ATLANTA — New cars are catching fire without warning. Channel 2 Action News has been staying on top of this for years with Kia vehicles.
The recalls and safety warnings keep coming even after a major settlement with the federal government.
Kia and Hyundai issued “park outside” orders for select vehicles that include the 2014 to 2016 Kia Sportage, the 2016 to 2018 Kia K-900 and the 2016 to 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe.
The automaker said the vehicles are at risk of catching fire even if they are turned off.
That’s exactly what happened to Ginger Evans’ 2020 Kia Soul. It caught fire just down the road from her Blue Ridge home.
“I think about just someone’s loved one having to die because Kia, are they taking this seriously?” Evans said.
If it sounds familiar, that’s because for four years now Channel 2 Action News has been reporting on late-model Kia and Hyundais catching fire, as well as on a series of recalls, federal complaints and settlements.
Many of those we’ve covered have been Kia Souls, but the company did not include many late-model Souls in recalls or in its massive settlement with federal regulators.
“You’re a Kia fan. You bought four of them. Will you ever buy another one?” Channel 2 investigative reporter Justin Gray asked Evans.
“No, I just don’t feel safe in them anymore,” Evans said.
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Jason Levine heads the Center for Auto Safety. They filed the initial complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warning of these fire dangers.
“It’s not isolated to one model year or one model. So it’s problematic. And it’s a very large (recall),” Levine said. “This seems to be problematic in that it is probably a design problem, as well as a quality control problem.”
Many of the Kias and Hyundais rolled right off the line in Georgia at the dealers’ West Point factory.
Kia and Hyundai agreed to pay $137 million in fines and for safety improvements because they moved too slowly to recall more than 1 million vehicles with engines that can fail.
But since that settlement in November 2020, we’ve seen seven more waves of recalls for different fire dangers on different model Hyundais and Kias.
“We don’t think they’re done. We think there are more vehicles yet to be recalled from this batch,” Levine said.
Levine said the automakers have also been slow to fix outstanding recalls.
The guidance right now for Evans’ Sportage is to not park it near the house.
It was Evans’ son who was behind the wheel when her Soul caught fire, but she can’t help but wonder what would have happened if, as is often the case, she was driving her mother.
“My mom who is in her 80s with dementia, it would have caused so much confusion with me trying to get her out of it,” Evans said. “I don’t know if I could have.”
Although the cause of the sudden fires remains unknown, the manufacturers believe an electrical component in the anti-lock brake system may experience an internal electrical short circuit that could increase the risk of fire both while the vehicle is being driven and when it is parked.
Kia and Hyundai will notify owners by mail with instructions to bring their vehicles to a Kia or Hyundai dealer for a free repair.
Dealers will install a fuse designed to mitigate the risk of fire.
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