Hyundai and Kia have multiple engines through the 2010’s that are prone to varying degrees of death from sudden to less-so-but-still-immediate. (there’s been lawsuits, extended warranties, etc.)

And that’s before you include the whole easy-theft design flaw increasing insurance and vandalism risk from the same time period.

It’s a shame since it really kicked off their “solid value car with some sneaky design flaw that’ll kill it/burn it/strand you/cost a lot of money later/etc.” trend that continues to this day - even in their electric models.

If it’s a second car and exclusively driven locally then you can be fine with one especially since you’ll have lots of cheap parts at junkyards for a while to come. Especially if the engine’s been replaced already under the lawsuit but multiple replacement engines isn’t unheard of. And you’ll want to change oil every 3-4k miles and watch the oil level like a hawk.

Not saying they haven’t made a solid individual vehicle nor are all lawsuit vehicles about to die but it’s not really great having that Sword of Damocles dangling to save a buck. (of course it depends on how many bucks are involved)

only if we can call them “pods”!

Takes some checking about what makes let you disconnect or not. Toyota does, Kia has no option, base models might still have the “feature” omitted, etc.

With no cellular connection, no data will go out as GPS is one-way by nature. I suppose it’s possible someone with physical access can retrieve some metrics if relevant but that’s not really a factor IMHO.