Kia has issued a recall for 379,931 of its vehicles, including the 2017 to 2019 Cadenza sedan and the 2017 to 2021 Sportage due to the risk of an electric short-circuit in the engine compartment leading to a fire, according to documents on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website.
Until the problem has been fixed; Kia and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are warning owners to keep the vehicles parked outside and away from their homes and other buildings or vehicles to prevent any possible fire from spreading.
The electric short occurs within the Hydraulic Electronic Control Unit, but the exact cause of the short is unknown. Owners could see the pressure warning light, ABS warning light, or MIL warning light illuminate on the dashboard; before the fire starts, or possibly smell or see smoke. Kia will begin notifying owners of the recall beginning on April 30 and dealers will remedy the recall; by replacing fuses in the.
Owners can also visit the safercar.gov website and enter their 17-digit vehicle identification number, or VIN, to check if their vehicle is subject to the recall. Kia dealers will replace fuses to prevent too much power from going to the affected circuit boards. In some cases, vehicle software will also be updated. Customers will not be charged for the repairs.
In November, NHTSA announced that Kia and Hyundai must 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.
The fines resolve a government probe into the companies’ behavior involving recalls of multiple models dating to the 2011 model year.
Kia was to pay $27 million and invest $16 million in safety performance measures. Another $27 million payment will be deferred as long as Kia meets safety conditions, NHTSA said.