2015 KIA OPTIMA — Complaint #2055750
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:SEAT HEATER/COOLER filed January 14, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2055750 (ODI reference 11635862) concerns a 2015 KIA OPTIMA and was filed on January 14, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on January 1, 2025. The vehicle had 127,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Pennsylvania 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 2015 KIA OPTIMA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2015 Kia Optima. The contact stated that while attempting to activate the defroster, the defroster failed to active to defrost the windshield. The contact stated that on a separate occasion, the heated steering wheel failed to operate as needed. The contact also stated that the front driverâs side and front passengerâs side heated seats were inoperable. There was no warning light illuminated. The vehicle was not taken to a dealer or independent mechanic to be diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 127,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2055750 |
| ODI Number | 11635862 |
| Date Filed | January 14, 2025 |
| Failure Date | January 1, 2025 |
| VIN | 5XXGN4A78FG |
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.