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Kia Telluride Recalled Over Fire Concern, Remedy Not Available Yet

Last year, on October 18th, the safety boffins at Kia Canada notified Kia North America of a fire incident originating from the trailer hitch harness of a Telluride. One month later, the South Korean automaker’s U.S. office received a customer complaint alleging fire as well. The owner noted that the thermal incident occurred circa one hour after the vehicle was parked.
Kia Telluride 20 photos
Photo: Kia
2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market2022 Kia Telluride official details and pricing for U.S. market
Engineers inspected the vehicle, concluding that the fire had started from the trailer hitch module. Two additional trailer hitch modules were sourced from December 6th to April 5th, both showing localized melting. Kia presents the issue to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on May 11th, reassuring the federal watchdog that it’s on top of this issue.

Come June 3rd, the supplier X-rayed collected parts from the Canadian and U.S. markets. The supplier identified “an unused portion of the printed circuit board” as being the origin of the thermal event, as well as “electrical activity near the power and ground terminals.” Not long after that, a third-party engineering firm identified some sort of “contamination on the printed circuit boards, indicated by elevated chloride concentrations.” In the presence of moisture, which builds up there given the tow hitch module’s location, a resistive fault is possible in combination with chloride and tin.

Considering the risk of a thermal event, even when the vehicle is parked, the peeps at Kia North America decided to recall certain Tellurides produced for the 2020 through 2022 model years. The suspect population features the automaker’s genuine four-pin tow hitch harness accessory. No fewer than six fires were identified thus far, all of them for the 2020MY.

The attached report lists two part numbers for the suspect harness, namely S9F67-AC000 and S9F67-AC001. The remedy hasn’t been decided on yet, and Kia also recommends owners park their vehicles outside. As in, away from structures due to the risk of a thermal event. Owner notification is expected to begin on October 14th. Also worthy of note, the four-pin harness was discontinued after the 2020 model year in favor of a seven-pin unit.

Recalled vehicles number 36,417 units of the Telluride, produced at the West Point factory in Georgia between January 2019 and August 2022.
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 Download: Kia Telluride fire recall (PDF)

About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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