2020-2024 Kia Telluride Recall: Vehicle Roll Away from Disengaged Driveshaft

A 2020 through 2024 Kia Telluride shifted into Park can roll away if the splines joining its right front driveshaft to the intermediate shaft have stripped. The two shafts may have left the supplier only partly engaged.

Recall 24V214 covers 427,407 Tellurides: every 2020 through 2023 model and the 2024 models built through October 19, 2023. A second round of owner letters, dated March 18, 2026, was mailed to registered owners whose vehicles had not yet been repaired.

The Issue

Power to the Telluride's right front wheel travels through two pieces. An intermediate shaft runs out of the transmission to a bearing bracket, and the right front driveshaft slides onto its splined end. Mobis Alabama supplies that bearing bracket and shaft assembly under part numbers 49560-C5430 (two-wheel drive) and 49560-C5480 (all-wheel drive) for 2020-2022 models, and 49560-S9420 and 49560-S9480 for 2023-2024.

Kia's Part 573 report gives the cause as "partial engagement due to suspected improper assembly by the supplier." A driveshaft seated only part of the way carries its load on fewer spline teeth, and those teeth wear. Once they are gone, the right front wheel is no longer tied to the transmission. Locking the transmission in Park then stops holding both front wheels, and the SUV can move unless the parking brake is applied.

After the software update, the electronic parking brake engages automatically when the shifter is in Park and the engine is off, and whenever the vehicle is stopped in any gear and the driver's door opens. The parking brake acts on the brakes directly and does not depend on the front driveshafts. With the software installed, the dealer looks over the intermediate shaft and replaces it if it shows damage; a shaft without damage remains in the car.

Affected Models

Vehicle	Model Years	Production Dates	Estimated Units
Kia Telluride	2020-2024	January 9, 2019 to October 19, 2023	427,407

Two-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive Tellurides are both included. These vehicles were not produced in VIN order, so a serial-number range cannot settle whether a particular car is in the recall; Kia drew the list from vehicle and supplier production records, and a lookup by individual VIN gives the answer. Tellurides built from October 20, 2023 on carry a driveshaft assembly that the supplier inspects with an added computer vision process to confirm full engagement, and they sit outside the recall, as does the second-generation 2027 Telluride.

Chronology and Investigation

Kia North America's Safety Office flagged customer complaints during routine data monitoring on April 12, 2022. Owners described transmissions that would not hold in Park, cars that moved on their own, grinding, vibration, shifters that would not engage Drive or Reverse, and noise over bumps or in turns. The office escalated the issue for further investigation on June 23, 2022.

From August 10, 2022 through November 29, 2023, Kia collected parts, tracked field data and updated NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation in regular meetings, and identified no common failure pattern in that period. Between December 11, 2023 and March 6, 2024, engineers at Kia's headquarters examined returned parts and found spline wear on certain intermediate shafts consistent with partial engagement. In duplication testing, a right front axle deliberately left partly engaged wore the intermediate shaft splines the same way.

The recall decision came on March 13, 2024. Kia submitted its Part 573 report on March 20 and revised it on March 26, adding the replacement of damaged intermediate shafts to a remedy that had been limited to the parking brake software.

Reported Incidents

Ten warranty claims, three cases from Kia's dealer technical hotline and four customer complaints, received between November 27, 2019 and December 15, 2023, made up the field record behind the recall. Those 17 reports involved 16 vehicles, with movement while in Park accompanied by grinding, a refusal to engage Drive or Reverse, or both. The Safety Office confirmed spline damage or wear consistent with partial engagement on six of the 16. Kia's chronology lists no injuries, crashes or fatalities.

What Owners Should Do

Kia's interim instruction to owners is to put the shifter in Park and set the electronic parking brake by hand every time they leave the driver's seat, until the recall work is done.

Owner letters went out May 15, 2024. Check the VIN at Kia's recall page or NHTSA.gov, or call Kia customer service at 1-800-333-4542 and reference Kia recall SC303. The software update, the inspection and any shaft replacement are free. If you paid for a related repair before the recall, Kia's General Reimbursement Plan covers it; receipts go in through the Owners section of kia.com or by mail with the form included in the owner letter.

Kia's quarterly report filed April 20, 2026 counted 364,303 vehicles as remedied, a total that also includes cars inspected and found not to need the repair. Another 7,695 were listed as unreachable and 3,928 as scrapped, stolen or exported. By my arithmetic, that leaves 51,481 reachable Tellurides with the recall open.

Symptoms to Watch For Before the Intermediate Shaft Fails

Grinding from the front of the SUV. Kia's safety report names a grinding noise as a warning that the splines are wearing.

Noise or vibration over bumps and in turns. The complaints Kia flagged in 2022 described both, and dealers who hear abnormal driveline noise on the right side follow a separate repair procedure, SC303Z.

Weak acceleration. The SUV feels short of power pulling away from a stop, which Kia's filing calls reduced motive power.

Drive or Reverse will not engage. The SUV does not move after you select a gear, a condition that appears in the 16 cases that led to the recall.

Movement after you select Park. Any creep with the shifter in P suggests the splines may already be stripped. Set the parking brake, leave the car where it is and call a dealer.

How Long Will the Recall Repair Take?

The warranty labor allowance for the software update is 0.4 hours on 2020-2022 models and 0.3 hours on 2023-2024 models. Kia's owner letter puts the whole visit at about one to two hours and warns that the car may be kept longer depending on what the inspection finds and how full the shop's schedule is. Kia has not published a labor time for replacing a damaged intermediate shaft.

Bottom Line

Kia estimates that 1 percent of the recalled population has the defect, roughly 4,270 Tellurides. On an unrepaired car the parking brake is the only safeguard against a stripped shaft, and the people at risk are the ones standing near an SUV that nobody is driving. A Telluride that grinds from the front or hesitates to move off belongs at a dealer before it is parked on a slope again.

An open recall transfers with the vehicle when it is sold. Anyone who bought a used 2020-2024 Telluride from a Kia dealer or a private seller should run the VIN rather than assume the update was installed.

Find your Kia Telluride recall information: https://www.kia.com/us/en/recall

Recall 24V214 (March 2024) covers every 2020-2023 Telluride and 2024 models built through October 19, 2023. The remedy is electronic parking brake software that sets the brake automatically, plus replacement of any damaged intermediate shaft. Kia mailed a renotification dated March 18, 2026 to owners whose vehicles still had the recall open.