Awesome! thanks for that letter and update. Appears Kia is bundling the hitch plus new body piece together in that new part number. However thousands of owners have installed 3rd party hitches and harnesses and many many have done the oem hitch plus Canadian harness, all without issues. What is the required "Tailgate Latch Assembly" replacement that has come up?
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2023 Telluride Trailer Hitch Receiver availability
- Thread author LarryJordan
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TellmeyourWHAT?
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I think there is quite a few of us who would like that answer. I am going to get the whole kit but I would like to know what this latch does?
Spartan1
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Premier Kia canceled my order saying S9F61-AU660 is back ordered.
Looking forward to a confirmed part number for 23/24 OEM hitch bumper cover.
TellmeyourWHAT?
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You are going to have to wait awhile for this separate number. As you've read, they are only producing kits now. Problem is ... no one can tell you what "awhile" means. Could be a year or more.
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Has anyone had any luck ordering Kit #S9TOW-POWER from the official announcement from either a local dealer or online? My local dealer found the part # on his system today, but it showed 0 availability nationwide. Sold out or not yet released? Any information appreciated.
MNBackpacker
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Ordered last Wednesday (right before the official announcement!) and it arrived to the dealership on Saturday. Now just waiting for my service appt, which was nearly a month out. So, they're in the wild, but I surmise in high demand with the backlog.
I called my local dealer in Gilbert, AZ and he said there were 3 at Luther Kia in Bloomington MN and a couple in Texas. So, if you're in the Twin Cities, you might want to give them a call. To add insult to injury, that's where I bought my Telluride and promptly moved to AZ, where I can't find the hitch kit.
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Jamchampnate
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That looks great - perfect, the way it should look.
Did they explain what the function is for the hatch latch?
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Looks nice but to pay that in my opinion is crazy. I picked up an etrailer curt hitch for $230 and the Canadian harness for $180 and did the install myself. They must have charged $160 an hour for labor and charged for 2 hours? I probably had just over an hour of my time with the install. Only thing I need is the bumper cutout piece which I'm sure they will have those on the market soon enough where you can purchase them by themselves. Until then my little cutout is good enough
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Jamchampnate
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For sure. I’ve done multiple installs before it’s a piece of cake. On this one I wasn’t going to mess around with the stupid fire hazard before and I didn’t even want a whisper of a chance of kia ever trying to not honor my warranty for some sort of BS.
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Don't bet the ranch. My guess is that it will be many moons before they offer an individual panel (with part number of course). They are committed to issuing this package kit and have tens of thousands of kits to get through. Only then will they sell the individual panel.
Yeah that's understandable. I figure the hitch is just a bolt on and does not alter any part of the vehicle and the palisade one is made by the same parent company Hyundai/Kia with them basically being the same vehicle so I figure it's worth the shot. However chose to skip the splicing style harness for that reason of a fire hazard though. Cuz I could see that becoming a mess if you did something like that lol
Yeah and that's fine. My cutout does a good enough job and you can't really see it anyway unless you're bent over looking under the bumper. Plus I'm sure there will be a crashed one eventually that's getting parted out lol until then my cutout will do beautifully
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So I ordered S9F61-AU002 (Tow hitch) and S9F61-AU660 (Bumper Cover) online from a local dealer over the weekend. Today I got a call from the parts guy saying nope those are the incorrect p/n's, there is a kit S9F61-AU100CCC that includes the tow hitch as well as the bumper cover and Kia is throwing in a Latch (Power) Assembly 81800-S9600CCC free of charge. The parts guy couldn't explain what this Latch Assembly is for but instead read a statement from Kia that neither of us could make any sense. Man what a pain this has been to get the Tow Hitch. I just want to get these installed and over with.
That was my experience. Parts folks were great and they went out of their way given the lack of information from the mother ship. I too received S9F61-AU100CCC, which came with the bumper cover. They also gave me the new latch and I swapped that out yesterday. I have no idea what it does differently and I won't begin to speculate. I have the Hyundai harness (didn't feel like returning and buying the Kia version) and hope to put it on the lift and get everything installed this week.
Picked up the Tow Hitch Kit S9F61-AU100CCC and the Latch (Power) Assembly 81800-S9600CCC last night. Here's a pic of the Latch Assembly. I have absolutely no clue what it does and how to install it. So for now it is a paper weight. I think someone at Kia needs to be fired.
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MNBackpacker
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To be fair to Kia, this is intended to be a DIO (Dealer Installed Option) accessory, and in the letter shown in post 358, it indicates to reference parts bulletin MI-23-31 for installation instructions, as well as visiting the 2023/2024 Telluride Service Manual (KGIS->Telluride->2023) and search for the "Tailgate Latch Removal and Installation" document. So, if you have access to those, you'll have your answer. They just didn't provide them with the part, which isn't that uncommon these days.
