2000 Kia Sephia problems

What is wrong

On certain passenger and sport utility vehicles, the front safety belt buckles may emit a "click" sound during the buckling process that is similar to the sound emitted when a buckle is being latched, when it is not.

Risk

The latch can then pull out of the buckle when tension is applied.

Remedy

Dealers will replace both front seat belt buckles. The recall began august 16, 2004. Owners should contact kia at 1‑800‑333‑4542.

Recall number 04V305000 · Recall details

The manufacturer has initiated a safety related campaign to recall the subject vehicles for correction of the seat belt buckle defect.the corrective action is to replace the seat belts/buckles.this safety recall program has been assigned the federal safety agency campaign no. 04v305.

EA04007

Based on the low rate of fuel spit-back incedents (14.3 incidents per 100,000 vehicles sold), a low warranty claims rate of 0.02 percent, and the lack of engineering information that would support the presence of an engineering defect, a safety-related defect trend has not been identified and further use of agency resources does not appear to be warranted.accordingly, this investigation is closed.the closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by the federal safety agency that no safety-related defect exists.the agency reserves the right to take further action if warranted by the circumstances.for additional information, see the attached closing report.

EA04004

Information received and analyzed during this rq disclosed that my 1999 and 2000 kia sephia and sportage vehicles were equipped with modified versions of the same safety belt latch assembly as those recalled in campaign no. 02v‑216.these latch assemblies were identified as type a97. Odi analyses indicate a continuing trend of consumer complaints following a series of design modifications made by kia to improve the a97 latch assembly.my 2001 and 2002 subject vehicles were equipped with different design latch assemblies (type db-6 or autoliv) and exhibit a much lower complaint count.this rq has been upgraded to an ea in order to further investigate this matter for the subject vehicles equipped with type a97 latch assemblies.

RQ03007

In june 2000, kia notified odi of a defect condition in approximately 100,000 my 1998-99 sephia passenger vehicles manufactured from october 17, 1997 to may 16, 1999, that could result in fuel spit back while refueling (ea99-034, recall 00v‑175).according to kia, manufacturing changes made to the onboard refueling vapor recovery (orvr) valve could cause fuel shut off before the tank reached 95% of nominal capacity during refueling.kia stated that if the consumer then attempted to add more fuel to the tank, fuel spillback or spitback from the fuel filler neck could occur.kia replaced the orvr valves in the recalled vehicles.odi has received 16 complaints of fuel spit back on vehicles that have received the recall and 5 complaints on vehicles that were not covered by the recall.kia has identified 2 fuel spit back complaints on vehicles that were recalled and 8 complaints on vehicles not covered by the original recall.kia has also provided warranty information showing 191 claims potentially related to fuel spitback on non-recalled vehicles. Odi has upgraded its investigation to an engineering analysis to further assess the scope, frequency, and trend of the fuel spitback risk associated with the alleged defect in the subject vehicles.

RQ03006

Odi gathered fire data from various sources and inspected subject vehicles to assess the scope and frequency of non-crash engine compartment fires caused by starter cable chafing.odi's analysis found that most of the suspect fires occurred after the vehicle had received service repairs in the area of the subject cable.consumer complaint data indicate that the problem experience has declined since a peak in late 2001.the most recent known event occurred in november of 2002. Kia will perform a service campaign beginning in late 2003 to inspect subject vehicles built prior to january 2000 for cable damage and will replace damaged cables as necessary. Given the declining fire rate and kia?s service campaign, further expenditure of agency resources is unjustified in this matter.the engineering analysis is therefore closed.the closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by the federal safety agency that no safety-related defect exists.the agency will take further action in the future if warranted. Further details may be found in the attached closing report.

EA02016

PE02028

Allege battety may explode if owner's attempt to jump-state the vehicle by following the owner's manual diagram

PE00026