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

Updated 2026-08-26NHTSA counts read on this date — 349 complaints. They rise over time.

The 2021 Kia Telluride Fixed the Headlights. Then the Sunroofs Started Breaking.

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 trailer harness. That’s the model year.

The complaint record tells a different story. Owners have filed 349 complaints with NHTSA about the 2021 against 746 for the 2020 — and the mix has shifted so completely that they read like two different vehicles.

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 20-inch wheels, a different grille insert, and Wolf Gray paint exclusive to the package
• 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

From Kia’s official 2021 materials. Nothing here moved from 2020.

Original MSRP, before destination: LX $32,190 FWD / $34,190 AWD. S $34,590 / $36,590. EX $37,590 / $39,590. SX $42,490 / $44,390.

Four trims, one engine, no upgrade to buy. LX seats eight, the rest seat seven with captain’s chairs, EX optionable 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.

The detail worth holding onto is the headlights. 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 165 complaints on the 2020.

That is not what happened. Which is the most interesting thing in this year’s data.

What owners filed

The usual caveat first: 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 — 94 complaints

The single largest category, and up from 62 on the 2020 even though this is a smaller complaint pool overall. The failure is consistent: the wind deflector or the arm breaks, the glass comes off its track, and it will not close.

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. Cracks that owners insist didn’t come from road debris. From ODI 11714959:

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

Engine shutdown or power loss — 34 complaints

Loss of power while driving. Some of these connect to the oil problem below; some don’t.

Oil consumption — 23 complaints

Down sharply from 70 on the 2020, but not gone, and the pattern is 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.”

Another owner reports adding oil every two weeks with no leak and no warning light (ODI 11756506). That detail — the light not coming on — repeats across model years.

Brakes — 20 complaints, three involving a crash

Headlights — 10 complaints

Down from 165.

Recalls

Three campaigns matter for this model year.

Power seat motor fire. 2020–2024 Tellurides. A dislodged seat slide knob can run the motor until it overheats. Kia recalled roughly 463,000 vehicles in June 2024, that repair failed, and in July 2026 Kia recalled 462,869 vehicles again under campaign 26V430000 — this time because an internal investigation found further switch failure modes and found that some dealers hadn’t completed the original repair correctly. Seven seat fires and eleven melted motors are known. NHTSA is telling owners to park outside until it’s done.

Tow hitch harness fire. 2020–2022 Tellurides fitted with the genuine Kia four-pin harness. Debris and moisture on the circuit board can start a fire. Note the timing: 2021 is the year Kia moved the factory trailering harness to seven-pin.

Occupant classification system. Recall opened March 18, 2021. The system may fail to detect a child restraint in the front passenger seat, which means the airbag can deploy when it shouldn’t.

All three are VIN-specific. NHTSA’s lookup is free.

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 42 complaints on the 2020, shows up four times here.

And headlights, the defining failure of the 2020 model year, appear ten times.

That last one deserves to be said plainly, because it cuts against the easy assumption that a first-year car’s problems carry forward. 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 — did not survive into the second year.

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 driver 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 warranty is five years. These cars crossed it in 2026, and the mechanism that breaks is one Kia has a service bulletin for and no recall on. The complaints aren’t rising because the cars got worse. They’re rising because the bill moved.

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 outsold its own previous record. It’s what to spend ten minutes on.

Open and close the sunroof. Twice, fully. This is the number one failure on this model year by a wide margin, it fails out of warranty, and one owner on the 2020 was quoted $7,000. Listen for the mechanism binding at the ends of travel. If the seller says they never open it, open it anyway.

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 — later than on the 2020, and 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 harness. If it does, it falls under a fire recall. The 2021 factory harness is seven-pin, but a four-pin could have been fitted.

Ask whether recall 26V430000 is completed, in writing. This is the second attempt at the seat fire fix. “Scheduled” and “done” are different answers, and 2026 filings show owners waiting on parts.

Look at the windshield you’re buying. Sixty owners report these cracking without an impact. A 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.