2025 KIA CARNIVAL HYBRID Engine Problems

While driving around, the van will go into "limp mode" effecting my speed and acceleration. Then the battery will become drained and the car alarms me to "Check Hybrid System. Stop safely." It seems the hybrid system fails to switch from battery to engine when the battery gets too low, creating the alert. While the vehicle is still running, I will check the diagnostics on the dashboard and it shows no faults: "all systems normal." This is very dangerous as the vehicle can stop running at any moment and could leave me stranded in the middle of the road. I brought the vehicle into the dealership, but they were unable to recreate the problem. While the vehicle was at the dealership, they performed the HVAC control unit upgrade due to a recall. After receiving the vehicle back, this issue has persisted. I do not know if the dealership inspected the vehicle. No other company or entity has inspected the van. This issue first appeared in the first week of November 2025. The issue didn't happen again until 2 weeks later. Now the issue persists almost daily.

Vehicle will randomly not engage into 3rd gear or go faster than 31 mph. The engine temp will increase as the RPMs continue to stay elevated since the vehicle isn’t engaging 3rd gear.

While driving, the vehicle intermittently fails to accelerate when the accelerator is pressed; it will only coast at about 30 mph. At the same time, the hybrid battery indicator shows a low charge that continues to drop rather than recharge. The “Check Hybrid System – Stop Safely” warning also comes on. This recurring loss of propulsion creates a significant safety risk because we cannot reach or maintain normal traffic speeds. We have taken the van to our local Kia dealership about this situation on two separate occasions; the first time it was reported no faults found bc they couldn’t replicate the problem. I was told there was a recall and it should fix the problem. The second time I was able to capture video of it happening multiple times to show the service technician. I was told it was something about the air intake system not being properly positioned. Now that the car is out of the shop, about two weeks later I’m experiencing issues where I’m unable to switch gears properly on multiple occasions as well. It’s been one thing after the next since I’ve gotten this vehicle.

The hybrid car intermittently switches into EV mode after coming to a complete stop (e.g., at a traffic signal or after briefly stopping to pick up my child). When this happens, the vehicle does not accelerate properly once back on the road and feels stuck in EV mode, unable to accelerate beyond ~45 mph. This creates a safety concern when merging or crossing intersections.

2025 KIA Carnival Hybrid gets stuck in electric mode. This cause rapid draining of the electric vehicle battery, reduced maximum speed, and reduced acceleration. This has occurred while merging onto the highway. I had to pull over to the highway on ramp shoulder, turn the vehicle off and back, and then merge back until the highway. I have a video of it happening while picking up my kids from school, but it is too large to upload here.

When pulling out onto the highway from my drive way the car would no accelerate when I pressed the gas, the car would not exceed 35mph, when caused me and my kids to almost get rear ended when pulling out since the car would not go..... the car will start to flash a " check hybrid system pull over safely" light and then the car will start to coast and I have to find somewhere safe to coast off to, to turn the vehicle off and then on again, it will run fine after that but it will eventually do it again... I have taken the car to 2 different dealerships to have it looked and and they tell me nothing is wrong with it

Car would not allow me to accelerate. It seemed to keep me running only on the electric motor vs the gas engine (the vehicle is a hybrid). This has happened multiple times. The fix is to turn the car off and on again.

When driving my van to work in the morning, I would get an alert on my screen that says to check the driver assistance system. Then I turned on to the freeway on ramp and my car lost all power, not letting me drive faster than 30 mph. I was able to get off of the freeway and on to a side street when another alert, accompanied by loud beeps, came on saying “Check Hybrid System. Stop safely.” I was able to pull to the side of the road and turn the car off. When I turned it back on it seemed everything was fine. I took it to the dealership and they couldn’t replicate the problems and the car didn’t register any errors. So they returned it to me. This morning I drove to work and the exact same thing happened at the exact same place. Only this time I wasn’t able to get over as quickly and my car shut down in the middle of an intersection. Luckily I was able to coast to the side of the road. The dealership is still saying they can’t fix what they don’t know is wrong. Which I get, but it’s weird that these major events aren’t being recorded by the car. And it is terrifying to suddenly lose power on the freeway.

Temperature was 28 degrees outside. Car had 4500 miles on it. Car warmed up for 10 minutes before driving. At the one mile mark, it locked up at 31 mph and 1.4 rpm. It would not accelerate and it maintained the speed and rpm without pressing on the gas. The brakes did work. It lasted for another mile and then resolved. No indicator lights came on. The car did. It recognize there was a problem. It has not been replicated. It is available to be inspected. Not being able to accelerate above 31mph poses significant risk to both my family and other drivers.

Car would not accelerate past 30 or 31 MPH no matter how hard gas pedal was engaged. The RPMs increase, acknowledging the gas, but the speed stays the same. Stopping the vehicle and putting in park doesn’t fix it. This is particularly dangerous when going from city street to highway or interstate driving. It eventually self-corrects after about 5 minutes. We’ve experienced multiple instances now, and all have been in cold weather (<10° F).

I'm not sure which component caused the issue, but this happened a couple of times already, when I stepped on the accelerator pedal, but the vehicle didn't response at all. The first time, when I was turning into a parking lot, I had to let off the gas pedal, and try it again. The second time this happened was very scary, I was trying to get on to the main road, but I was coming up from a steep hill side road, and I saw a car was coming, but I should have enough/time distance to get on the road, but after the initial acceleration, the car moved forward, but when I applied more power, but it wouldn't move at all! Luckily the oncoming car slowered down and let me go, I was on the opposite lane (incoming traffic), and luckily no car was coming my way. This is 100% safety issue!!!

My wife and I have a 2025 Carnival SX Prestige Hybrid. We live in northern Maryland (lots of cold days lately!). This exact issue has happened three times and counting. While driving, our car will randomly lose all ability to accelerate. You can press the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and it will not gain speed. It seems to happen at lower speeds, around 30mph and it just caps off and will not accelerate and lose all power. The only thing that fixes the issue is literally pulling over and restarting the car, and then it drives fine. We took it into the dealer after the second incident and they claimed that a camera was just obstructed by ice, so the car probably thought it detected something in front of us so it stopped accelerating as a safety feature. To that, I said “but if the car thought there was something in front of us, it would have applied emergency braking, not just simply stopping any acceleration”… to which they replied “yeah I don’t know. Cars these days are just a giant rolling computer”. The dealer just could not replicate the issue, so they had no way of really seeing or diagnosing it, which I understand but still frustrating. They said they drove it 3 times but it didn’t happen. But again, it happens randomly (though cold weather seems to be a common factor). So we left and said okay, they tried, they cleared off the camera, let’s see what happens. One week later (this morning) happened again. Taking into the dealer this evening. We have a Case open with the Kia Customer Care “Escalations” team. But they’ve been no help.

On a day which had a high temperature of 16F our Kia Carnival Hybrid SXP, after not being used most of the day, when driving would not exceed 31 miles per hour. The engine would not rev loudly or give any indication of an error but would not go over 31 mph even with the gas pedal fully depressed. After pulling over and turning the car off and on the problem did not repeat.