Trouble still follows Kia, Hyundai in theft craze

Trouble continues to simmer for Hyundai Motor America and Kia America despite developing a free fix for owners to protect certain older-model-year Hyundai and Kia vehicles from being hotwired.

On Feb. 14, the Korean automakers, both owned by Hyundai Motor Group, launched a service campaign in the form of a software update for 8.4 million Hyundai and Kia vehicles that lack a crucial anti-theft device called an engine immobilizer.

An engine immobilizer electronically tethers a vehicle to its key fob and prevents it from starting without the device present.

The software update extends the length of the vehicle's existing alarm from 30 seconds to one minute and requires the key in the ignition for the vehicle to be turned on. The announcement of the campaign also came from NHTSA.

But one day after the service campaign was issued, the city of Columbus, Ohio — which calculated a near 500 percent increase in thefts of Kia and Hyundai vehicles from 2021 to 2022 — filed a lawsuit against Hyundai and Kia alleging that the automakers knew their vehicles were more susceptible to theft without engine immobilizers and still did not include them as standard equipment.

Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein told Automotive News that the city has been "in conversation with Kia and Hyundai about how the ease of stealing some of their cars has wreaked havoc across the country." Klein said while they are hopeful the no-cost fix will "stop the bleeding," the amount of damage done to the city has to be addressed.

Columbus is the second city to sue the automakers. In January, Seattle filed a similar case, citing a 620 percent increase in theft of Hyundai models between July 2021 and 2022. The lawsuit claims Hyundai and Kia could have spent approximately $500 per vehicle to have the immobilizers installed once the thefts "skyrocketed."

Hyundai released a statement last week saying, "Hyundai believes this litigation is improper and unnecessary."

The Seattle suit also asserts that the initial decision to not include immobilizers goes against industrywide standards and that it "created a public nuisance" that could have been avoided.

Insurance giants State Farm and Progressive also have stopped writing new policies for affected models.

"State Farm has temporarily stopped accepting new customer applications in some states for certain model years and trim levels of Hyundai and Kia vehicles because theft losses for these vehicles have increased dramatically," a State Farm spokesperson said.

Progressive took similar action.

"In response to this explosive increase in thefts, we have continued to insure our existing customers who own impacted models, but in fairness to our existing policyholders we have also limited our sale of new policies or increased rates in certain locations," a Progressive spokesperson told Automotive News in a statement.

The spokesman said Progressive is "hopeful this software upgrade will be effective at deterring thefts" and will "closely monitor manufacturers' actions, consumer adoption rates and the effectiveness of the updates."

The crisis ignited last summer after a video on TikTok showed viewers — some younger than driving age — how to easily remove the vehicle's steering wheel column and use a USB cable to trigger the ignition. Car thefts quickly spread throughout the U.S.

In addition to stealing the vehicles, some thieves used them to commit other crimes. According to one of the lawsuits, filed last November in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, four teenagers died after crashing a stolen 2021 Kia Sportage.

A pileup of class action lawsuits from states, including Wisconsin, Colorado, Missouri and California, called for Hyundai and Kia to issue a nationwide recall to install immobilizers.

In December, 16 of the cases were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation in the Central District of California where the automakers' U.S. headquarters are.

Hyundai spokesman Ira Gabriel said the company's goal is to "maximize completion rates" of the service campaign but did not say why a safety recall to have immobilizers installed was not issued. NHTSA did not respond to a request for additional comment.

It's unclear whether the proposed software fix will go far enough to satisfy affected customers Some people are still complaining publicly about having their vehicles stolen.

On Feb. 18, on ClassAction.com, @garrettashley said: "My 2015 Kia was stolen overnight, and I only just learned about them being 'easy to steal.' I'm beyond upset."

On Feb. 19, @disqus_SkaYzBv6yj responded: "I am in the same boat as you. My car was stolen overnight on Friday. I own a Hyundai."

Roger Spears, senior manager of cybersecurity consulting services for accounting firm Schneider Downs, said, "I'm surprised they're not just putting the module on and providing a new key, especially with so many exposed vehicles and insurance companies refusing new coverage."

Spears said cybersecurity testing will need to be done on the update to ensure it's a viable fix.

"If the software update is going to require the key, what if you remove the key ignition from the steering column? Is there a way to bypass that with some sort of mechanism?" Spears asked, adding that car alarms also are not that effective anymore.

"When car alarms first came out, everybody would run to the window to see whose car was getting stolen," he said. "But now it's just an annoyance and nobody really gets alarmed about it."