Kia’s UK unit is recalling 5,787 Sportage and 1,432 first generation Soul vehicles due to a possible fault with the vehicle’s seat belt pre-tensioner.

The automaker said it was not aware of any injuries resulting from this possible fault, discovered as a result of monitoring of customer vehicles, but was concerned some pre-tensioners may not work properly due to a faulty piston within the mechanism.

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It will contact affected owners and advise them to take their vehicles to dealers for a system check. Any faulty pre-tensioners will be replaced free of charge within one to two hours.

Only vehicles fitted with components from a faulty batch need to be inspected. The Sportage models were built at the Zilina, Slovakia factory between October 2011 and November 2012 and Souls at Kwangju in Korea between August 2011 and March 2012.

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