First off, I never trust Consumer Reports. The editors there seem to like
to bend over and drop their pants at for the Toyota and Honda exectuives.
They seem to think that a sub-compact like the Accord or the Camary is a
good car.

I've not heard of issues with the '02 Sedona. Mine has 56K miles and is
running just fine. In fact, I like Kia enough to have convinced my mother
to buy a new Sportage when she tired of her '98 Stratus.

So far, I've had the following issues (all taken care of under warranty):

Alternater dead. This happened while en-route to the store. I called the
Kia hotline and they sent a tow truck and arranged for a rental while the
new alternator was shipped.

Front Pass. Power Seat died. This was actually the result of my
two-year-old messing with the wires. Kia took care of it in one day.

CD Player died. Again, the two-year-old. He had jammed four CDs into the
slot. Kia replaced the radio/CD unit at no charge.

Chrome accent on door handle stripping. Kia is replacing this right now.

Glue on rear hatch trim coming off. Kia is replacing the entire trim
assembly at no charge.

Other than that, I take it in for an oil change about every 4000 miles and
keep up the maintenance. I think the wiring harness was replaced as a
recall (but I had no issue) and the rear seat belt bolt was replaced also
as a recall.

It looks pretty good (for a minivan) and only has scratches on the paint
due to somewhat heavy off-road usage. (I realized a long time ago you
don't need a 4x4 to go off-roading.)

I agree that Consumer Reports is a VERY BIASED group.  I wouldn't put any
faith in anything they say.  They have bad mouthed several of the cars and
trucks that I've owned over the years and I never experienced anything they
said was wrong.  Reading their magazine is like listening to Howard Cosell
call a Cassius Clay boxing match.  You often wondered what fight he was
watching.

I also had an alternator go bad and then the dealer managed to keep screwing
up things.  Took four visits to get everything fixed.  That's the
dealership, not Kia.  We like the Kia enough to buy a new Hyundai, which is
one and the same.

I've had my '02 Sedona since January and it now has about 100K miles
on it. The engine seems strong and so does the tranny. However, I've
heard stories about the transmissions going bad. I also (so far) can't
find anyone who has seen one with more than 150K miles on it (not
precluding it, of course). I've also heard stories about suspension
problems.

Some of the bugs won't be worked out under warranty because they're
not covered by warranty.

Gas mileage is terrible compared to many other minivans.

A big drawback that I've personally seen is that "little" things
break. My gas guage takes about 5 minutes to move from half-a-tank to
full and still doesn't track accurately. The trip computer
(clock/miles until empty/temp/etc) is fried. A bushing on the middle
guide on one of the sliding doors is gone, causing binding. (You may
be able to get those bushings upgraded under warranty, so check into
if you take the plunge). Had a climate control switch fall apart. The
front wipers don't return to the correct position after they're used.
On the left side, the wiper tip has actually scratched enough paint
away on the top of the hood to allow it to rust. The front inside door
handles have so much slack in them that, if we're not paying
attention, we have to try twice to get the door open. There's a fair
whistle from the right front door at highway speeds. Took it through a
carwash last Friday now the airbag light is on. So, until we get that
fixed, we may be without that extra protection.

Incidentally, we bought the Sedona after blowing a head gasket on our
'96 Plymouth Voyager. Now that the Voyager is fixed, even though it
has 192K miles, I wish we had only it and not the Sedona.

-- Christian

Hard to tell reliability with a small track record.

This doesn't seem to be too prominent here.  I had 88K miles on mine
when the engine blew.  I was VERY religious with oil changes (never more
than 3K between changes.)  I know it was nothing I did.  I bought it
used with 31K miles on it.  I'm thinking the original owners got rid of
it because they saw something wrong with it.

I have seen VERY FEW of these vans make it past 100K miles.  Either they
are reliable and consumers decide not to sell them.  Or, they blow up
and consumers decide they are not worth fixing.  Although, from my
experience they are not reliable.  Anyone want to add to my comments?