Kia Issues Recall for Over 69,000 Sorentos and K5s

• Kia Motors issued a recall for more than 69,000 vehicles.
• The recall involves the Kia Sorento and the Kia K5.
• The malfunction noted can increase the chances of an accident.

Losing power due to an electric oil pump fault

Over 65,000 Kia Sorentos built between October 2020 and August 2022 and 3,000-plus Kia K5s with production dates between November 2020 and August 2022 are being recalled. According to the report, the spotlight is on the vehicles specifically equipped with the 2.5-liter turbocharged engines mated to Kia's eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmissions.

The NHTSA's recall notice states the "electric oil pump within the 8-speed dual-clutch transmission (DCT) may experience an internal fault due to a quality deviation issue at the supplier." Kia described the issue as a "detachment of a component of the electric oil pump circuit board due to insufficient soldering at the supplier." If the circuit board does come apart, the car will throw an error code and allow the vehicle to continue driving normally for a few seconds. After that it will lose power completely because the transmission's gears will disengage. It's estimated that 1% of the affected vehicles will experience this failure.

The top concern is that a loss of power while driving on public roads can increase the risk of a crash, but no major accidents have been reported as of this writing. Kia stated that if the separation does occur while driving that the owner will be notified through audible chimes along with the message "stop safely immediately" on the instrument cluster. If this happens to you in your car, we recommend doing exactly what the car says and finding a safe spot to pull over until help can arrive.

What's next

So, what's the remedy? After being notified, owners of the affected vehicles will be scheduled to take their vehicles into a Kia dealer where technicians will inspect and, if necessary, replace the transmission. In addition to the repair, the transmission control unit will be reprogrammed with updated software. Kia will begin contacting owners of the vehicles in question through mail beginning December 9, 2022.

Owners can also call Kia's customer service line at 1-800-333-4542, referencing the recall ID number: SC250. Out of sheer curiosity, we did the same. A Kia Sorento spent a year in our long-term fleet, and even though we recently sent the car back to Kia, we wanted to know if it was affected by the recall. As it turns out, it was. A representative we spoke to today explained that the recall was so new that the automaker's system couldn't yet associate the recall to specific VINs, but the automaker is able to identify if cars are affected based on their production date, and that included our long-term Sorento. Being able to identify if your car is affected via its VIN will likely come in time, but if you want to be proactive about the recall, calling the number above will help you identify if your Kia falls under the recall.

Edmunds says

Let's hope the recall doesn't cast too big of a shadow over the otherwise impressive K5 and Sorento.