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Center for Auto Safety wants Hyundai and Kia to recall 2.9M vehicles

DETROIT — A nonprofit auto safety group is demanding that Hyundai and Kia recall 2.9 million cars and SUVs in the U.S. due to consumer complaints that they can catch fire. The Center For Auto Safety said Friday that there have been more than 220 complaints to the U.S. government since 2010 about fires and another 200 complaints about melted wires as well as smoke and burning odors. The complaints involve the 2011 through 2014 Kia Sorento and Optima and the Hyundai Sonata and Santa Fe. Also included is the 2010 through 2015 Kia Soul. The fires are being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as part of a 2017 probe into Hyundai and Kia engine failures. "The volume of fires here make it appear that Hyundai and Kia are content to sit back and allow consumers and insurers to bear the brunt of poorly designed, manufactured and repaired vehicles," Jason Levine, the center's executive director, said. The fire reports have come in from across the country, including a death in Ohio in April 2017, he said. Hyundai says it monitors safety concerns and acts quickly to recall defective vehicles. "We have a robust system in place for monitoring and investigating reported vehicle fires that includes investigation and reporting to NHTSA as required. Vehicle fires can result from a variety of reasons," the company statement said. Kia said it is using company and third-party fire investigators to determine what caused the fires so it can address them. "A vehicle fire may be the result of any number of complex factors, such as a manufacturing issue, inadequate maintenance, the installation of aftermarket parts, an improper repair, arson, or some other non-vehicle source, and must be carefully evaluated by a qualified and trained investigator or technician," the company said in a statement. The Center for Auto Safety filed a petition asking NHTSA to investigate the fires in June. The agency said Friday that it is still evaluating the petition and it has sent information requests to Hyundai, Kia and other automakers about the issue. Levine says the center does not know what's causing the fires. In May 2017 the government began investigating whether the automakers moved quickly enough to recall over 1.6 million vehicles because of engines stalling. NHTSA is looking into three recalls by the related Korean brands, and it's also investigating whether the automakers followed safety reporting requirements.

Hyundai Motorsport tests its performance at the WRC Rally Finland

Autoblog joined Hyundai to check out the Neste Oil Rally Finland, where thousands of kilometers of lightly traveled, rolling gravel roads have turned out decades of astonishing racing and cold-blooded drivers. Even though the World Rally Championship is well tamed from its feral Group B days, Rally Finland is still the drivers' favorite, with the fastest speeds and the biggest jumps.
It's the rookie year for the Hyundai Shell World Rally Team, run by Hyundai Motorsport out of Alzenau, Germany. The squad entered the season aiming for podiums in the second half and looking to get its three cars to the finish at every race for maximum development data. It's already outdone itself, Thierry Neuville scoring third places in Mexico - where he used a bottle of Corona to fill his radiator - and Poland.
Denis Giraudet told us that the rally's sternest challenge is not one of heart, though. Giraudet isn't part of Hyundai Motorsport, he was our guide and he's been in the sport as a co-driver for more than 30 years; he won Rally Finland with Juha Kankunnen in 1993 in a Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD. Giraudet said the race tests that particular confidence that comes from about 18 inches below the heart: "Here, you have to go all out. If there's a problem, it's usually between the steering wheel and the seat."

Hyundai looking to add plant in Mexico

Mexico is rapidly becoming the go-to place for North American auto production, and companies including Toyota, General Motors, and Audi are all building new plants, expanding or shifting some production there. Now, Hyundai is investigating joining them in the future. "I'm sure that over the years we'll see production of Hyundai products in Mexico," Pedro Albarran, managing director for the automaker in Mexico, said to Bloomberg. Albarran indicates that a likely location for such a factory might be the state of Nuevo Leon, where Kia also has a forthcoming $1 billion plant. The site would be an ideal location near suppliers. It's probably going to be a while before any of Hyundai's models start coming out of Mexico. According to Bloomberg, the automaker wants to wait to make a final decision until sales there reach around 50,000 annual units, and that benchmark isn't expected until 2018. While Kia's plant is slated to have a capacity around 300,000 vehicles a year when it opens in 2016, Albarran thinks Hyundai might start smaller at just over 100,000 annual examples. Some of those would likely include subcompact models for the Mexican market. The Korean automaker was rumored to be looking into a factory south of the border as far back as 2013.