New KIA Optima owner here. I recently brought a used 2016 KIA Optima. So far I love pretty much everything about the car. I am a little unsure though of exactly what trim level I have and unfortunately the car came without an owners manual. The back of the car has a badge that says "FE". Some research that I have done says that FE means fuel efficient and is a slight variation of the SX trim level which in 2016 was the "basic" trim level. What seems to confirm this is that I have a manual driver seat. The seat has a bar in the front to move the seat back and forth. It has a lever to raise and lower the seat and another lever to recline. So far so good. In addition to this it has a round button which my research seems to indicate is a power lumbar support feature. Unfortunately pressing this button doesn't seem to do anything. Is it possible that the manual seat included the button but not the lumbar support feature? Is mine just broken? Does anyone have a 2016 Optima with a manual driver seat that has the lumbar support button that actually does something?
Thank You
Sorry for how late this is but I have noticed for the past year that my optima lx (lowest base model) had a power lumbar even though it was a base model car with manual seats. I noticed the switch and I pressed it and I would hear a noise but nothing would happen, so I ignored it until I got curious again over a year later on it. So I read this forum and searched the internet when this is the only thing I could find describing exactly what was wrong, but no way to fix it, so I called kia and they wanted me to bring it in asap and I do not want to get charged for something I don’t even use, so I opened the back of my seat and found the problem. So usually cars that have power lumbar use a bag but the optima uses a piece of plastic that flexes outward when pulled to provide that lumbar support. When I opened up the back of my seat with all the plastic, I noticed this little metal cable with a hook on the end, and when pressing the button I noticed that it would move up and down via a motor. So I looked all over the back of the seat and inside on the bottom of the black piece of plastic it is connected too, theres a little area with a little metal rod that it could be connected to! I connected it real quick and bam, I finally have power lumbar! If you are curious to fix it I would do so as its super easy even if you aren’t mechanically inclined. It only takes 5 minutes and to take off the back of the seat there is two clips on the bottom and you just slide your fingers behind the plastic for the rest! I hope you see this and it helps you out!
