Exclusive: KIA's stolen car fix promise
Imagine having a brand new car. The first new car in my life, but hardly ever driving it. Yeah, it hurts. It's melody. Domex reality 2019 car. I don't even use it. She lives in fear in suburban Milwaukee that our 2019 Kyrio will be stolen.
If I hear a noise outside the house, I think somebody's trying to break into the garage. I went shopping at colds. I kept going over to the door to see if my car was still in the parking spot. Three years old, mostly kept locked with a club inside her garage. Have you driven it much? One. I have 1495 miles on it. We took a short drive out of her garage, then right back inside.
You only take it out if you absolutely have to. An emergency. An emergency. Her Kia is one that's most targeted by thieves. It requires a key to start, which means it can be breached with a device as simple as a USB drive. This is emotional for you. Very, very.
Because I said I've never had something nice in my life. Older models like hers are now eligible for Kia's new software upgrade. Since 2020, Milwaukee has been called ground zero for the stolen car epidemic. Hyundai's and Kia's swiped off the streets at record rates. I would never, ever buy a Kia again. I think Kia did everybody wrong. Just now, three years later, Milwaukee's trend on the downswing.
Stolen cars dropped 34% so far this year. And after mounting pressure, Kia rolled out with they touted to be a stolen car fix. We went into the service center at Lupien Kia in Glendale to see how it works. A software upgrade for a longer sounding alarm. And a tweak in the ignition to stop the USB trick. So this is the key that goes into the ignition. Service manager Scott Saccach says it's a 40 minute fix.
Put the key in, drops. It'll send a signal and you're able to turn the key. How many come in for the upgrade who have already had their car stolen or broken into? Probably almost all of them. Now since this stolen car fix came out, Lupien says they've already upgraded about a thousand vehicles and they get about 25 per day. So this is the best solution right now to try to fix this problem. To my knowledge, it's actually the solution. At the height of the stolen car epidemic plaguing Milwaukee, Lupien's general manager, Sean Favre says they were victims too.
Coming to the store and be multiple times where cars were missing and just a lot of unhappy customers that had purchased cars from us and then they'd go missing. Did it impact sales? Yeah, quite a bit. You know, you had a lot of Kia customers that just did not want to buy another Kia. He says they alerted Kia. Unfortunately for quite a while, I don't think Kia wanted anything to do with any of this getting out to the public. And we had many meetings with higher up Kia people saying it's a problem. I think they've finally come to the realization that it is a manufacturer problem.
Kia vehicles eligible for the upgrade are models made before 2021. Domex 2019 car qualifies but says she is yet to be notified by Kia and until she gets the upgrade. I mean, you would do anything to prevent this vehicle from being stolen. Yes, I would stand in front of it and be run down or shot before I let somebody take my car. This Kia owner unwilling to become the next victim in Milwaukee County, Hillaryman's WISN 12 News.
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