Kia Is Going To Put A Sticker On My Dad’s Car So A Teen With A USB Cable Hopefully Doesn’t Try To Steal It

As you may remember, many Kia and Hyundai drivers found out the hard way that their vehicles did not have a common immobilizer device when TikTok teens decided to use simple tools and a USB cable to abscond with their prized Rios and Fortes and the like. One such owner is my dad, who has a Kia Soul with over 170,000 miles on it and has been concerned his car might get stolen. He just got a letter about the next steps and the thing he’s most excited about is a sticker.

Kia and Hyundai both have been trying to correct the issue in various ways, but with such a wide variety of cars over so many years there’s no one-sized-fits-all approach. Some owners are able to go to a dealer for a simple software update that Kia says can fix the issue.  While repairs or upgrades have been considered, the first thing my dad got for his 2012 Kia Soul from Kia was essentially The Club, though it’s not Club branded.

It’s a decent stop-gap but not a real solution given that, you know, steering wheel-based impediments are easy to break.

Now, my dad has received another letter from Kia explaining that he can, in fact, get a “theft deterrent ignition cylinder protector” installed for free on his vehicle. Here’s how Kia describes the upgrade:

This new hardware modification—an ignition cylinder protector—is designed for the vehicles that are not eligible for the security software upgrade that Kia introduced earlier this year and works to combat theft by reinforcing the ignition cylinder body and preventing its removal through the method of theft promoted in videos that have spread across social media encouraging criminal activity.

Part of the process of stealing a Kia is removing the cylinder pin-tumbler part of the lock that sits at the top of a vehicle’s ignition system. Underneath is a rectangle that’s basically the size of an old USB port and thus, with a USB cable, you can twist the ignition and start it. If the cars had been shipped with immobilizers this would have likely never happened as the cars wouldn’t have started without the key.

I can’t find any photos of this device, but presumably, it locks down that pin-tumbler so it can’t easily be removed. Still, having this device might make it harder to steal, but it still sucks when someone smashes the glass of your car or jimmies the lock to get it opened. How do you avoid that? Per Kia:

Following the completion of the installation, each vehicle will be affixed with window decals to inform would-be car thieves that the vehicle is equipped with enhanced theft protection.

This, to me, is slightly hilarious. It’s a sticker! My dad is super into it, though, telling me that he wants Kia to “just send me the sticker.”

There is a logic to this. Assuming thieves are deterred by the sticker, why wouldn’t you want the sticker as fast as possible? I found a NHTSA document that shows the sticker, which says “THIS VEHICLE EQUIPPED WITH KIA ANTI-THEFT LOGIC” that goes on the windows on both sides of the car. Here are instructions on how to install the sticker:

Weirdly, this isn’t the first time that stickers have been handed out as part of a recall. Ford famously saved itself the trouble of recalling almost 23 million vehicles due to a sticker explaining how to shove the shifter into park super hard.

Is this a 100% perfect theft deterrent sticker? Nope, someone with the sticker has already had their car broken into. Stupid kids.

Still, it’s better than nothing.