The company says it's discovered a potential fault has been identified in a small section of the door wiring loom that controls the "mood" lighting in Soul and Sorento models.

Kia has discovered that in certain circumstances there is a very small danger of the wiring over-heating and that could, in turn, cause a fire. The possible fault affects a total of 73 Soul models and 476 Sorento KX-3 vehicles built between September of last year and June of this year.

Kia says it's already taking steps to contact the owners, who are being asked to take their vehicles to their local dealership where the work will be carried out at no cost to them. The work should take no more than one hour.

Hamish McCowan, after-sales and logistics director at Kia Motors (UK) Ltd, said: 'We are very sorry for any inconvenience this causes our customers and we are not aware of any vehicles in the UK suffering this problem – but we believe it is better to be safe and that is why we are taking this recall action.

'The risk of a fire is very small and would only occur under extreme circumstances but we want to make sure none of our customers should be anxious about the safety of their vehicles,' he added.