Since buying my Kia last year, I've received two letters from Kia notifying me of a warranty extension on my 2015 Sedona. The first had to do with the sliding doors, evidently the doors will stick open / refuse to close, which I didn't think was that unusual for minivan doors (at least in the early days of minivans) given how kids tend to abuse them. I received a second notice in the mail today and they are extending the warranty for the "multi-function" switch, which is the turn signal stalk that activates headlights, high beams, signals, fog lights, etc.
I doubt Kia would send these to owners out of the kindness of their hearts, which tells me they've had recurring problems with these. Some research on the door issue reveals tons of owners having problems, many in the 10k range, or very early in the van's life. I'm left wondering why at least the light switch isn't considered a safety recall, in which the manufacturer replaces the parts with something that doesn't have the design defect (or plain cheapness?) that causes them to fail early. I would think lights or signals failing on a busy highway would be quite a safety dilemma.
So is Kia warding off a potential recall by offering this warranty, and/or what is the threshold that makes warranty extension okay instead of recall? I'm not complaining and feel fortunate Kia is giving owners some piece of mind, but I have a hunch they'll just replace the crappy parts with new crappy parts for people until the warranty ends and they're on their own. I'm also thinking this "multi-function" switch has to be common across many/all Kia models of this vintage as it makes no sense to give each model a unique stalk.
I doubt Kia would send these to owners out of the kindness of their hearts, which tells me they've had recurring problems with these. Some research on the door issue reveals tons of owners having problems, many in the 10k range, or very early in the van's life. I'm left wondering why at least the light switch isn't considered a safety recall, in which the manufacturer replaces the parts with something that doesn't have the design defect (or plain cheapness?) that causes them to fail early. I would think lights or signals failing on a busy highway would be quite a safety dilemma.
So is Kia warding off a potential recall by offering this warranty, and/or what is the threshold that makes warranty extension okay instead of recall? I'm not complaining and feel fortunate Kia is giving owners some piece of mind, but I have a hunch they'll just replace the crappy parts with new crappy parts for people until the warranty ends and they're on their own. I'm also thinking this "multi-function" switch has to be common across many/all Kia models of this vintage as it makes no sense to give each model a unique stalk.
