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Kia Sold the Forte With Poor Headlights for Six Years. The Fix Was in the Parts Bin the Whole Time.

Mia Crumplezone • Clautomotive Desk
July 6, 2026
A Kia Forte sedan driving at night with dim halogen headlights barely illuminating a dark curved road

IIHS rated the Kia Forte's base-trim headlights Poor from 2019 through 2024. Six model years. Every volume trim shipped with halogen projectors that couldn't adequately light a curve.[1] LED projectors on the GT trim scored Good in every test year, illuminating 68.3 meters on the left edge versus the halogen's 22.5.[2] Same platform, same Monterrey assembly line, different lamp housing bolted to the same bumper beam.

22.5 m
Left-edge illumination distance, Forte base trims (2019–2021) — versus 68.3 m on the GT's LEDs

Convert that 22.5 meters into time and the engineering negligence crystallizes. At 45 mph a driver covers 20.1 meters every second, so an obstacle at the left edge of the headlight beam appears with 1.12 seconds of visibility.[3] AASHTO's perception-reaction standard is 2.5 seconds: the minimum interval between seeing a hazard and beginning to brake. Subtract 1.12 from 2.5. That leaves negative 1.38 seconds, which is a polite way of saying you'd need precognition. Above 20 mph on a two-lane road, these halogen headlights were not a visibility aid on the oncoming-traffic side; they were cosmetic.

Kia bumped the left-edge figure to 47.4 meters for 2022–2024, still rated Poor, and curve visibility remained "inadequate in all four tests."[1] On curves the high beams were equally useless. Meanwhile the GT's LED projectors handled every curve scenario with Good or Fair marks and gave drivers 3.40 seconds of left-edge visibility at the same speed, yet Kia never made them standard.

Instead Kia killed the Forte in 2024 and launched the K4 as its replacement, which finally ships LED headlights across all trims. Small victory. Within months the K4 was recalled for seatbelt buckle defects, 1,371 hatchbacks alongside 13,499 Tellurides sharing the same faulty Samsong Mexico part.[4]

FARS puts the Forte at 604 total fatalities and a rate of 0.40 per 100,000 registrations, low for a compact sedan.[5] Good crashworthiness scores back that up: the Forte protects occupants well once metal hits metal. But crashworthiness is the last line of defense, and headlights are the first. Kia sold a car that failed at prevention and excelled at protection for six consecutive model years while the engineering fix sat in a catalog one trim level up, and neither IIHS nor NHTSA forced a change. FARS cannot attribute individual fatalities to headlight quality versus driver behavior, speed, or geometry, and IIHS track measurements don't capture real-world variables like oncoming high-beam glare or wet-pavement reflectivity. A car with Poor headlights and Good crash ratings can still carry a low death rate, and the Forte did.

If you own a 2019–2024 Forte on any trim except GT, look into DOT-compliant LED bulb replacements for your halogen housings and confirm legality in your state before installing. If you're cross-shopping compact sedans, pull the IIHS headlight rating by trim level, not from the press-kit spec sheet. Manufacturers quote the best available hardware, but most buyers drive home with the worst.

Sources & References

  1. IIHS, 2022 Kia Forte 4-door sedan and 2023 Kia Forte 4-door sedan headlight ratings, applies to 2022–2024 models. iihs.org
  2. IIHS, 2020 Kia Forte 4-door sedan headlight ratings (two variants: GT trim rated Good, FE/LXS/EX trims rated Poor), applies to 2019–2021 models. iihs.org
  3. AASHTO, A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets (7th ed.), perception-reaction time standard of 2.5 seconds for stopping sight distance calculations.
  4. NHTSA Recall 26V-081, Kia Telluride/K4 seatbelt buckle assembly defect, March 2026. nhtsa.gov/recalls
  5. NHTSA, Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2014–2023. nhtsa.gov

Data Note: FARS fatality rate based on 604 deaths over 2014–2023 with estimated VMT from registration and travel-survey data; moderate-volume models carry approximately ±15% rate uncertainty. IIHS headlight illumination distances are measured on a controlled test track and may not reflect real-world visibility under varying weather, road, and traffic conditions. FARS does not code contributing factors at the granularity of headlight performance.