In February of 2020, the NHTSA announced a recall of more than 140,000 Kia Optimas that were at risk of having a fuel leak. Now, more than half of the affected vehicles are being recalled again for the same issue. A totally new solution has been devised that removes the concern about how dealers addressed the initial recall.

The original recall stemmed from an issue with a low-pressure fuel tube that could become damaged by heat in the engine bay. If such damage occurred, the tube could crack and thus create a fuel leak. When the first recall was issued, no specific solution was defined but instead simply said ” Kia is currently evaluating a remedy for this recall.”

In May of 2020, they updated the NHTSA filing with the remedy which involved inspecting the tube and then replacing it if any damage was found. If no damage was found, then dealers were instructed to wrap the tube with heat-resistant tape.

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According to the new recall, issued on February 17th, ” The remedy for previous recall 20V100 may not have been properly performed in all cases by dealers.” It goes on to specify that in some cases, dealers may not have repaired the tube with heat-resistant tape if they didn’t detect any damage or a leak.

In other cases, it seems that instead of replacing damaged tubes, dealers may have simply repaired those tubes with the same heat-resistant tape. Either way, Kia is stepping up now to replace all affected vehicles, 72,848 in total by completely replacing the low-pressure fuel tube altogether.

Kia actually found the issue in one Optima back in 2020 after the recall had been completed and after conducting a follow-up review in November of 2021, they decided to enact this recall. The Optimas affected are all from the 2013 and 2014 model years equipped with either the 2.4-liter or the 2.0-liter GDI engine. Thankfully, no injuries or fires have been caused by the issue as far as Kia knows. Of course, Kia will reimburse any owners who have already repaired their vehicles.