Friday, August 7, 2026
RecallGazette

Vehicle problems, recalls & safety intelligence

2003 Kia Optima air bags problems

17 owner complaints filed with NHTSA name the air bags on the 2003 Kia Optima12% of all complaints for this model year.

17
Air Bags complaints
12%
share of all complaints
60,000 mi
median reported incident mileage
5 / 0
crash / fire reports

What owners report

  • Air bag light on dashboard is lite, for no reason! The car has less than 48k miles , never been in an accident nor hit anything . I am afraid to drive the vehicle nor have anyone in the car with me because , it's without an airbag there is no protection

    filed Sep 9, 2016

  • After 60,000 miles, while driving or with the engine running, the engine light came on and stayed on. This has been repaired three times by replacing a main fuse. Each time it has been repaired, the problem has reoccurred. In connection with this problem, the door will lock after the driver exits…

    filed Nov 9, 2015

Verbatim excerpts from complaints filed with NHTSA. Reports are not independently verified.

Counts are unique NHTSA complaints naming this component group. Complaints are unverified owner reports; mileage is computed only from complaints that included a usable odometer reading.