More often than not, anytime someone brings up Hyundai or Kia on the internet, there’s always at least one person tripping over themselves to run to the comments and proclaim that Korean vehicles are low quality for a variety of unfounded or outdated reasons. Hyundai and Kia began countering this negative perception by backing up their vehicles with 10-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranties, the longest in the industry, combined with an also-impressive 5-year, 60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. Both of those are nearly double the length of what most other brands provide, including those reliability stalwarts like Honda, Toyota, and Subaru.
Now, it seems that while the warranty still provides valuable peace-of-mind for shoppers, it’s less needed than ever before. J.D. Power’s 2025 Initial Quality Study and their 2026 Vehicle Dependability Study now prove that Hyundai and Kia’s initial quality and their longer-term dependability are both better than the industry averages, making those long warranties less of a safety net and more of a flex these days. Let’s dive into the warranties, the study scores, and the other big elephant in the room: resale values.
Everyone has different experiences, and every brand experiences problems, but J.D. Power’s studies provide great insight on a large scale and their awards are one of the most desirable by brands.
The Warranty
2026 Hyundai Palisade LimitedHyundai
The now-famous warranty that Hyundai and Kia have used as one of their pillars of strength since its introduction in 1998 for Hyundai and 2000 for Kia is a 10-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranty. Powertrain warranties cover all the components involved in moving the car, including the engine, transmission, driveshafts, axles, and differentials. It’s important to note that this powertrain coverage only applies to the original owner of the vehicle and can only be transferred to a second owner if the vehicle is purchased as a Hyundai/Kia Certified Pre-Owned vehicle. Otherwise, all the used Hyundais and Kias scattered across various used car lots and other brands’ dealerships will only have 5-year, 60,000-mile powertrain warranties instead. But even then, they match most others in the industry still.
The other impressive warranty that Hyundais and Kias come with is that 5-year, 60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty we mentioned in the intro. This one has been in effect as long as the powertrain one has, but these days, with more screens and electronics in vehicles, and far more things that can fail, this lesser-known warranty flex is becoming even more valuable. It’s something that more people would likely value if they were aware, but it’s not advertised as much as the longer powertrain one is.
2027 Kia TellurideKia
Both of these warranties compare very well against the rest of the industry. Only Genesis (also under the Hyundai umbrella), Mitsubishi, and RAM match the powertrain warranty currently, and RAM has only committed to it for the 2026 model year so far. All the other mainstream brands mostly do 5-years and 60,000 miles. On the luxury side, the exclusively electric brands like Lucid, Tesla, and Rivian do have 8-year powertrain warranties with mileage caps between 100,000–150,000 miles, and Acura, Lexus, Lincoln, and Infiniti offer 6-year, 70,000-mile coverage. But not even these luxury brands come close to that 10 years of coverage, assuming you can keep your mileage under 100k in that time period.
On the bumper-to-bumper side, it’s only Genesis, Ineos, and Mitsubishi that match the 5-year coverage. All other mainstream brands offer a much shorter 3-year, 36,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, except Volkswagen, which has a 4-year, 50,000-mile warranty. Most premium brands mirror the Volkswagen warranty. The big trade-off with Volkswagen’s coverage is that the 4-year warranty also applies to the powertrain, making it one of the shortest powertrain warranties in the car market. At the end of the day, that 10-year, 100k warranty can’t be beat.
The Scores
2026 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid AWD front 3/4 angle in blue while parkedHyundai
So we’ve established that the warranty is great, but will you actually need it? We don’t have a good study that tracks all ten years of warranty coverage, but what we do have are the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study, which covers problems in the first 90 days of ownership, and the J.D. Power Vehicle Dependability Study, which looks at the first three years of ownership.
JD Power Initial Quality Study JD Power
Let’s start with the Initial Quality Study. The most recent one, 2025, scores Hyundai at 173 problems per 100 vehicles, and Kia at 181 problems per 100 vehicles. That may sound high at first, but the industry average for 2025 was 192. And those scores put Hyundai in the number three spot, and Kia at number eight. It’s no surprise that Lexus occupies the number one spot, but Toyota surprisingly isn’t number two. Even more surprisingly, that honor goes to Nissan.
Toyota is way down at 200 problems per 100 vehicles, worse than the industry average and worse than a lot of brands. Jaguar is another surprise, right behind Hyundai at number four, despite their bad perception among many. Honda also placed very highly at number six and admittedly beat Kia, suggesting that its reputation for high quality is certainly warranted, at least when it comes to initial quality. But the bottom line here is that Hyundai and Kia both have better than average initial quality, and the data proves it.
Moving on to the Vehicle Dependability Study, the average score for the industry is 204 problems per 100 vehicles over that three-year period. Hyundai is above average at 198 problems per 100, and Kia is even slightly better than that, at 193 problems per 100. By comparison, Toyota is just one spot above Kia, at 185 problems per 100, and Honda is further down the chart and worse than the industry average at 211 problems per 100. The top spot, unsurprisingly, is Lexus once again, with 151 issues per 100. It being followed by Buick, Mini, Cadillac, and Chevrolet, respectively, is surprising though.
JD Power VDSJD Power
The takeaway here again for Hyundai and Kia is that their dependability is better than average and is either roughly equivalent to or better than the brands that consumers typically hold in the highest regard. Of course, three years still isn’t a long time, and most people buy those Japanese brands for their long-term reliability over 10+ years, not just the first few. But Hyundai and Kia getting started off on the right foot is a promising sign, and with that long warranty coverage, the companies would have gone bankrupt long ago if they were getting buried in warranty claims.
Lagging Resale Values
2027 Kia TellurideKia
The last question that Hyundai and Kia skeptics might be thinking is that, if initial quality and 3-year dependability are better than average, and warranty coverage is also better, why are resale values always lower than their Japanese counterparts? It’s a good question without any rock-solid answers, although larger dealer discounts and manufacturer incentives from the Korean brands when new certainly play a part. Higher levels of sales to rental fleets than some other brands play another part. It’s less certain how much of a role these inaccurate quality perceptions play, but they’re likely another component.
Those perceptions also likely fuel a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Higher depreciation makes used examples more affordable, which allows later owners to afford them more easily, but also means that those more attracted to the lower prices are more likely to have less money to spend on timely maintenance, accelerating wear and tear and leading to more horror stories and cars ending up at junkyards sooner. People with the spare cash to splurge on the more expensive mainstream brands seem more likely to be the type to do maintenance on time and are more likely to baby their car since it’s a better investment. This is probably partly why Hyundai and Kia only extend that long warranty to the first owner or a certified pre-owned buyer, and drop the coverage to the shorter warranty on those cheaper used examples later in their life.
The million-dollar question many brands, including Hyundai and Kia, are trying to crack, is how do you stop this cycle without killing sales? Making highly desirable vehicles that don’t need as many discounts is a great start, and with hot models like the new Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade that even command Toyota and Honda-like markups in some places, at least some of their models could find their way out of this vicious cycle eventually.
!!!MODEL TAG!!! Listing Carousel 2027 Kia Telluride
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Even though it may take a while longer for perceptions to change and for resale values to become more resilient, Hyundai and Kia’s red-hot sales will continue to fuel their ascent beyond merely being value brands with the big safety net of long warranties, instead providing open-minded buyers with the flex of pointing to their impressive J.D. Power scores, all while rolling in vehicles that turn heads and impress anyone who hops in for a ride.
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Sources: J.D. Power
