2014 KIA OPTIMA — Complaint #1857005
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE:OIL/LUBRICATION:SUMP/TANK:DRAIN PLUG filed December 2, 2022
NHTSA complaint #1857005 (ODI reference 11495806) concerns a 2014 KIA OPTIMA and was filed on December 2, 2022. The owner reports the failure occurred on September 28, 2022. The vehicle had 101,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to New Hampshire based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:engine:oil/lubrication:sump/tank:drain plug, 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 engine and engine cooling:engine:oil/lubrication:sump/tank:drain plug 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 2014 KIA OPTIMA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2014 Kia Optima. The contact stated while driving 70 MPH, the vehicle was shaking with unknown warning lights illuminated. The contact was able to pull over safely and smoke started coming from the vehicle with a smell of burning oil coming from the vehicle. While the vehicle was being towed, the contact saw that oil was leaking from underneath the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic who stated that the engine needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The vehicle was towed to the dealer and the contact was informed that the stated that the oil drain plug was missing. The vehicle was not repaired because the vehicle had open recalls and the recalls could not be repaired because the oil drain plug needed to be replaced first. The manufacturer was contacted and stated that the dealer reported the issue. The failure mileage was 101,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1857005 |
| ODI Number | 11495806 |
| Date Filed | December 2, 2022 |
| Failure Date | September 28, 2022 |
| VIN | 5XXGN4A74EG |
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.