Kia America is once again asking Telluride owners to park their prized family haulers out on the driveway, preferably far away from anything flammable. Their front seats might literally catch fire. If this sounds like automotive déjà vu, that is because it is. We are looking at a spectacular sequel to a botched corporate remedy that proves, once again, that a multi-million-dollar safety campaign is only as good as the dealership mechanic tasked with executing it.
The core of the issue lies within the front power seat motors of 2020 through 2024 model year Tellurides built at Kia’s West Point facility in Georgia, easily identifiable by those 5XY VIN prefixes. If the seat’s side cover or slide knob takes an external hit from a rogue water bottle or a heavy boot, the switch misaligns. The motor then runs continuously, overheating until the plastic begins to char.
Kia thought they had solved this with recall 24V407 back in mid-2024, instructing dealers to add a reinforcement bracket and a shiny new knob. But by late 2024, fire allegations started pouring in anyway. Kia’s safety engineers had to pull out the X-ray machines, only to discover a comedy of errors: by June 2025, they realized that several dealers had completely messed up the repair, reinforcing the switch cover instead of replacing the actual broken switch mechanism.
Through June 25, 2026, Kia verified 18 distinct incidents of seat-melting madness. Eleven resulted in localized melting, while seven turned into actual underseat fires. The grand solution this time around? Instead of trusting dealerships with complex plastic surgery, Kia is just going to slap a fuse assembly onto the motor to cut the power before it self-combusts.
Impacted owners will see their VINs hit the NHTSA database on July 17, 2026, with first-class notification letters scheduled to arrive between August 13 and August 19. Thankfully, newer Tellurides built after May 30, 2024, feature an inherently upgraded mechanism.
This fire sale of a recall comes at an awkward time for Kia, as the first-generation Telluride makes way for the imposing 2027 second-gen model. The old naturally aspirated V6 is officially dead, replaced by a 2.5-liter turbo starting at $39,190, or a hybrid variant that commands a steeper $46,490 entry price. Let’s just hope the new hybrid’s electrical system stays inside the wires.
