‘Thank God we’re alive’: Kia owner concerned about fuel tank issue

ORLANDO, Fla — A couple driving from south Florida to Orlando heard loud booming sound from their Kia sedan. Then the car suddenly started losing fuel. They now wonder if it’s related to the swelling fuel tank issue Action 9 has been reporting on since the beginning of the year.

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Russ Saner and Tiffanie Valdez were heading north on Florida’s Turnpike after leaving the Florida Keys in their 2023 Kia K5.

Saner described the startling incident, “Behind a bus in the center lanes and just kind of cruising traffic around all of a sudden, ba boom! And I was like, ‘What’d I hit?’”

They immediately pulled over and started taking video with a cell phone.

On the video, Tiffanie Valdez is heard saying, “This is a full tank of gas coming out right now. Oh my God!” The video shows fuel running on the ground from under the car.

Action 9 Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal asked, “What was going through your mind when you saw that gas spewing out on the side of the road?”

Valdez answered, “We’re about to blow up.”

Saner followed up and said, “Thank God we’re alive.”

They initially believed they hit something, but neither of them saw anything in the road. In fact, Russ Saner said he walked back along the turnpike and didn’t see anything. He also said the emergency responders, including a Road Ranger, drove back to see if anything needed to be removed from the road, but they didn’t find anything either.

Tiffanie Valdez told Action 9, “We found your station with other people that this has happened to and then it really all made sense.”

She’s talking about an issue with expanding fuel tanks on Kia K5′s that Action 9 first exposed earlier this year. One of them was a 2023 K5 owned by Scott Meinke who also initially believed he hit something.

Meinke described the conversation in his car at the time, “She was like, ‘What did you hit?’ and I was just like, ‘I don’t know, I guess a piece of truck tire.’”

He later found the rear seat popped up, after his gas tank expanded into the car. A handful of other Kia K5 drivers in central Florida had a similar experience.

In January, Brittany Kelley described what the Kia dealership shop told her about her 2022 K5, “Your gas tank expanded. And you’re lucky you made it here safely. Your car is no longer safe to drive.” Kelley, a Clermont mother, had her children in the back seat at the time.

What’s different about the experience for Russ Saner and Tiffanie Valdez is the fuel tank didn’t expand into the car, it ruptured on the bottom.

In July, their K5 had a fuel tank inspection and a software update as part of a voluntary emissions service campaign by Kia designed to address the swelling fuel tank issue.

Even though they initially thought they hit something, now they’re not so sure. They claim, besides not finding anything in the road, there was no damage to the front of their car. They just had the damaged fuel tank on the underneath side of the car. They wonder if the fuel tank expanded with just a different outcome than the other drivers.

Valdez said, “We’re lucky to be alive to tell the story.” Saner said, “Thankful, very thankful to be alive.”

A Kia spokesperson responded by saying it appears Russ Saner ran over something which caused the damage. We may never know for certain what caused it. Saner’s insurance company initially claimed it was a warranty issue but has since agreed to cover the damage. Some of the repairs have already been made, including the installation of a new fuel tank, but Saner said there is still some remaining damage that needs to be fixed.

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