Corporate Greed Case Study: Kia America, Inc. & Its Impact on Vehicle Owners
TL;DR: A federal class-action lawsuit alleges that Kia America, Inc. knowingly manufactured, marketed, and sold hundreds of thousands of its 2021-2023 Soul and Seltos models with a severe “Oil Ring Defect.” This defect, stemming from improperly manufactured piston oil rings, can cause sudden engine failure and even engine fires, posing a significant risk of crashes or injury. The complaint claims that Kia concealed this dangerous flaw from consumers to protect its profits, only issuing a recall after more than 137,000 of these hazardous vehicles were already on American roads.
Please continue reading this article to learn more about this scandal.
Introduction: A System Primed for Failure
Imagine driving down the highway when, without warning, your car’s engine seizes or, worse, catches fire. This terrifying scenario is at the heart of a class-action lawsuit filed against Kia America, Inc., which stands accused of betraying the most fundamental promise a car manufacturer makes to its customers: the promise of safety. The case centers on an alleged “Oil Ring Defect” in over 137,000 Kia Soul and Seltos vehicles sold between 2021 and 2023.
This is not merely a story about a faulty auto part. It is a case study in the predictable consequences of a system geared toward profit maximization above all else.
The lawsuit paints a picture of a corporation that allegedly made a calculated decision to conceal a dangerous defect, allowing unsuspecting families to drive vehicles that were, in effect, ticking time bombs. This legal battle exposes the deep fractures in corporate ethics and regulatory oversight that define modern neoliberal capitalism, where consumer safety often becomes a line item on a balance sheet, weighed against the cost of a recall or the potential for negative publicity.
Inside the Allegations: A Betrayal of Trust
The core of the lawsuit against Kia America is the claim of a dangerous and deliberately concealed “Oil Ring Defect.” The piston oil rings in 2021-2023 Kia Soul and Seltos models were manufactured incorrectly. This flaw can lead to catastrophic engine failure and creates the potential for a vehicle fire, dramatically increasing the risk of a crash or serious injury for drivers, passengers, and others on the road.
The lead plaintiff, Eric Jasinski, purchased his 2021 Kia Soul believing in the company’s reputation for producing reliable vehicles, a belief reinforced by dealership sales tactics. He diligently followed the recommended maintenance schedule at the dealership, yet at no point was he informed of the ticking time bomb under his hood.
The lawsuit argues that this silence was not an oversight but a deliberate strategy of concealment, a fraudulent omission designed to keep sales flowing and protect the brand’s image.
The legal claims filed against Kia are severe, accusing the company of breach of warranty, fraudulent concealment, and unjust enrichment. In simple terms, the lawsuit asserts that Kia sold a product it knew, or should have known, was fundamentally unsafe and unfit for its most basic purpose: providing safe transportation. KIA took customers’ money under false pretenses, delivering a defective and dangerous product instead of the reliable vehicle it advertised.
Timeline of Alleged Corporate Malfeasance
| Date | Event |
| June 2021 | Plaintiff Eric Jasinski purchases a new 2021 Kia Soul, relying on Kia’s marketing and reputation for quality. |
| 2021–2023 | Kia America, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells over one hundred thousand 2021-2023 Kia Soul and Seltos models across the United States. The lawsuit alleges these vehicles were produced with the inherent “Oil Ring Defect.” |
| Mid-February 2025 | Kia finally issues a recall for more than 137,000 of the affected vehicles, acknowledging the defect can cause engine failure and potentially fire. |
| March 7, 2025 | A class-action lawsuit is filed against Kia America, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Pennsylvania, alleging fraud, breach of warranty, and other violations of law. |
Regulatory Failure in a Neoliberal Age
The Kia case highlights a critical weakness in the American regulatory system, a framework shaped by decades of neoliberal ideology that favors corporate self-policing over robust, proactive government oversight.
The lawsuit alleges that Kia only issued a recall for the Oil Ring Defect in February 2025, long after hundreds of thousands of these potentially dangerous vehicles were sold to unsuspecting consumers. This reactive approach is a hallmark of a system where corporations are given the benefit of the doubt, and action is often taken only after the harm has already been done and the profits have been collected.
Under neoliberal capitalism, the government’s role is often reduced to that of a referee, intervening only after a foul has been committed. There is little incentive for corporations to disclose defects that could damage their bottom line.
The lawsuit claims Kia knew or reasonably should have known about the defect, suggesting a failure of its internal processes. This points to a broader systemic issue: when profit is the primary driver, a corporation’s internal calculations will inevitably weigh the cost of a recall and reputational damage against the continued revenue from selling a flawed product. The alleged decision to remain silent is the logical outcome of a system that does not compel transparency.
Profit-Maximization at All Costs
At its core, the lawsuit against Kia is about a set of business decisions allegedly made to prioritize revenue over human safety. The complaint explicitly states that Kia failed to disclose the Oil Ring Defect “so it could sell more Class Vehicles and/or sell Class Vehicles at a premium.” This allegation gets to the heart of corporate ethics under late-stage capitalism, where the fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value often eclipses any moral duty to the public.
Disclosing the engine defect earlier would have triggered significant financial consequences for Kia. It would have meant costly recalls, a halt in sales, and irreparable damage to a brand reputation that the company spent millions to cultivate.
Kia made a choice: rather than absorb these costs, it transferred the risk directly to its customers. Every person who purchased a 2021-2023 Soul or Seltos unknowingly accepted this risk, a burden that should have been borne by the manufacturer.
This practice of treating potential human harm as a calculated business expense is a disturbing, yet common, feature of the modern economy. The decision to conceal the defect, as alleged, was not born of malice in a vacuum but from a cold, rational, and profit-driven logic. It is a logic that asks not “Is it safe?” but “Is it more profitable to hide this?” The lawsuit suggests that, for a time, Kia’s answer to that question put countless lives in jeopardy.
The Economic Fallout: Shifting the Burden to the Consumer
The economic damage caused by the alleged Oil Ring Defect extends far beyond the initial purchase price of the vehicles. The lawsuit details a cascade of financial harms forced upon the owners of these more than 137,000 cars, illustrating how corporate misconduct creates significant external costs that are ultimately paid by the public. These consequences represent a direct transfer of wealth from consumers to the corporation.
The primary economic injury is the immediate loss of value.
The legal complaint argues that the vehicles were defective the moment they were sold, meaning customers overpaid for a product that was inherently flawed. Furthermore, the public recall has permanently stigmatized these models, diminishing their resale value and ensuring that owners will never recoup their investment. The lawsuit asserts that these vehicles are now “notoriously unsafe,” making them worth significantly less than a car without a history of engine fires.
Beyond the diminished value, the lawsuit quantifies the direct costs and inconveniences forced upon consumers by the recall.
Alleged Costs Imposed on Each Vehicle Owner
| Type of Cost | Description |
| Time Lost to Repairs | The complaint estimates an engine replacement takes 10 to 12 hours of labor, time that owners must sacrifice from work or personal life. |
| Towing Expenses | For a vehicle too dangerous to drive, the lawsuit calculates an example towing cost of $38 for a single 8-mile trip to the dealership, based on an average rate of $4.75 per mile. |
| Transportation and Logistics | Owners must arrange and pay for transportation to and from the dealership and manage life without their vehicle during the lengthy repair process. |
| Total Inconvenience | The complaint calculates that repairing all 137,000+ vehicles would consume over 1.3 million hours of labor, which it equates to more than 148 years of continuous work—a massive cumulative burden placed on consumers. |
A Grave Risk to Public Health and Safety
The most damning allegation in the lawsuit is that Kia America, Inc. knowingly compromised the safety of the public. The Oil Ring Defect is not a cosmetic flaw or a minor inconvenience; it is a critical failure that can lead to “engine failure and even potentially cause a fire.” This transforms the simple act of driving into a gamble, turning a product meant to provide freedom and mobility into a source of danger and anxiety.
The complaint states that the defect creates an “unreasonable safety risk,” rendering the vehicles unfit for their ordinary purpose of providing safe transportation. Plaintiff Eric Jasinski expressed that he is “concerned about driving” his vehicle, a sentiment likely shared by thousands of owners who now know their car’s engine could catastrophically fail at any moment. This ongoing psychological distress is a direct, if unquantifiable, consequence of the alleged corporate misconduct.
The issue transcends the individual vehicle owner. An engine fire or sudden failure on a highway poses a threat to every other driver on the road, turning a private product failure into a public menace.
By continuing to sell these vehicles without disclosing the defect, Kia is accused of demonstrating a profound disregard for public health and safety. KIA’s corporate misconduct represent a systemic failure to fulfill its most basic obligation: to do no harm.
Exploitation of Workers: The Unseen Cost
The legal complaint, focused as it is on consumer harm, does not detail the conditions of the workers who manufactured the allegedly defective engine components. This silence is common in legal actions that narrowly define harm in terms of the end-user. However, it is within the logic of neoliberal capitalism that the same pressures leading a company to cut corners on product safety often originate in the exploitation of its labor force.
In a globalized system relentlessly seeking lower costs and higher productivity, the drive to maximize profit frequently translates into downward pressure on wages, the suppression of unionization, and demanding production quotas that can lead to errors and lapses in quality control. While this lawsuit does not make claims about Kia’s labor practices, the context of modern manufacturing suggests that the alleged failure to produce piston rings correctly is unlikely to be an isolated issue. It is often a symptom of a much deeper systemic drive to extract maximum value from both the worker and the consumer, treating both as inputs in a formula for corporate enrichment.
Community Impact: Local Lives Undermined
The lawsuit chronicles the damage inflicted upon the individual owners of the defective vehicles, but the ripple effects of such large-scale corporate decisions rarely stop at the consumer. The document does not specify the environmental or community impact of Kia’s manufacturing plants. Yet, the corporate mindset that allegedly concealed a dangerous product defect to protect profits is the same mindset that so often views environmental regulations and community well-being as obstacles to be minimized.
Across the industrial landscape, a pattern repeats: corporations that externalize costs onto their customers often do the same to the communities where they operate. This can manifest as industrial pollution that contaminates local air and water, a strain on public infrastructure, or the erosion of local economies when promises of long-term investment are broken. The alleged decision to sell a faulty product is not a separate moral category from the decision to pollute a river; both stem from a system that treats public harm as an acceptable, and often profitable, externality.
The PR Machine: Manufacturing a Reputation
Kia’s ability to sell over 137,000 allegedly defective vehicles hinged on the successful creation of a specific brand image. The lawsuit highlights that the lead plaintiff purchased his vehicle based on “Kia’s active and persistent promotions touting the quality of its vehicles” and his “admiration of Kia vehicles.” This reliance on reputation was not accidental; it was the direct result of a sophisticated and expensive public relations and marketing apparatus designed to build consumer trust.
The lawsuit alleges that this entire apparatus was a tool of deception. While the company’s advertising celebrated quality and reliability, Kia was allegedly concealing a material fact that undermined those very claims: a faulty engine component that could cause a fire. The complaint asserts the company chose to hide this information to avoid “negative publicity,” demonstrating a desire to protect the carefully crafted brand image at all costs.
In this context, corporate spin becomes more than just accentuating the positive; it becomes an active agent of fraud, creating a smokescreen that allows the company to continue its profitable operations while knowingly putting the public at risk.
Wealth Disparity & Corporate Greed
The legal claim of “unjust enrichment” provides a legal framework for what is, in essence, an accusation of corporate greed. The lawsuit argues that by selling defective vehicles at the price of non-defective ones, Kia unfairly transferred wealth from ordinary consumers to itself. Plaintiff and class members “conferred benefits to Defendant by paying a higher price than the true value of the Class Vehicles,” and the lawsuit declares it would be “unjust and inequitable for Defendant to retain the ill-gotten benefit.”
This case serves as a microcosm of the broader wealth inequality that defines the neoliberal era. A massive corporation, through alleged deception, enhances its revenue and profits at the direct expense of working individuals and families. The money that customers paid for a safe, reliable vehicle—a significant household expense—was instead absorbed by a company that failed to deliver on that basic promise. The lawsuit seeks to claw back this value, challenging a business model where the financial risks of defective manufacturing are borne not by the corporation that erred, but by the consumers who trusted it.
Global Parallels: A Pattern of Predation
The allegations against Kia do not exist in a vacuum; they echo a long and sordid history of misconduct in the automotive industry and beyond, illustrating a systemic pattern of corporate behavior under capitalism. The case brings to mind infamous historical parallels where profit motives were placed ahead of human lives. This includes the case of the Ford Pinto in the 1970s, where the company allegedly made a cold calculation that paying out damages for burn deaths and injuries would be cheaper than fixing a faulty fuel tank design.
More recently, the Volkswagen “Dieselgate” scandal revealed a massive, coordinated effort to deceive regulators and the public about vehicle emissions. In each instance, a corporation, faced with a choice between prioritizing public safety or ethics and protecting its profits, allegedly chose the latter. These are not isolated incidents of a few “bad apple” executives; they are the predictable outcomes of a system that incentivizes such behavior. The Kia lawsuit is another chapter in this ongoing narrative, suggesting that without fundamental changes to corporate accountability, this pattern of predation will continue.
Corporate Accountability Fails the Public
The lawsuit compellingly argues that Kia’s recall is a wholly inadequate remedy that fails to deliver true accountability. The complaint states the recall “does not completely compensate Plaintiff for all damages incurred,” such as the “diminished value, loss of use, and overpayment of the vehicle.” The offer to replace an engine does nothing to repay customers for the fraud they allegedly endured, the economic loss they have suffered on their asset, or the anxiety and danger they were subjected to.
Furthermore, the lawsuit questions the effectiveness of the fix itself, worrying that unless Kia has addressed the root manufacturing issue, the recall is “no more than a repeatedly ineffective waste of time.” This critique exposes how recalls often function as a public relations tool designed to quell outrage and limit legal liability, rather than a mechanism for true justice. In a system where corporations can allegedly sell dangerous products for years, and then offer a mechanical fix without admitting wrongdoing or compensating for all harms, accountability remains elusive. The public is left to bear the financial and emotional costs, while the corporation moves on, its core business practices unchanged.
Pathways for Reform & Consumer Advocacy
The class-action lawsuit itself represents the most powerful pathway for reform and advocacy detailed in the legal filing!
It is a tool of collective action, allowing thousands of individuals to band together to challenge a multi-billion-dollar corporation on an almost-level playing field. Without the mechanism of the class action, the cost and complexity of suing a corporate giant would be insurmountable for almost any individual consumer, effectively leaving them with no recourse.
The “Prayer for Relief” section of the complaint outlines a clear vision for what reform would look like in this case. The plaintiffs demand that the court certify the class, declare Kia financially responsible for notifying all affected owners, and award all damages to which they are entitled, including for the lost value of their vehicles.
They also demand a jury trial, placing their faith in a group of ordinary citizens to hold the corporation accountable. This legal battle is a direct form of consumer advocacy, an attempt to use the judicial system to force transparency and impose a financial penalty significant enough to deter future misconduct.
Legal Minimalism: Doing Just Enough to Stay Plausibly Legal
Kia’s response to the engine defect, as described in the lawsuit, is a masterclass in legal minimalism—the practice of doing the absolute bare minimum required by law to address a problem, while sidestepping any deeper ethical or financial responsibility.
By issuing a recall, KIA complies with the formal requirements of regulators to fix a known safety hazard. This action allows the company to appear responsible, but it neatly avoids confronting the core allegation of the lawsuit: that the company knowingly sold a dangerous product for years.
This approach is a strategic hallmark of corporate behavior in late-stage capitalism. Compliance is treated not as a moral baseline, but as a ceiling for action.
The recall addresses the faulty part, but it does not address the alleged fraud, the breach of trust, or the economic harm inflicted upon consumers. It is a calculated move that complies with the letter of the law while fundamentally ignoring its spirit, which is to ensure consumers are not only safe but are also treated fairly and honestly in the marketplace.
How Capitalism Exploits Delay: The Strategic Use of Time
The timeline presented in the lawsuit is a silent testament to how delay can be a strategic, and profitable, weapon in a capitalist system. The allegedly defective vehicles were sold from 2021 to 2023, but the recall was only initiated in February of 2025. For the years in between, Kia continued to sell these vehicles and collect revenue, while the risk was quietly borne by unsuspecting consumers.
Every day, week, and month that passed without a recall was a victory for the company’s bottom line. It allowed the company to continue its marketing, manage its inventory, and plan its response, all while the public remained in the dark. This exploitation of time is not an accident; it is a feature of a system where information is power.
By controlling the timing of the disclosure, a corporation can manage the financial fallout, ensuring that by the time the truth comes to light, the profits from the original misconduct have long since been realized.
The Language of Legitimacy: How Corporations Frame Harm
The way a corporation responds to a crisis is a calculated act of communication designed to frame the narrative and minimize liability. In the case of the Oil Ring Defect, Kia’s recall, as described in the lawsuit, is a primary example of this. By offering a purely technical solution—a new engine and “piston-ring sensing noise software”—the company attempts to define the problem as a simple mechanical failure. This language of engineering and repair surgically removes the ethical and moral dimensions of the crisis from the public conversation.
This strategy avoids words like “fraud,” “deception,” or “betrayal.” Instead of acknowledging the alleged years of concealment and the knowing endangerment of its customers, the corporation’s actions reframe the issue as a matter of product service. This is a powerful tool in late-stage capitalism: by using technocratic and sanitized language, corporations can obscure the human cost of their decisions, transforming a story about public endangerment and corporate greed into a boring, technical footnote that they are responsibly addressing.
Monetizing Harm: When Victimization Becomes a Revenue Model
While the lawsuit does not allege Kia profited from the recall repairs themselves, it makes a more profound accusation: the company’s revenue model was, for a time, dependent on the monetization of harm. The claim of “unjust enrichment” alleges that Kia profited directly from its deception. Every single 2021-2023 Soul or Seltos sold at full price, while allegedly containing a hidden, dangerous defect, represented a transaction where the company extracted a premium based on a false promise of quality and safety.
This business practice reflects a dark tendency within modern capitalism, where the initial harm itself becomes a source of profit. The revenue was generated not in spite of the defect, but because of its concealment. This model relies on a calculation that the profits gained from selling a flawed product will outweigh the eventual costs of recalls and lawsuits. The victimization of the consumer, therefore, was not an unfortunate byproduct of a mistake; it was, as the lawsuit alleges, an integral part of the business strategy for these specific vehicles.
Profiting from Complexity: When Obscurity Shields Misconduct
In this particular lawsuit, the defendant, Kia America, Inc., is a clearly identified corporate entity. The complaint does not need to untangle a web of shell companies or offshore subsidiaries to find the responsible party. However, the mentality that allegedly led to the actions in this case is often protected by immense corporate complexity in the broader economic system.
It is a common tactic for multinational corporations to operate through intricate legal structures that are intentionally designed to diffuse responsibility and shield the parent company from liability. Decisions made in a boardroom in one country can lead to harm in another, with the legal path between the two obscured by layers of corporate bureaucracy. While not a central feature of this specific complaint, the case exists within a system where corporate opacity is a celebrated strategy, making true accountability a monumental challenge for consumers, regulators, and even entire nations.
This Is the System Working as Intended
It is a mistake to view the allegations against Kia as evidence of a system that has failed. Rather, the lawsuit describes the logical and predictable outcome of a neoliberal capitalist system that is working precisely as intended. When the law and culture prioritize the maximization of shareholder value above all other considerations—including public health, consumer safety, and basic ethics—then dangerous defects will be concealed, and costs will be externalized onto the public.
From this perspective, the decision to hide the Oil Ring Defect was not an aberration. It was a rational, profit-driven choice made within a system that rewards such calculations. The inadequate recall, the avoidance of full compensation, and the focus on PR-driven damage control are not signs of a breakdown. They are the features of a well-oiled machine designed to protect corporate assets and insulate decision-makers from the real-world consequences of their actions.
Conclusion: The Human Cost of Corporate Priorities
At its heart are the stories of more than one hundred thousand people who placed their trust and their money in a product that was dangerously and knowingly flawed. They were sold a promise of safety and reliability, only to be delivered a vehicle that could fail catastrophically or catch fire, a betrayal that carries a heavy price in financial loss, anxiety, and endangerment.
The legal battle waged by Eric Jasinski on behalf of all affected owners is a fight to reclaim a measure of justice from a system that seems designed to deny it. It is an attempt to hold a powerful corporation accountable for both a manufacturing defect and the campaign of fraudulent concealment that treated public safety as secondary to profit.
This case serves as a powerful reminder that behind the corporate logos and marketing slogans, there are decisions being made that have profound consequences for the lives of ordinary people, and that without constant vigilance and collective action, the scales of justice will always be tipped in favor of the powerful.
Frivolous or Serious Lawsuit?
Any attempt to dismiss this lawsuit as frivolous would be a profound misrepresentation of the gravity of the allegations. The claims are anchored by concrete, verifiable facts, starting with Kia’s own recall of over 137,000 vehicles for a defect the company acknowledges can cause engine failure or fire. This is not a case built on speculation or minor grievances; it addresses a tangible, life-threatening danger.
The lawsuit presents detailed legal arguments for fraud, breach of warranty, and unjust enrichment, supported by a clear timeline and specific examples of economic harm, from the diminished resale value of the vehicles to the out-of-pocket costs for towing.
The scale of the action, the severity of the alleged safety risk, and the well-documented financial damages elevate this to a matter of significant public interest. This is a serious legal grievance that seeks to hold a corporation accountable for what is to be a profound betrayal of consumer trust and public safety.
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Corporations harm people every day — from wage theft to pollution. Learn more by exploring key areas of injustice.
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- 💵 Financial Fraud & Corruption — Lies, scams, and executive impunity.
