I read somewhere there was a problem with the sun visors on 2007 Kia Optimas. I had to have passenger side replaced not to long after I got it. It broke again. Funny nobody is on that side very often and it is the one that breaks when I move it to down position. Why is there not a recall on them? Seems to me if there was an accident and that was down and not staying in position like it is supposed to, it could cause some serious damage to somebody’s face.
Because it is not a safety item. Recalls are only for safety items, not 13 year old sun visors.
My car was new when I got it and the passenger visor broke not long after I got it. Can’t say it was from people using it because I hardly ever have passengers in my car. They replaced it under warranty and the new one was replaced out of the same faulty batch because it also broke and they wouldn’t replace it. I had a vehicle much older then my car is now and it certainly never had any problems like that. This is the manufacturers fault, not the customers and it has nothing to do with the age of the vehicle. Yes it is a safety issue even though nobody has been injured yet to my knowledge. If you are hit head on, that visor could go into your skull because of where it hangs down when it should be held in the up position. If you have the visor in the down position so it doesn’t do that, it is hanging down at night when you don’t need it and you can’t see that well.
After 13 years, the manufacturer would owe nothing on this, this side of the affair is over, the ship departed long time ago.
What you can do is to check how other people with sagging visors cope with it.
YouTube is a good place to search.
Some of them are quite inventive and solutions I’ve seen range from gluing velcro to the roof liner to attaching small/flat magnets.
I ended up spending $45 to buy a brand new visor for my 15-years old Toyota Prius… probably will last longer then the rest of the car anyways
My friend’s '08 Rav-4 suffered from sagging visors, and the problem was very easy to fix with some Velcro.
This problem happened not long after I got the new car. Not 13 years later. That information seems to be getting missed in my message. The first one they replaced under warranty and the second one also came from the same bad batch. It broke a few years after that. I had contacted the dealership and they never responded. I have had that same bad visor for several years but haven’t replaced it because I hardly have anybody on that side of my car and I would tuck it up in the hooks to hold it in place but it won’t stay there anymore and swings around. My grandson rides there a lot now so I have to get it fixed. I did buy a new visor for 37.00 and am waiting on it to get here. It seems to be an ongoing problem for a lot of people. They had a bad batch of visors and won’t correct it. That is what bothers me the most. It has nothing to do with how old the car is, it happened when it was newer for a lot of people. It has nothing to do with how many times somebody pulls it down to use it because I hardly had any passengers to do that with the one that always broke. Never had that kind of problem with any of our older cars.
Thank you! I have looked into some of that. I just bought a new visor and am waiting on it to get here. It is a more up to date visor so hopefully it won’t have the same problems.
All car makes/models have their own/unique bucket of problems, and manufacturers are rarely taking the position to fix every one of them, even if problem is wide-spread, as this hurts their bottom line.
If that visor is the biggest issue concerning you after 13 years of ownership… I would say you are lucky winner!
Then why are you complaining only now, 13 years later? Why did Kia refuse to replace the visor a 2nd time?
And;
No, it can’t IF you are wearing your seatbelts as required and IF the airbags are functioning - no service airbag light.
I have to ask… What did you expect from posting on this forum? Obviously we didn’t respond the way you expected. Just curious.
Because a lot of people have this problem with their visors and it should be addressed. The more people that say they have had problems with them, the more they will look at it hopefully. You would rather people sit back and not say anything? They are forced to either pay a lot to get them replaced or have to rig them up. I can see regular wear and tear on them but not if they were supposed to be new parts and not if they were barely used and they break as soon as you pull it down. Mine were new parts. I have no idea why the dealership didn’t respond to me calling them for the second one. I do wear my seat belt and not everybody makes the air bag light turn off. Anybody that is in my car has to wear their seat belt. I have bought my own replacement visor. I have two good mechanics in my family that can do mine. I think it is wrong they want to charge so much for replacing the broken ones for people that can’t do it themselves.This is obviously the manufacturer’s and company’s fault, not the people that bought the cars. Cars are not cheap and they are hoping when they buy a new one, they won’t have to replace things like a visor because they have never had that problem in any other vehicle. This conversation was meant to show there is a problem and they are not the only ones that have this problem and for advice on what they did. I have no problem what what others have said to me. You on the other hand, seem to want to cause an issue. You don’t need to respond again. And before you ask why I didn’t just buy my own visor to replace it earlier, I had to quit my job for medical reasons. Medical bills are expensive to.
I think you are missing the point.
The time to address the issue was 13 years ago or such, when car was covered by the bumper-to-bumper warranty.
Even then, to make manufacturer listen, quite a strong people support is needed, which happens only when it is truly safety-related or way to expensive, otherwise nobody would pay attention… and for a good reason, as there are hundreds of other items higher on priority list of the people involved.
Just remember the history of Toyota’s uncontrolled acceleration disaster or recent Ford transmission fiasco.
The moment car lapses the bumper-to-bumper warranty, de-jure, manufacturer owes you nothing.
Sorry for reality check, but you are 10 years or so late to this party.
I did get the first one taken care of then and they replaced it with another bad part. I did contact the dealership again when the second one broke and they didn’t respond by phone or anything. It wasn’t long after they replaced the first one. I thank you for your input but that part they put on should have been under a warranty from the time they put it in, at least for a year. It wasn’t evidently. It’s okay I got it taken care of myself. It isn’t going to cost me 300-500 dollars. I consider paying 300 to 500 way to expensive to replace a visor only to put on another bad part and have to turn around and do it again. I found one on line and I am replacing it myself. At least I know it is supposed to be a better part from the reviews and not from that same bad batch they replaced the first one with. Replacing it with another bad part should be on them, not the customer. Those kinds of problems should be in their computers to show not to use them parts again when they replace one. I do understand dealerships need to keep their costs down but it would be down if they did bad business also. I would give two prices when a customer called in. If I got the part, they would charge 150 or so to put it in. Not what people have been saying on these reviews. If they got the part, the cost of a part and 150.00. That way they both win. Doesn’t matter when the part went bad, it matters that both are happy with the solution. They had to know the parts had problems.
so, 10+ years ago when they clearly violated the warranty terms, why did not you fight for it? get lawyer?
I bet because you had other priorities and simply did not care
why now?
you do understand that you will not gather support of thousands of people to go and demand Kia to do something, don’t you?
so, what’s the point?
The front driver’s visor broke on my Corolla one time. It’s a pretty complicated affair to figure out. I had to temporarily remove the covering so I could inspect the wire-frame underneath, at which point I spotted the problem, a broken weld. I don’t know how to weld but I know how to solder, so I effected a repair using some some very thick copper wire. That amount of copper wire would have probably cost me $20 or more, copper is pretty expensive, but I had prior found some on a walk-a-bout, a short piece of stranded copper wire, probably 2 inches in diameter, was lying there on the ground where a road crew had been installing electrical stuff for street lights… The individual strands were still pretty thick.
I understand your disappointment however repeat failure of certain auto parts is a somewhat common problem in the auto industry.
After all these years they still have not returned your call? The service department won’t order replacement parts before inspecting the vehicle, you needed to take the vehicle to the dealer’s service department to have that repaired. If you buy a $100,000 vehicle one day you might get valet service for your warranty repairs but for now you own a Kia.
The normal charge for a valued customer would be .3 to .5 hours of labor, for a dealer to charge one hour or more to replace a sun visor would suggest that they are reluctant to do business with you, did you express how much you dislike their product?