2016 KIA OPTIMA — Complaint #1806809
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:RECLINER filed April 11, 2022
NHTSA complaint #1806809 (ODI reference 11460427) concerns a 2016 KIA OPTIMA and was filed on April 11, 2022. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 10, 2022. The vehicle had 50,249 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Florida based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as seats:front assembly:recliner, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same KIA OPTIMA cohort independently describe similar seats:front assembly:recliner failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2016 KIA OPTIMA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2016 Kia Optima. The contact stated while driving 45 MPH, the driver's side seat would inadvertently lower without driver input. The contact stated that the failure recurred several times. The vehicle was taken to the dealer but was not diagnosed nor repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 50,249.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1806809 |
| ODI Number | 11460427 |
| Date Filed | April 11, 2022 |
| Failure Date | April 10, 2022 |
| VIN | 5XXGU4L36GG |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.