2016 KIA OPTIMA — Complaint #1922503
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about VISIBILITY:POWER WINDOW DEVICES AND CONTROLS filed August 26, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1922503 (ODI reference 11540915) concerns a 2016 KIA OPTIMA and was filed on August 26, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 12, 2023. The report was geocoded to North Carolina based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as visibility:power window devices and controls, 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 visibility:power window devices and controls 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
Both rear windows, independently and at different times, have needed to have the gear inside the door panel that rolls the windows up and down replaced due to spontaneous stripping and total failure. The dealer has replaced the offending parts, which are sold only as part of a much larger / very large component panel, i.e. it is not possible to replace only the small plastic stripped-out gear. My safety was at risk both times because the window would not go up, resulting in my inability to lock and secure my car. If I had small children who ride in the back seat (I don't, but surely others who have this car do), I would not be able to secure their safety inside the vehicle. The problem has been inspected, confirmed, and repaired by the dealer. It is a known recurring problem by the manufacturer Kia, but they refuse to issue a recall. The first time it happened the car was still under warranty so there was no charge to me. With the second window the car was no longer under warranty a
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1922503 |
| ODI Number | 11540915 |
| Date Filed | August 26, 2023 |
| Failure Date | July 12, 2023 |
| VIN | 5XXGU4L3XGG |
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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.