— A Hyundai and Kia engine fire investigation has been upgraded after the government learned of more than 160 vehicle fires allegedly related to defective engines.
About 3 million 2011-2016 Hyundai and Kia vehicles are included in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation originally opened in 2017.
NHTSA opened two investigations in 2017 following several Hyundai and Kia fires in vehicles equipped with Theta II engines.
Regulators said they wanted to know if the automakers waited too long to issue the recalls and if there were violations of federal safety laws.
The government found numerous violations of recall requirements and in November 2020 Hyundai and Kia entered into consent orders with NHTSA, consent orders still in place.
However, in 2018 the Center for Auto Safety petitioned NHTSA to open a defect investigation into non-crash fires in Hyundai and Kia vehicles. Many customers reported their engines caught fire when the vehicles were shut off, causing homes and property to burn.
At the time there were 120 engine compartment fires, including in vehicles that hadn't been recalled, and in recalled vehicles that had been repaired.
NHTSA granted the Center's petition to investigate the engine fires and opened two formal investigations into Hyundai Sonata and Santa Fe vehicles, and Kia Optima, Sorento and Soul models. At that time there were allegedly reports of more than 1,300 Hyundai fires and nearly 1,800 Kia fires.
As of today, Hyundai and Kia have ordered multiple recalls for vehicles equipped with Theta II GDI, Theta II MPI, Theta II MPI HEV, Nu GDI and Gamma GDI engines.
The recalls involve engines inspections, installation of "knock sensors" and dealers replacing damaged engines.
The knock sensor software will allegedly detect engine problems before the engines can fail or catch fire. The software is also supposed to alert a driver of engine problems and limit engine power if problems are detected.
Additionally, Hyundai and Kia also extended limited engine warranties in multiple models.
What began as a preliminary Hyundai and Kia engine fire investigation is now upgraded to an engineering analysis to investigate all Hyundai and Kia engine fire recalls.
CarComplaints.com will update our website with results of the Hyundai/Kia engine fire investigation.