Hello from Kia Land. As noted in post 186 of this thread, the
Stingers are having what sounds like the same issue, including mine. I have very similar symptoms, as the ambient warms up (or sun heats the roof), the sunroof becomes more noisy. The noise is best described as crinkling a water bottle, more or less a popping or sorts. For my car, the noise is reduced with the sunshade closed, noisy with the shade open and glass closed, noisiest with the glass tilted up, and a different kind of noisy with the glass slid all the way back. As for poking and prodding to aid diagnosis, it seems almost everything I touch on the roof makes noise of some sort so it's hard to nail down. Pushing the front edge of the glass up when tilted up creates a loud clicking noise, pushing up on the headliner at the edge of the sunroof surround on the passenger side makes popping noises, pressing other areas makes other noises. I also noticed some looseness in the sliding mechanism, when the glass is slid back, I can move the glass and it's attached parts in the track about 1/2 an inch front to back. I've made a poll in the
Stinger forum to see if this has any relevant frequency and leads us to any solutions.
I've had my car with Kia 4 times for this issue. The first time in the winter, they "could not duplicate" which might be true. The second trip, they dropped the headliner, played with bolts, adjusted glass and added padding and thought they fixed the problem - they did not. The third trip I lost my mind (nearly) since the tech could not hear the noises coming from the roof even though it was clear as day (second ride along with him) and he said it's just the leather squeaking. I told the dealer I don't want him working on my car if he has no idea what he's looking for. The final trip, I dealt directly with the service manager and he seemed fair and respectful. He took the car out with a tech and they definitely acknowledged noises. They took another
Stinger off the lot (new) and found it made the exact same noises. They forwarded their findings to an engineer that deemed the noises normal considering the ambient conditions (about 25 Celsius and sunny).
I definitely need to find a more ambitious dealer, but I am also closely watching this thread since I see that our sunroofs look very similar and our cars share the same chassis, thus there are some similarities that might lead us both in the same direction. I think there would be value in keeping an eye on our
Stinger thread(s) for this issue.
I feel bad for anyone else dealing with this and I find it completely unacceptable that some of us get brushed off with the excuse that this is "normal." Like the Genesis, Kia is using the
Stinger as a vehicle to endorse the brand's quality and what they are capable of. Although this noise is ultimately a small flaw, it undermines the overall quality of the vehicle and is not something I would be proud of if I owned the company.
Good luck to all of us! The first one to find an ultimate solution will receive a gold star.