NHTSA Complaint #11452790 — 2017 KIA OPTIMA

I was driving down hwy 60 in Lake Wales, Florida, passing a car at 70 mph. While passing, all of the alerts and indicators came on my dash, and I lost the ability to accelerate. To get off the road without getting rear-ended, I drove off into the grass in the median and stopped on the paved crossover. When I stopped the car, it shook and the engine died. The "hybrid warning/turn engine off" light came on in the middle of the display, so I turned off the car. I waited a few minutes and turned the car back on, no alerts were showing, but when I shifted into drive, the hybrid warning came back on, and all the lights/alerts on the dash were lit. The car had to be towed to the dealership. On Tuesday, Feb. 15, the dealership told me they performed a software update and the car was running again, but they wanted to keep it another night. On Wed., Feb. 16, the dealership called again to tell me the same situation that occurred on 2/14 happened again. They told me the codes that were given were related to the transmission. They said the transmission had to be replaced. The car is 5 years old. I asked about the transmission control module, and they said the entire transmission had to be replaced in order to replace the TCM. I took the car in after a recall notice was received in January 2022. I was told the recall only required an inspection, so there was no software update at that time. The tech told me that the original software update was done in April 2021. We received a 2nd recall notice this week saying the prior software update had an error and needed to be updated. The tech told me this is the update they did on 2/15. The dealership is telling me I need a new transmission. I'm having a hard time trusting anyone at the dealership.