Technicians from Kia are in Rochester this weekend to provide software upgrades on vehicles from that manufacturer that may be more prone to theft.
Rochester is one of the cities that has seen a big increase in car thefts overall this year, with many of them involving certain models of Kias and Hyundais.
Some of the increase in car theft are driven in part by challenges on social media, and software in some of their older models that makes them easier to steal.
James Bell heads up corporate communications for Kia America, and he said the software upgrade is designed to delay would-be thieves.
“What we’ve heard is that anything that injects time into the theft process is what a thief does not like,” said Bell, “so we’ve done two things with this new software upgrade: it runs the alarm system when the vehicle is broken into for an extended period of time, and it also then disables the ignition system for an extended period of time.”
Bell said the Kia technicians will also be providing steering wheel locks as an extra measure of protection for drivers who want them.
Bell said that this mobile software service is coming to cities around the country, and Rochester is one of the first to get it.
“I moved Rochester up as high on the list as possible, because I wanted to make sure that this community was addressed,” said Bell, “and we wanted to make sure that we were in the places where they need us and also with winter coming, we didn’t want to be running these events in January when it may not be nearly as interesting to come out and spend the day with us.”
Kia technicians started the service on Friday and it continues right through Sunday in a parking lot behind the downtown campus of Monroe Community College, off of State Street ( at 131 Verona St. across from Innovative Field).
They will be there on Saturday and Sunday, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day.
Hyundai announced recently that it will be holding similar types of clinics across the country in the coming weeks, and one of them, for certain Hyundai models will happen on November 17 and 18.
