2013 KIA OPTIMA — Complaint #1944492
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:SEAT HEATER/COOLER filed November 20, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1944492 (ODI reference 11556100) concerns a 2013 KIA OPTIMA and was filed on November 20, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 30, 2022. The vehicle had 120,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Iowa based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as seats:front assembly:seat heater/cooler, 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:seat heater/cooler 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 2013 KIA OPTIMA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2013 Kia Optima. The contact stated while driving 65 MPH, the driver's side seat heater was overheating. The contact stated that he attempted to set the heater to the lowest setting; however, the seat continued to overheat to the point that the contact pulled off the roadway and exited the vehicle. The contact turned off the seat heater. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The contact had taken the vehicle to a local dealer, where it was diagnosed that there was no electrical issue found with the seat. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 120,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1944492 |
| ODI Number | 11556100 |
| Date Filed | November 20, 2023 |
| Failure Date | December 30, 2022 |
| VIN | 5XXGR4A63DG |
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.