Toyota had a hot line that some customers called also.. And they always took care of the issue. Not sure about KIA, but the last thing a car company needs is to be in the news for bad stuff..
Just throwing my .02 out there.. but at toyota, when reflashing a ECU with the techstream, if you didnt have the battery supply hooked up. And voltage dropped below 11, it would completely lock the ECU. Ive seen it happen 4 times.
Maybe they tried reflashing the ECU / health check while clearing the engine codes and lost connection with ECU, therefore frying it..
We ALWAYS covered it, never once made customer pay for it..
Something else... A new ECU for 235$?? All of the ECU's ive replaced are 800+$ just for the part..