Kia recalls over 100,000 Sedona minivans for sliding-door issue

The 2015-2018 Kia Sedona minivan is being recalled because its power-sliding doors might not stop moving when they hit an obstruction while closing. The recall affects 106,428 vans in the US, and requires that Kia dealers reprogram the control model for the vans’ sliding doors.

Kia first began investigating the door problem in September 2017 after customer complaints that the Sedona’s doors didn’t auto-reverse when obstructed, but engineers initially couldn’t replicate the problem. Subsequent investigates revealed that while the system that was intended to stop the doors if they hit an obstacle worked, its threshold was set too high to stop in every situation. Kia says that in 14 of the 21 customer complaints it received about the problems, customers alleged that the closing doors had injured someone — though Kia says that it only has confirmed two of those injuries.

To solve the problem, Kia worked with a supplier to reprogram the power-door control module with a lower threshold for detecting an obstruction. The change was already applied on the production line, and the recall of already-sold vehicles will start on June 18.