Photo: Kia
Back in April 2019, the peeps at Kia Motors America became aware of a non-deployment event of the front airbags in a Soul. The so-called event data recorder of the car confirmed that the front airbags didn’t deploy.
From March through June 2021, which is a heck of a long time after the aforementioned incident, Kia investigated the subject vehicle in great detail. Engineers were surprised to find the front impact sensors kaput, a worrying condition that likely led to communication loss to the airbag control unit.
Kia subsequently conducted two crash tests, but curiously enough, both front airbags deployed before the front impact sensors were severed by the impact. Additional vehicle testing led to similar results, but earlier this year, Kia finally cracked the secret. According to documents filed with the NHTSA, a non-deployment event is possible if communication to the ACU from both the left and right front impact sensors is simultaneously lost very early in the crash, right before the deployment is commanded by the airbag control unit.
Kia has also confirmed that it’s not aware of any other similar incident.
As a precautionary measure, the South Korean company is calling back a grand total of 128,280 vehicles in the United States to update the ACU software. Only the 2014 model year Soul is affected, namely vehicles produced from July 21st, 2013 through June 20th, 2014, according to Kia.
The improved software logic enables the deployment of the front airbags if communication from both sensors is lost very early in the crash sequence.
Kia says the ACU deployment logic was changed beginning with the 2015 model year Soul, which is a little shady given how long the South Korean automaker took to find the root cause for the aforementioned incident. In any case, known owners of the 2014 model year Soul will be notified of the recall on April 15th, while the U.S. dealerships will be notified a week earlier.
Kia subsequently conducted two crash tests, but curiously enough, both front airbags deployed before the front impact sensors were severed by the impact. Additional vehicle testing led to similar results, but earlier this year, Kia finally cracked the secret. According to documents filed with the NHTSA, a non-deployment event is possible if communication to the ACU from both the left and right front impact sensors is simultaneously lost very early in the crash, right before the deployment is commanded by the airbag control unit.
Kia has also confirmed that it’s not aware of any other similar incident.
As a precautionary measure, the South Korean company is calling back a grand total of 128,280 vehicles in the United States to update the ACU software. Only the 2014 model year Soul is affected, namely vehicles produced from July 21st, 2013 through June 20th, 2014, according to Kia.
The improved software logic enables the deployment of the front airbags if communication from both sensors is lost very early in the crash sequence.
Kia says the ACU deployment logic was changed beginning with the 2015 model year Soul, which is a little shady given how long the South Korean automaker took to find the root cause for the aforementioned incident. In any case, known owners of the 2014 model year Soul will be notified of the recall on April 15th, while the U.S. dealerships will be notified a week earlier.
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