Despite being a new vehicle, all front LED lighting assemblies—headlights, DRLs, and fog lights— suffer from excessive and severe moisture condensation.
BHPian @ppy.tbhp recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
Attention KIA Seltos Owners and Prospective Buyers
I am sharing my prolonged ongoing struggle with a serious manufacturing defect in my Kia Seltos 2023, purchased in February 2024. Despite being a new vehicle, all front LED lighting assemblies—headlights, DRLs, and fog lights— suffer from excessive and severe moisture condensation, which not only damages these lights assemblies over time but also compromises road safety due to dangerously low visibility caused by malfunctioning headlights DRL’s and Fog lights.
The same issue has been checked and verified in other Kia Seltos vehicles as well. It’s a design and manufacturing defect in all Kia Seltos models, including earlier versions. Moisture condensation is reduced and light lenses become visibly clear when the car engine and lights are switched off and the car is parked. The car and light assemblies cool down while parked for an hour hence the moisture condensation is reduced when car is not in use. Moisture desiccant inside light assemblies absorbs some moisture back when it’s cooled down when the car is parked and not in use. On dry days moisture condensation is not visible in parked car. On humid and rainy days moisture condensation is visible in a cool parked car at all times. This has been visually checked and confirmed on rainy day in other Kia Seltos parked at the dealership. It’s a recurring issue with most Kia vehicles and not just Kia Seltos.
Here’s an explanation of what happens :
• The headlight and fog light output in the Kia Seltos 2023 is unsatisfactory, with low intensity white light and poor light beam pattern on Road, especially for a vehicle of this class. Combined with the severe moisture condensation defect, the performance of the headlights and fog lights and DRL’s becomes highly unreliable, compromising safety and visibility.
• Severe and unacceptable levels moisture condensation forms on the inside of the light lenses in the assemblies during regular normal day and night driving conditions, particularly when the lights are switched ON for about two hours while driving in normal conditions. The faulty design and manufacturing of these light assemblies is primarily causing this recurring issue resulting in Consequential damages to sensitive electronics in light assemblies.
• The manufacturer is blatantly compromising on safety by designing headlight assemblies that trap moisture, a critical defect they’ve ignored from earlier variants of Kia Seltos. Even when the lights are switched ON, the moisture doesn’t dissipate, highlighting a fundamental design flaw that endangers visibility and disregards basic safety standards.
• This severe condensation reduces light output, severely affecting visibility on road — especially dangerous during rainy or foggy driving conditions. It’s a recurring issue.
• As a temporary and utterly foolish solution, the manufacturer introduced desiccant pads, which fail to permanently control the relative humidity inside the light assemblies of this design. Instead of removing the moisture out of the light assembly, these pads absorb it trapping it inside light assemblies and, when the headlights are switched ON, the heat from the LED lights coupled with heat from the engine desaturates these desiccant pads, causing them to release excessive moisture back into the assemblies.
• This not only adds to the existing humidity and moisture causing severe condensation and fogging up entire light Lenses from inside, but also accelerates the damage to sensitive electronic components, making the problem even worse over time.
• Desiccant pads lose their absorption capacity over time due to saturation, physical degradation, or improper storage, requiring regeneration or replacement to restore effectiveness. These pads are never available at the dealerships when needed, it took months for the replacement pads to arrive and get replaced in my car, in the meanwhile I was compelled to drive my car with severe moisture condensation and completely saturated and hardened pads which stopped absorbing moisture and humidity completely. This caused irreversible damage to LED’s inside light assemblies and they started turning yellow with reduced light output. All inspected Kia Seltos, Sonet, Carens have this problem in six to seven months of ownership or 15K-20K Kms on the ODO. Undoubtedly, there’s no long term reliability for these Sealed LED light unit designs. These Sealed LED light assembly designs have very high cost of replacement post warranty period.
• The headlight and fog light output in the Kia Seltos 2023 is unsatisfactory, with low intensity and poor light beam patterns, especially for a vehicle of this class. Over time, the trapped moisture in light assemblies leads to corrosion and degradation of the internal components, permanently damaging these assemblies with LED chipsets. Light starts turning yellow which reduces light intensity on road, it worsens over time. The consequential damage due to this defect causes the headlights to stop working completely, making the vehicle highly unreliable.
• The lights turning yellow from white lights is a visible evidence of sensitive electronics and LED’s getting damaged from being operated in Higher moisture and humidity levels than they were designed to work in, this irreversible damage is causes further reduction in light intensity making road visibility dangerously low in all weather conditions.
• Kia has moved away from the traditional bulb and assembly design for these crown jewel Led lights, Fog lights and DRL’s. They are available as sealed units only making repairs by replacing bulbs impossible. The cost of replacement is very high for this flawed design and manufactured headlights requiring to change complete light assemblies if something goes wrong with LED light housed inside ight assemblies.
• Many car owners have already reported failed lights in three or four months of newly purchased cars that have stopped working and won’t switch on when needed. This defect has been reported to Kia by various users of Seltos, Sonet and Carens. Replacements of light assemblies is a temporary Solution since the defect exists in Replaced lights as well.
In my case, all front lights fitted from the factory were removed from car at the dealership , all lights were thoroughly checked for cracks or leaks that could allow moisture or water to enter into light assemblies, No cracks or leaks were found in Headlights, fog lights and Drl assemblies. The bumper tabs broke while removing the bumper at the dealership reflecting on poor quality manufacturing of Kia vehicles. All light assemblies Were replaced under warranty after months of delays and hassle, causing me to waste a significant amount of time and effort. Yet, within just two days, the new replacement fog lights started showing the same issue again! Other light assemblies will show this in three to four months of use again. This proves that simply replacing defective parts with the same faulty design and manufacturing defect doesn’t fix the root cause ever.
Let’s be clear:-
• This is a fundamental design and manufacturing flaw
• There has been no rainfall or excessive humidity in my city for the past two months, and my car has been used normally with only 15,000 km driven in 8 months now
• The dealership washed the car and checked the formation of moisture condensation after replacing all front lights, yet the issue persists and can’t be fixed—highlighting poor quality control and quality assurance by Kia India
This isn’t just about aesthetics or inconvenience. It’s about safety:-
• Poor visibility due to fogged headlights endangers not just the driver but also others on the road
• This condensation reduces light output, severely affecting visibility on the road—especially during rainy or foggy conditions when clear lighting is most critical. Ironically, the lights perform their worst precisely when they are required to function at their best, making this a recurring and dangerous issue. Since Kia India has failed to timely resolve this defect, I am now forced to drive a vehicle with a severe safety hazard, compromising both my safety and that of other road users
• Severe condensation only occurs when the engine reaches its optimum working temperature and the lights are switched on for about two hours on a normal dry day driving condition. In rainy driving conditions, this happens at a much faster rate and is even more severe. This negligence raises serious concerns about Kia’s commitment to safety and quality
• A car in this segment and price must inspire confidence, not constant frustration with unresolved safety hazards on a daily basis
I expected better from KIA a global brand, but the inability to provide a timely and permanent solution is highly disappointing. The lack of quality control and quality assurance in these critical components is unacceptable. What’s worse, Kia continues to sell defective vehicles despite multiple users reporting the same severe issues. The same defect is reported in Kia Sonet and Kia Carens as well. In some cases, the headlights have completely failed, creating a dangerous situation and making the vehicle unreliable and absolutely unsafe to drive. This negligence raises serious concerns about Kia’s commitment to safety and quality of vehicles being manufactured and sold to the masses.
I urge Kia India to:
1) Acknowledge this as a design and manufacturing flaw at the earliest in Kia Seltos and take responsibility
2) Provide a permanent fix for all affected vehicles at the earliest
3) Extend the maximum warranty (life time) for vehicles suffering from these persistent issues until a permeant solution is provided since It’s a design and manufacturing defect which cannot be resolved by band-aid fixes which is going on now
This situation highlights a broader issue in the automobile industry: manufacturing defects that put profits above safety and customer satisfaction. If unresolved, I’ll escalate this matter to regulatory authorities to ensure no other customers face similar problems. A global brand like Kia has failed to provide reliable and safe lights for almost all vehicle models in India. Good reliable headlights and fog lights are basic requirements for any vehicle on road, Kia has overlooked this basic safety feature in all vehicle models in India as of today.
Other Kia owners are reporting this issue for a long time now in Kia Seltos, Kia Carens and Kia Sonet. All these have manufacturing defects which is causing this issue, The desiccant pads provided as solution by Kia are doing more harm than good in every vehicle. I have attached video links of other user facing same issues in all kia vehicles being sold for reference of fellow BHP-ians.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UFT_Tz4jnAc
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FN6v7ZMGzUk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky4q-thr4wI
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cuNz3b_do3I
For those considering the Kia Seltos or other Kia vehicles, think twice. A vehicle with persistent safety defects must not be on the roads. Customer Safety Matters and must be top priority in design and manufacturing of all cars. Kia India must resolve this serious manufacturing defect with these cars at the earliest. Let’s demand accountability from automakers. I am looking forward for possible solutions from fellow BHP-ians to find fixes to this defect since I am compelled to drive my Seltos with safety issues until Kia has a permanent solution to this severe defect. Share this post to spread awareness and caution other users to drive safe on Indian roads.
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