Kia Sportage and Soul recall - affects 7000 UK cars

Kia is recalling 5,787 Sportage and 1,432 Soul models in the UK to fix a potential fault in the seat belt pre-tensioner mechanism.

5,787 UK Kia Sportage models (pictured) are being recalled.

Recalls are a fact of life for car makers, but at least the industry now tries to respond to problems as they arise, and before they cause damage to people of vehicles.

This latest recall comes from Kia in the UK, which is recalling a total of 5,785 Sportage models and 1.432 Soul models to address a problem that ha been identified with the seat belt pre-tensioner mechanism.

Kia says it is not aware of any injuries resulting from the fault and that it was discovered as a result of on-going monitoring of customer vehicles when they identified a problem with a faulty piston within the mechanism.

The Sportage models affected were built between October 2011 and November 2012 at Kia’s plant in Zilini, Slovakia, and the Soul models were built between August 2011 and March 2012 at the Kia plant in Kwangju in Korea.

Kia is planning to contact all the affected owners by post (which seems truly archaic in this day and age), but if you have any concerns – or think Kia might not have your details – you can contact Kia Customer Services on 0800 158 8757.