AutoEvolution website has posted an article, “On March 24th, an employee at Kia Mexico identified a strange noise in the steering column of a 2022 model year Rio during a test drive at the plant. KMX investigated this condition, discovering that the steering column’s U-joint bolt wasn’t torqued properly at the assembly plant rather than the supplier.”
“No fewer than 30 examples of the 2021 to 2022 model year Rio and Forte are called back, vehicles manufactured from September 2021 to February 2022 and May 2021 to March 2022. The population was determined by a review of VINs with traceability of the issue identified by vehicle production records. A grand total of six examples of the Rio and 24 Fortes are called back.”
“Over at Hyundai, the bigger brother of Kia became aware of the issue on April 22nd after KMX identified an under-torqued steering column U-joint bolt in a 2022 model year Accent. The attached report highlights that “the torque wrench used to install the retention bolt was not updated to the correct specification for tightening torque,” which is a gross oversight that could’ve gotten someone killed in the event of a detached steering column.”
To read the article click here.
To read the Kia Safety Recall Report cited in the article, click here.