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Recalls are an annoying but inevitable facet of modern car manufacturing and ownership, particularly as vehicles continually get more complicated. The best you can hope for is that when your car is afflicted by a defect of some kind, the automaker gets it sorted and you back on the road as quickly as possible. You definitely don’t want to land back in the shop twice for the same issue, especially when the issue in question involves a risk of fire. This is precisely the frustration plaguing Kia Telluride owners.
Let’s quickly flip back two years, when Kia recalled just under 463,000 Telluride SUVs, ranging from model years 2020 through 2024, for a faulty front power seat switch that could overheat and cause a fire even while the vehicle was parked. The issue was that the switch could be inadvertently stuck on, so technicians were advised to install brackets and revised knobs that would ideally prevent that from happening.
Of the recall group, Kia estimated that only 1% of vehicles actually had defective and dangerous seat controls; nevertheless, they all had to be mended, just to be on the safe side.
Adam Ismail
Well, apparently the recall fix itself may have been carried out improperly, which could lead to the same issue: stuck switch, overheating motor, fire. The same Telluride owners are now once again being told to park outside, as the motor could light up even when the vehicle is off. To date, Kia cites 11 customer reports of melted motors and another seven that resulted in under-seat fires, with thankfully no one injured.
It’s worth pointing out that this new remedy is thankfully different than the previous, unsuccessful one. Instead of simply adding a new bracket and replacing the knob, these long-suffering, fire-prone Tellurides will now get “an electronic fuse assembly to prevent continuous operation of a seat motor if the seat switch becomes dislodged, internally misaligned or otherwise damaged,” per the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s recall report. That’s more like it. Notices are expected to reach owners between August 13 and 19.
Adam Ismail
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Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.
