Flickering driver door switch lights and ambient lighting issue

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

Having an issue with my driver’s door switch lighting and the changing of different ambient lighting colors. They seem to be related. No other lighting issues besides these 2 things.

About a few months into owning my car I was driving to work at night and the lighting on the driver’s door switches would randomly all flicker off/on. There was no pattern and the duration of how long they were off would be a half second to upwards of a few seconds. The seat memory lights were not impacted.

Just by chance, I started messing with things in the screen and noticed my ambient lighting wouldn’t change sometimes and it gave me a body control module error. This has probably happened 5 times total in 10 months where both the door switch lights and ambient lighting do this together but never have they done it separately.

Take it to the dealer in November and they can’t reproduce either error and there’s no stored codes. They claim to have reset the pin tension on the harness for the switches and packed it with dilectric grease.

Today, had the same issue driving home from work. Restarted the car and that stopped the door switches from flashing. However the ambient lighting gave me an error of “vehicle system connection is unstable. Please try again later”. So say it did it for the default blue option, that error would pop up, but if I kept trying blue it would eventually take. Some colors would throw the error and some wouldn’t. This time there was no BCM error. Planning on taking it back in but any other suggestions?

 

[MerlintheMad]

Does it put up the error screen if you do this in "P"?

 

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

Never tried that. I’ve always been going down the road as it’s occurring and out of the handful of times, today was the first where I had the thought of “turn it off and back on”. But once I restarted I went straight back to D and down the road.

 

[AtomicGTL]

22 models seem to have lightning and turbo cut issues that Ive been seeing.

Take it to dealer op

 

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

Goes to the dealer tomorrow. Same advisor as last time and we had about a 15 minute chat about it earlier today. Fingers crossed for stored codes.

 

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

Update: Dropped car off yesterday AM. Showed both videos to same tech who worked on it back in November and is working on it now. Texted both videos to advisor who forwarded to the tech.

Spoke with my advisor today. No stored codes which we both figured would be the case. Tech opened a case with corporate and advisor said he should have shared videos with them. Waiting to hear back from corporate.

In the meantime, courtesy vehicle is a sweet Chevy Equinox with 50k miles. Better than walking but I’ll be in the wife’s Ascent until I get the car back in a day or two (hopefully, in the same condition I dropped it off in).

 

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

TL; DR: dealer did typical dealer things. Problem still not solved. Driver door module on order. Ambient lighting allegedly not supposed to be changeable while vehicle in motion.

Full version:
A day or two turned into 2 weeks of them having my car. Got the car back today. The first week it sat in the lot untouched (the Kia app is handy for seeing the location, 360 photos and viewing the remaining fuel tank range and vehicle mileage). I confirmed it sat with the app, this really pissed me off.

A few days after I dropped it off with zero work being done on the car I called into Kia consumer affairs and had a case opened. They were nice enough and pretty good about proactively calling me to provide updates on what the dealer and engineer(s) were talking about on techline. How much they actually “push” the dealer to make the warranty job a priority compared to non warranty customer jobs I don’t know. My “advisor” did anything but so having another resource to call was nice. Linda was my case manager and she was great; a couple others were meh.

After 10 days Linda from consumer affairs called and said the dealer opened a second case for my ambient light issue as shown above. She also said that she had to escalate my cases to the escalations department and that a new case manager from that department would essentially take over and they would see it through to a resolution. That was on 4/7. Linda escalated it that day and I still have not been contacted by escalations, sooooo, yeah.

I was told changing the ambient light colors should not be doable when the car is in motion, the system should block that feature. Kia wanted my dealer to take an ambient lighting module from another stinger, swap it in mine and continue troubleshooting. They don’t have another ‘22 so that couldn’t be done. Honestly, I don’t care if the car lets me change the ambient color while moving when it shouldn’t I just don’t want a bigger, unknown problem behind the scenes.

For the door switches, Kia approved a new driver door module which is on order with no eta for delivery. I’ll get scheduled in when that arrives.

They still don’t know if the door lights flickering and ambient light issue are 2 separate problems or related.

The entire time I couldn’t help but think about how my service visits with my TL Type-S at my Acura dealer were so much different and better. Kia has a long way to go with service. It’s a puppy mill operation and it shows.

 

[djerickd]

dang hope they figure it out soon

 

[General_Vodka]

That's a yikes for sure. Diagnosing electrical issues is a royal pain. I spent WEEKS looking at the wiring and circuit diagrams when trying to figure out why my rpms didn't show. Turns out it was just the front bumper harness being unplugged.

 

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

That's a yikes for sure. Diagnosing electrical issues is a royal pain. I spent WEEKS looking at the wiring and circuit diagrams when trying to figure out why my rpms didn't show. Turns out it was just the front bumper harness being unplugged.

Agreed. I know tracking down electrical issues can be ridiculously difficult which is why I tolerated my car sitting and this entire process the way I have. Had it been a much easier mechanical issue or some other benign thing I wouldn’t have been as patient.

I did download the ZIP file of the 2018 Stinger shop manual but I’m not sure how far that will get me with my ‘22. No doubt components have been revised and changed over the model years.

 

[Bret]

I have the same exact flickering driver door switch issue on my ‘22. It’s identical to the video you posted. I’ll be following this thread. Glad to hear I’m not alone.

 

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

I have the same exact flickering driver door switch issue on my ‘22. It’s identical to the video you posted. I’ll be following this thread. Glad to hear I’m not alone.

Sent you a message. I go in this Wednesday to have the driver door module replaced.

 

[richpfeiferjr]

Funny - this just started happening on my 22. Only time it happened was in a driving rain. I'm wondering if somehow water got in the door and was shorting something out (but they could be unrelated). Also following this thread. Good luck!

 

[Bret]

Sent you a message. I go in this Wednesday to have the driver door module replaced.

Do you know the part number for the module that they ordered for you?

 

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

Got the module swapped out today. Attached is my work order. For you other guys having this problem, give your service advisor my case number when you take it in and explain this is a known and recurring issue across ‘22 model years. My case number: 14731813.

ETA:
Here is a link to the power window module they replaced, part #93571-J5002.

Unit Assembly Power Wind 93571-J5002 | OEM Kia Parts Outlet

Unit Assembly Power Wind 93571-J5002

www.oemkiapartsoutlet.com

 

[Bret]

Thanks for the great detail! Let us know if this ends up solving your problem. Fingers crossed!

 

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

Thanks for the great detail! Let us know if this ends up solving your problem. Fingers crossed!

For sure, I’ll update periodically. Good luck with yours.

 

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

I hate to jinx myself but I said I’d update so here goes. 2 months post fix and no issues.

Anybody else?

 

[Johnnyb]

Having an issue with my driver’s door switch lighting and the changing of different ambient lighting colors. They seem to be related. No other lighting issues besides these 2 things.

About a few months into owning my car I was driving to work at night and the lighting on the driver’s door switches would randomly all flicker off/on. There was no pattern and the duration of how long they were off would be a half second to upwards of a few seconds. The seat memory lights were not impacted.

Just by chance, I started messing with things in the screen and noticed my ambient lighting wouldn’t change sometimes and it gave me a body control module error. This has probably happened 5 times total in 10 months where both the door switch lights and ambient lighting do this together but never have they done it separately.

Take it to the dealer in November and they can’t reproduce either error and there’s no stored codes. They claim to have reset the pin tension on the harness for the switches and packed it with dilectric grease.

Today, had the same issue driving home from work. Restarted the car and that stopped the door switches from flashing. However the ambient lighting gave me an error of “vehicle system connection is unstable. Please try again later”. So say it did it for the default blue option, that error would pop up, but if I kept trying blue it would eventually take. Some colors would throw the error and some wouldn’t. This time there was no BCM error. Planning on taking it back in but any other suggestions?

I am having this same issue with my 2022 stinger Gt2 AWD. The window and door lock lights on my driver side door blink on and off and at the same time my headlights blink bright and dim only if they’re in auto mode. Just bought it in November and I’ve Taken it to the dealer 2 times now for this issue and they say they can’t find anything wrong with it. I also took a video of mine while it was doing it and the dealer wouldn’t even watch it. I called the Kia consumer line and they opened a case.

 

[95oRANGEcRUSH]

I am having this same issue with my 2022 stinger Gt2 AWD. The window and door lock lights on my driver side door blink on and off and at the same time my headlights blink bright and dim only if they’re in auto mode. Just bought it in November and I’ve Taken it to the dealer 2 times now for this issue and they say they can’t find anything wrong with it. I also took a video of mine while it was doing it and the dealer wouldn’t even watch it. I called the Kia consumer line and they opened a case.

I'm sure you looked at my dealer invoice above and saw where my tech found a short in my PWMS. Based on what you've posted, your best bet is to find another dealer AND push hard on the KIA consumer line. Use my case number I referred above so they can cross reference with yours because a tech will need to diagnose the issue before KIA authorizes parts to be replaced.

My car did not have any issues with the headlights or any other lighting components aside from ambient lighting, but, that doesn't mean your problem isn't related to mine. Who knows what the PWMS interfaces with and in my case I was getting a BCM error on the screen and issues with my ambient lighting. I'm another month and a half post-repair (3 1/2 months total) and I haven't had any issues knock on wood.

One thing that is consistent that I am seeing in multiple owners posting this problem is that it is always the driver's door switches flickering ONLY. Maybe KIA got a bad batch of PWMS due to COVID and all the production issues, maybe there was a part revision or who knows, but, it seems the PWMS is where the problem is.