Kia Telluride

Verification status: partial — supported by a secondary or prior-generation source.

2027 Telluride Owner's Manual (803 pp) — second-generation book. Kia's document host answers curl with an empty body, so the manual was read in a browser. TETHERS = 3, FIGURE-DERIVED and re-verified directly in this session: figure OLQ2A065039 on printed p.257 is captioned '3rd row seat' (alongside separate '2nd row seat (7 passenger vehicle)' and '(8 passenger vehicle)' figures) and marks THREE tether anchors across the third-row seatback, with an inset of the tether-anchor icon. Body text: 'Tether anchors are located on the seat back.' REMINDER = true, ROW-ENUMERATED VERBATIM p.239: '* 2nd row seat: (1) Left side, (2) Center, (3) Right side. * 3rd row seat: (4) Left side, (5) Center, (6) Right side' — all three third-row positions individually monitored. ANCHORS = 2, OWNER DECISION 2026-08-24. This is the weakest-evidenced value in the batch and the reasoning is set out in full so a reader can judge it. Kia does NOT enumerate third-row lower anchors anywhere: both editions were checked (kiatechinfo PDF and the ownersmanual.kia.com/full_webhelp/LQ2/2027 tree), the whole CRS topic cluster t00174-t00180 was enumerated, and its only anchor figures are OLQ2A065037 (a plain seat rendering with NO markers) and OLQ2A065038 (a single-position close-up). THE COUNT IS NOT READ OFF A PHOTOGRAPH. It follows from Kia's own placement RULE, stated in the manual: 'LATCH anchors have been provided in the left and right outboard rear seating positions ... There are no LATCH anchors provided for the center rear seating position.' Given a third row that has anchors, that rule fixes the count at two — outboard left and right, centre excluded. What the owner-supplied kia.com interior photography establishes is PRESENCE: the manual states 'The lower anchor position indicator symbols are located on the left and right rear seatbacks to identify the position of the lower anchors', and those indicator labels are visible on the third-row seatbacks. CORROBORATION, both manufacturer-sourced and independent of each other: kia.com's spec sheet publishes 'Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH), 4 Total', which reconciles exactly as 2 (second row) + 2 (third row); and the platform twin Hyundai Palisade records 2 from Hyundai's explicit top-down per-row diagram. WEAKEST LINK, stated plainly: third-row presence rests on marketing photography rather than a labelled technical figure, and 'LATCH, 4 Total' is ambiguous between four POSITIONS and four anchor BARS (each position has two). Read as positions it gives 2+2; read as bars it would imply two positions in total and contradict the photographs. The photographs are what discriminate between those readings. If Kia ever publishes a per-row figure, prefer it. TETHERS = 3 provenance UPGRADED 2026-08-24 from a browser zoom to the downloaded webhelp asset: OLQ2A065039, captioned by Kia as 'Figure 3. 3rd row seat' (its siblings are 'Figure 1. 2nd row seat (7 passenger vehicle)' and 'Figure 2. 2nd row seat (8 passenger vehicle)'), showing THREE tether anchors across the third-row seatback with leader lines to a TOP TETHER hardware inset. Row-labelled by the manufacturer and unambiguous. CURTAIN = true, FIGURE-SUPPORTED, corrected from null 2026-08-24 (owner-supplied and owner-confirmed as Kia's own manual). Kia's PROSE is the weakest of the batch and is unchanged: printed p.279 reads 'Curtain air bags are located along both sides of the roof rails above the front and rear doors' — DOOR-based, not seat-based, and the Telluride's third row sits behind the rear doors, so that sentence alone never supported the field. The FIGURE does: Kia's manual carries the same full-cabin 'Airbag - Supplemental Restraint System (SRS)' overview asset that appears in the Hyundai Palisade manual (HMG reuses illustration assets across the two platform siblings). In it, callout 5 brackets both curtain panels and the far-side panel runs from the front pillar past the rear-side-airbag seats to the rear of the cabin, over the rearmost seating. PROVENANCE PRECISION: the numbered legend (1 Driver's front / 2 Passenger's front / 3 Front side / 4 Rear side / 5 CURTAIN AIRBAG / 6 Driver's knee / 7 Front center side) was transcribed from the Hyundai printing of the identical asset (Palisade printed p.85), because Kia's PDF viewer would not navigate to its own airbag chapter. That does not weaken the reading: the panels callout 5 points to are long inflated members running the length of the roof rails, which are curtain airbags by shape and position irrespective of the numbering. If Kia's own legend is ever read directly, record it here. NOTE the divergence this exposes — Kia and Hyundai do NOT share manual TEXT on this topic (door-based vs seat-based wording) but DO share the illustration. Shared-asset reasoning is therefore valid for figures and invalid for prose. CPST CONTEXT (third-party, NOT a source): Cars.com reports 'two sets of lower anchors and three top tether anchors' in the 2027's third row and notes the redesign added a second anchor set and a third tether versus the 2025. Their tether count matches Kia's figure; their anchor count is exactly what Kia declines to publish.

Hardware facts only. No U.S. crash-test programme instruments third-row occupants, so this site publishes what the vehicle has rather than a rating. Confirm against the owner's manual and sit in the vehicle before buying. Compare third-row LATCH across every model → How we source safety data →