An issue with piston oil control rings could cause serious engine damage, or even trigger a fire.
Kia launched a new wide-scale recall campaign for its small Seltos SUV as well as the Soul hatchback to fix a major problem with the vehicles’ 2.0-liter “Nu” multi-point injection engines. According to a report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the problem could impact as many as 137,256 vehicles between the 2021 and 2023 model years. Kia says defective piston oil control rings within the cylinders could cause excessive oil consumption, and in rare cases let oil come into contact with hot exhaust components — with risk of a fire breaking out as a result.
In total, the automaker reports the piston ring defect may impact 53,635 Kia Seltos SUVs built between July 2, 2020 (for the 2021 model year) and July 1, 2022 (covering the 2022 and 2023 model years). A larger proportion of Souls are included in the recall, totaling 83,621 units. Both cars were assembled at the Kia Autoland Hwaseong plant in South Korea. To be clear for concerned owners of either vehicle, this only impacts the naturally aspirated 2.0-liter Nu engine (the base engine, in other words). This does not seem to impact the 1.6-liter turbocharged engine in the higher-end Seltos S-Line and SX models.
Over time, defective piston oil control rings — which keep the cylinder walls and the pistons lubricated while sealing off oil from getting into the combustion chamber — will damage the cylinder walls and allow oil to get into the combustion chamber and exhaust system. Kia notes that it first became aware of the problem during a routine review of field data last September, and collected engines repaired under warranty for teardown and investigation over the following months, before deciding to issue the recall.
As you might expect, the fix is straightforward but inconvenient: a new engine.
Owners will be notified about the problem by first-class mail on April 4, 2025. Dealers are already aware of the problem as of February 17, and have instructions to inspect and replace engines, where necessary. For engines that aren’t already damaged to the point of needing a replacement, technicians will install special noise-sensing software that will provide a warning light to the driver of potential engine damage. Then, at that point, an impacted owner would need to come into the dealer, then receive a new replacement engine.
While most of the vehicles under this recall (NHTSA recall number 25V-099, Kia recall number SC336) should still be under their original powertrain warranty, Kia will reimburse owners for repair expenses related to the piston oil ring problem.
The automaker says Soul hatchbacks built after April 19, 2022 — or July 2, 2022, for the Seltos — have piston oil control rings from a different supplier, without the quality deviation concerns as the engines included in the recall campaign.
