. 😊

We have used KiaAccess for two months on a Niro EV and it works. The primary functions we use are to check and set the charge times (once in a while), remote start/preheat (a lot!), and lock the doors (rarely). We looked at other functions such as the valet alert, scheduling charging time, location, and manuals but haven’t needed them.

Our biggest complaint: connection speed. When we looked at the location finder the car appeared on a map within seconds. The functions we use most frequently, however, require about 30 seconds to a minute to initiate and confirm. Not a deal breaker and when you think about what has to happen to connect wirelessly to the car via cellular it isn’t unreasonable.

What do we like most? Preheating the car! We live in the Chicago area. It’s 17 degrees Fahrenheit today. We are fortunate to also have a garage (detached) and preheating the car with the garage door closed is wonderful! In the end, if this is the only function that ever works KiaAccess is really useful for us.

I was sooooo excited when I first downloaded KiaAccess. It was the only way to enable my defrost, heated seats, and heated wheel after using the auto start. However, every time I attempt to use it, I find I’m waiting forever for it to actually do anything. It takes about 4-5 minutes before it’ll lock my door ( which you have to do prior to using the auto start) and then another minute or two to start. Sometimes I have to do twice because it just doesn’t activate the first time. My phone only stays lit for one minute so this becomes frustrating when I’m trying to get ready in the morning and have to keep tapping my phone or stop what I’m doing to unlock it.

I don’t understand why you can’t program the car to start the car with these features enabled without the painful app!! The 72 degree setting, and the fact that you can only run for 10 minutes before it shuts off, makes it a cold car getting in when it’s 10 degrees outside like today. Grrrrr

I absolutely love this car but HATE getting in a cold car. What the point of auto start??

Like others said, wish Kia Finance was working. I’m a tech geek and wish there was more breakdown, like how many miles were electric only, how much battery you’ve recovered while driving.
Also, how come all the features of the webpage aren’t in KiaAccess ? I like tech info, not tech savvy, lol.
Probably the worst feature is the Find My Car feature. The delay for the rest of KiaAccess is fine, usually less than a minute. But Find My Car takes hours sometimes. My wife makes regular trips to visit the grandkids and we use this device that plugs into the OBD that is a WiFi device and location tracker. That has a short delay, but KiaAccess seems to struggle with it. Not worth $30 a month IMO.
Crappy to see Kia went the way of Tesla, put it all in the car they buy then charge to actually use it. $10 a month to $30 depending on how much app u want unlocked. That aspect is a scam. For $30 a month it should include some WiFi use

I have had KiaAccess for nearly a year now. It’s still slow. 🐢 Faster to go outside and start the car as opposed to using KiaAccess (useless). I spent hours on the phone last year “there’s a lot of work on the backend and we’ll be pushing an update soon.” ❌ People still complaining about how slow the apps is. Now, since the last update, I can’t access the finance section. Neat. UPDATE: Love the new update!!! Simpler layout makes it easier to read and use. So far... so far... it seems faster for remote start. Finally, the heated and cooling seat options for remote start. Vehicle status right at the top! So far so good! Apple shortcuts next😅?

App responds better now. Nice touch with the watch, but if I have to sign in on my phone just to use the watch app, I might as well just keep using the phone app. I get security and all that, but it kinda defeats the purpose.

I just bought my first Kia, and at first, I was impressed. I can lock, unlock and start my car with my phone? Cool! I thought KiaAccess was new and so they just hadn’t worked out all the kinks. But here it looks like it’s been live for over 4 years! What? And you haven’t managed to fix all the problems in that amount of time?

For some weird reason, both the charge and remote start schedule screens contain the exact same information, and every time I try to adjust anything on those screens I get the error “invalid schema request”. So now, it is stuck on the first charge schedule I set up. Also, the locations screen is completely useless, no info in there about charging stations, etc. When you click on “contact us”, a blank screen pops up. Very limited and basically useless info in the help sections. Literally nothing in the “manuals” or owner materials screen either. Why have all these functions if you are not going to set them up?

So I’ve used the UVO app before and I loved it. However my issue with KiaAccess is it doesn’t sync properly. My odometer is not synced and it doesn’t show me the status of my car or the battery (I have a 2022 niro) nor does it give me ANY of the options to remote start or unlock. I have to physically go onto the website to do all of that. I’m not completely sure why KiaAccess doesn’t update and do this. It’s really weird. I’m hoping that the review will trigger someone to help me problem solved so I can update the review honestly. That would be amazing. (: other wise I’ve always loved these apps they’ve been amazing I love the remote start feature and the remote lock/unlock. Being able to remotely adjust the climate of ny car is amazing as well. I love all of that. I just want to be able to do it directly from KiaAccess and be able to see the battery of my car without having to log onto the website. I’d love to be able to do it from KiaAccess itself.

Overall, KiaAccess is pretty good for being free, but no way I’d pay the monthly fee for it after the free trial. At least not until the kinks are worked out. I deducted 2 stars due to 2 features not working. We’ve had our 2022 Sorento PHEV for 4 weeks now. The Est Combined Range is always at 0. Not that big of a deal, as I don’t think I’ll be using KiaAccess to see how far we can go, but if the feature is on KiaAccess , it should work. The other issue is with the Take 360 Surround Image. This feature has also never worked from day 1. I get the same error message every time: “Sorry we could not capture the surround view images, please try later.” I’ve tried under various conditions. Indoors, outdoors, different locations, etc. Same failed result every time. All of the other features work, although there is a 30-60 second delay when refreshing the vehicle status. Hopefully these issues will be corrected in future updates.

I am very disappointed that out of the 30 day. UVO only works maybe three times a month for me and when it does work I have to turn off my Internet and stand within 100 feet of the vehicle to even try to get the car to lock when I know it’s locked but it says unlocked. I press the option to lock sometimes it locks sometimes it doesn’t lock, if it locks I will then attempt to start it most often it will not start with that command I am very disappointed because I pay a monthly fee for the service and have absolutely NO POSITIVE EXPERIENCE TO GIVE AS FEEDBACK! I have contacted Customer Service multiple times regarding this that was how I learned that I needed to shut off the Internet customer service is wonderful each person I encounter is friendly and helpful. It is discouraging and I believe this will be my last month that I subscribe to this service based on the past six months of lack of usage for something I pay a monthly expense on!

Use of KiaAccess is free for me right now but in a few months they will be requiring a $20-30$ monthly fee, which is really crazy. This application is at best half baked and not worth paying money for. Remote Start requires you to have the doors locked before it will execute. So you have to remotely lock the doors and wait while the entire app is locked up for a few minutes so it knows the doors locked or not. Sometimes that doesn’t work. But when it does work you then can try to remote start it again which may or may not work. This should be a single command that locks your car and starts it. And it should do it in the background and not lock up the entire app. And it should support Siri and shortcuts so you don’t have to open their shoddy buggy app and spend 2 minutes just to remote start your car.

I love the Telluride, but KiaAccess is a joke and to charge a fee for something this broken and unreliable is insane. Hopefully they extend the free trial for users who have suffered using this dumpster fire of an application if they ever fix it to be usable.

I would give KiaAccess a five star rating, but for the past week or so KiaAccess has not worked. Little bit frustrating when it’s negative for outside and I am not able to remote start my vehicle and change the temperature so that it is warm when I get inside the vehicle. Up until a week or so ago when it decided it didn’t want to work anymore it was extremely wonderful! Hopefully they will get the server up and running quickly, because believe it or not KiaAccess is fantastic! They’ve done a fantastic job so far, hopefully they will get this issue resolved soon! Once the problem is solved, I will gladly change my review to a five star rating! It honestly deserves it, But I’m just aggravated at the moment because it’s not working. Thumbs up to the developers of KiaAccess , y’all have done a fantastic job! 👍🏼👍🏼

While I love that Kia is offering this Tesla-esque app platform for their vehicles, and can’t wait to start the car before leaving my house this winter, I have the following constructive feedback:

Takes 30-60 secs for response to command to open/close doors or start engine. Not terrible (better than not having an app to do these things), just a bit delayed, and maybe the fastest it can be in 2019.

Interface could be improved to be more user friendly. Since the “remote” section of KiaAccess is user friendly and makes the most sense, and the home page (“dashboard”) is just duplicating these features in a more confusing way (e.g., which button means start car vs turn car off?), why not make the “remote” section the default home page when you open app and have the “dashboard” be the second section sans remote features (no need to put remote buttons on 2 different sections)?

So I just purchased a 2019 Kia Optima, which I love! But the Kia access app is a no bueno! It’s very slow and the response time is not good either all in all I don’t like KiaAccess based on the short time I’ve used it and it always has problems, from not loading KiaAccess at all to not responding to commands, the when trying to stop a command it tells you that there was a problem communicating with my vehicle, all in all KiaAccess serves its purpose when it actually works which is very seldom. I think the developers need to redo KiaAccess, it’s so slow and so not 2019.... not trying to sound like a millennial.. either way!....

Ive used or attempted to use KiaAccess since April 2019 and haven’t gone even one week with reliable functionality. At times it connects and locks/unlocks and completes remote start functions fine. More often I am experiencing problems that seem based in the lack of robust UVO network. I’ve experienced many problems with infotainment screen not displaying time at all, complete loss of GPS and zero voice navigation availability after using app to start vehicle. A soft reset inside the vehicle does not correct the issue. If this happens I have to shut off vehicle let it set for at least 30 minutes and restart NOT using app for resolution. I live in an area where the network signal is suppose to work fine for the weather widget but it doesn’t work regularly. Customer service has not explanation or recommended reasons why system doesn’t function reliably or why network is not robust and dependable. The fact that new vehicle is only getting free app access for one year is really poor especially given I can go a week without experiencing problems.

So much to unpack here with KiaAccess. I have had my new 2020 Telluride for 1 week now and KiaAccess is so very frustrating. First off, to have to put in user name and password EVERY time you want to go on KiaAccess is ridiculous. It should be an option. Secondly, it took me 2 days to realize the only way KiaAccess would remotely start my car is if I lock it first (regardless of it is already locked or not) and then use the remote start to start the car. This whole process takes about 5 minutes. Such a waste of time. Also, I like to use the smart or eco drive mode which I realized (after a visit back to the dealership) disengages if I use KiaAccess to start my car. I am also realizing, from reading other reviews, that I will have to pay for KiaAccess after a trial period (which I was unaware of). There is NO WAY I will be paying for something that is such a lemon! I’d rather freeze and risk my car getting stolen! Reading all of these other reviews makes me scratch my head as to why Kia has not done something about it. Baffling!

The fact that it doesn’t save my login info and that I have to type it in every single time is so annoying to me that I don’t even want to use KiaAccess. And I’m currently in the free trial period. Once you do log in, it rarely works and/or takes forever. So by the time you’ve logged in and connected, you’re at your car and can just get in and start the car yourself. I saw the bad reviews on this when I was researching the Optima and the reviews are accurate. When I downloaded KiaAccess at the dealership I said to the salesman, “KiaAccess only gets one star.” He said “that’s because it’s new and only has 88 reviews” I didn’t feel like arguing with him - we all know how reviews work. But to his point, it IS new but needs massive amounts of improvement. However, even it was improved, I still wouldn’t pay for it. $30/month to be able to start my car remotely and maybe control the climate? That’s insanity. I’ll just walk to my car like I’ve been doing my entire existence or maybe even get an aftermarket auto-start.

If KiaAccess were free, i could totally cut it some slack.
Unreliable is an understatement. I’ve officially had my car for 1 year and got notice my subscription had changed. (This is my 3rd Kia) I went to check to see the cost.... WHOA! Kia has lost their mind. Over $200 bucks for something that barely works. I assure you my WiFi connection at work is strong and the distance from my desk to my car doesn’t change. So why are There are days when the car doesn’t start. After several “lost connections” it’s time for me to head out in the cold and start my car the traditional way. After so many 1 star reviews I’m surprised Kia, king of customer service, doesn’t either offer it for free or turn it off until they can get it working correctly. It’s a cool feature to a cool car, but it doesn’t work and I’ve had it a year. The connecting rate has to be under 15%, that’s unacceptable and should have never been offered to customers. I have the add and the web version, it doesn’t work.

KiaAccess is very thoughtful but is not useful. KiaAccess only opens about 18 percent of the time. I have tried with wifi and no WiFi. KiaAccess spins forever in a loop and then says connection is lost. I assure you that I have internet capabilities everywhere I go. I have deleted and re downloaded KiaAccess to see if had a hidden update with no avail.

When it does open I can’t not start the car with out waiting 15 minutes for KiaAccess to acknowledge the response when in actuality I could have walked outside to start it manually. I get updates that my car has not been locked but I can’t use KiaAccess to access the feature to lock to the device.

Big swing and a miss. I would not refer anyone to KiaAccess or this feature until this is fixed. I will even tell friends and family to avoid getting any vehicle that has KiaAccess as a feature. Big waste of time and only causes frustration. Poor product.

Part of the reason I bought my car is because of how excited I was to be able to remote start it, lock the doors if I forget to, warm it up before I get in in the morning, etc. KiaAccess lets me do none of those things. It’s great at keeping locations and tracking trips, but none of the remote features actually work.

I had hope, really. After a couple months, I lost it. Not only do you have to be fairly close to the car for KiaAccess to connect to the car, but it still doesn’t ACTUALLY work. While watching out the window of my house, directly above my car, I tried hitting the unlock button just to test it out one more time. I waited around five minutes for it to finally process the request. It said my doors were unlocked. I go out to my car, and the doors are still locked.

Maybe it’s a user error, or maybe it just doesn’t work. Nonetheless, I love my car, I hate KiaAccess .

It has been quite disappointing that KiaAccess does not perform as described by the salesperson at the time of purchase. I have to wonder if there is an issue with configuration that the dealer performed at the time of my purchase of my 2019 Stinger GT2 or if KiaAccess simply does not work as advertised. To date it does not synch any data with my car, it will not download my financing info, it will not unlock the doors, start the car, adjust climate or any other advertised feature. Very frustrating as well as disappointing.

FOLLOW-UP: I have both apps, the other app does not synch either. Dealership salespeople need to be better trained regarding the capabilities of the cars they sell. The functions of the car/app linking was a selling point. It is a shame a $50,000+ car doesn’t have basic functions built in like remote start and/or remote door lock/unlock from a cell phone.

I was excited when I first got my new Telluride in July, but KiaAccess has been so glitchy and only works half the time. I do like that it alerts me if I forgot to lock the doors but that is about the only useful thing it does for me. I schedule my car to start up at 7:30am and that seems to work well, but if I try to start it up just by going in KiaAccess I have had about 50% success. I also would like to actually be able to schedule or contact my dealer but I haven’t been able to get that to work at all. Overall just disappointed with how often KiaAccess isn’t working right or how long it takes to follow through on things. I will not be paying for continued service once the year is up, it will be cheaper to install a more reliable remote start system.