According to Kia car warranty gurus, Warranty Expert, the average repair cost on a Kia Picanto (04 - ) is £139.85 but can go as high as £246.64.

These car repair bills and warranty claims come about because it typically takes around

This is based on warranty claims on cars aged 4 on average. If you want to avoid repair bills then get a car warranty quote from an independent warranty company.

This should cover you in the event of failure of the air conditioning (fails of the time), axles and suspension (50.00% failure rate), braking system () cooling system ().

A car warranty will also provide cover against paying for repairs if you are in the of Kia Picanto car owners whose engine’s fail.

If some of the less costly items cause you problems, such as electrical gremlins (50.00%) or fuel system issues () then you will be covered for those problems too, even though your manufacturer’s warranty will have run out long ago.

Here’s our buyer’s guide on what to worry about with a Kia Sedona (99 - 06). Let’s work through the car, as if inspecting it before buying.

Starting with the ‘running gear,’ such as shock absorbers, suspension bushes, springs and coils. On the Kia Sedona from (99 - 06) these components have a failure rate of 4.44%.

You can visually inspect brake discs for lips and scoring, and the car’s mileage should tell you if the tyres and brake pads are going to need a change. But there is a 2.22% chance that the braking system itself will fail. That’s potentially a big bill.

Lift the bonnet next, and check for signs of oil leaks. Also look for damaged hoses, worn drive belts, broken clips or rusting pipes. All these can be signs of future problems with the engine, cooling or heating systems which have warranty claim rates of 11.11% and 8.89% respectively.

Moving into the car, turn the ignition on and look for warning lights. Warranty claims for electrical problems occur on 32.22% of cars.

Take the car on a test drive and during this time you can assess the steering for accuracy, stability at speed, and heaviness. If the wheel shakes at speed or is very heavy at slow speeds then there may be a problem with the steering system, something that leads to warranty claims on 13.33% of cars.

At this point you should be able to make a reasonable decision about whether to buy the car or not, but you can find further advice and Kia Sedona for sale at Used Car Expert.

Cars of around 6 years old should have mileage of about 46,618.46.

Assuming that you are looking at cars of similar age, then you will find the following are a reasonable indication of the reliability. The statistics are based on Kia Rio warranty claims in England, Scotland and Wales.

The major bills come from engines, suspension, electrical and transmission.

The transmission alone fails 12.50% of the time in cars over 3 years old that has a private car warranty. The largest bill on the Kia Rio – if we look just at the (01 - 05) year range – is £320.72.

Things like the electrical systems and air conditioning can also lead to big bills but tend to be smaller, albeit often needing minor repairs more often. Interestingly, in the case of air conditioning, because the repairs are often very cheap, the warranty claim rate is low at whereas general electrical faults tends to be much higher – in the case of warranty claims on the Kia Rio from (01 - 05) it is 18.75%.

The average cost of repair on the Kia Rio from (01 - 05) is £101.47 and takes around 1.01 hours in the garage to have those repairs completed.

Overall, the Kia Rio (01 - 05) incident rate is 27 and so the Reliability Index gives it a score of 27.

If you are looking to buy a 5 year old Kia Sorento then you will find these Kia warranty claim statistics very useful.

If your a car has an average repair time of over 2.14 hours then it is above market average and the car can be expected to be costly to run. The average repair time for an Kia Sorento (03 - ) is 2.61 hours.

That labour time, combined with parts costs, gives the Kia an average cost of repair of £391.29, which compares to the market average of £327.93.

Market-wide, air conditioning fails on an average of 4% of cars, where as the air conditioning failure rate on an Sorento is 6.78%.

Brakes and suspensions systems can be deemed to be strong and reliable if they fail less often than 9 times in a hundred, the Kia Sorento from (03 - ) fails on around 6.78% of cars.

Cooling systems are prone to failure on most cars and so the industry average warranty claim rate is not surprisingly about 12.5%, and that puts the Kia Sorento’s rate of 3.39% in context.

Not until a car requires its owner to claim on a warranty for electrical systems more than 28% of the time should it be considered unreliable or problematic – the Sorento’s claim rate is 13.56%.

Engine re-build and re-conditioned replacements, let alone new engines, are a massive cost to owners and warranty companies, even though the failure rate is around 12% (which compares favourably to the electrical system above). So bear that in mind when considering that the Kia Sorento (03 - ) aged over 3 years claim on their warranties for engine issues 5.08% of the time.

Fuel systems claims tend not to be too expensive when compared to the engine, or as difficult to diagnose as electrical issues, but should not be overlooked when considering the Kia Sorento reliability as the average failure and claim rate is 11.3% on all cars (industry wide) and on the Kia Sorento specifically it is 10.17%.

Steering issues are relatively uncommon, but they can be expensive to repair, so don’t overlook the Sorento’s 11.86% steering system warranty claim rate. Anything over 7% is considered above average or high.

The final really big bill can come from transmission failure or problems and any car with an above average failure rate of more than 8% should be treated with caution – the Kia Sorento comes in at 16.95%.

You can protect yourself against all these problems with an aftermarket Kia warranty.

Question: How reliable is Kia Sportage (05 - )?

Answer: Well, different parts of the car more prone to breaking than others.

For example the average cost of a trip to the garage for some kind of break down or failure is £234.07 is but that is only half the story.

The heating and cooling system has a chance of failure. But if one of those failures also damages the head gasket or if the water pump fails and shreds the cam belt, then suddenly you will also have an engine failure.

Engines break down in a sufficiently large way as to make a warranty claim viable 25.00% of the time.

So if your claim includes both the engine and cooling system, you can soon find that you are going to need make one of the larger, less common, warranty claims. Some larger or more serious break downs lead to Kia Sportage (05 - ) garage bills and warranty payments hitting £833.5.

It’s the same story with the braking system and suspension. If the shock absorbers need replacing at the same time as the brake pipes or cable, and it’s not unrealistic to think they may both wear out at the same time, then the warranty repair and claim rates of and are irrelevant and you are going to get a big garage repair bill.

The other areas where compound failures through sheer bad luck can make a relatively reliable car seem like a nightmare on wheels is the fuel system leading to engine problems. 37.50% of fuel systems will fail in a typical sample of Kia Sportages, which combined with the engine figures above will again lead to a relatively rare but very expensive bill, and make the car look unfairly unreliable.

If you want to avoid being stressed by these compound failure bills, then we recommend keeping up a service and MOT schedule, plus we think you should take out break down cover and warranty insurance.