Hyundai Palisade LX3 Recall: Interim Over-the-Air Software Rolls Out for 2,304 Cars in Australia, New Deliveries Still Paused

Image credit: Hyundai Australia

If you have a Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy Hybrid on the driveway, or a build slot lodged with a dealer for one, this is the recall update to act on this week. Hyundai Motor Company Australia has started rolling out an interim over-the-air software fix to 2,304 examples of the new-generation LX3 body under recall REC-006585, following a fatal incident overseas where the power-fold third-row seat killed a two-year-old child. New customer deliveries in Australia are still on hold until the permanent fix is signed off, and that piece is worth reading past the headline. The recall behaviour is not a mechanical failure, it is a software gap in the seat module logic, and Hyundai has now put the first half of the answer in every affected owner's hands.

On CarSorted we track the Palisade LX3 range across three retail grades and this recall touches every one of them. Here is what is actually in the update, how you get it, why deliveries are still paused, and what the pause does to the family-SUV cross-shop the LX3 sits inside right now.

What Hyundai Australia has confirmed

Recall REC-006585, campaign code 61D092, was published on the federal vehiclerecalls.gov.au register on 31 March 2026 and it covers 2,304 examples of the LX3 Hyundai Palisade sold in Australia across model years 2025 and 2026. Every affected car is the hybrid Calligraphy body, which is the only LX3 Palisade the local arm sells, running the dual-motor 2.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol-electric drivetrain rated at 245kW and 460Nm combined, a six-speed automatic and all-wheel drive. The previous-generation LX2 Palisade is not on the recall list.

The defect is a software fault in the seat control module that manages the second-row and third-row power-fold and walk-in features. In the wrong conditions the module may fail to detect a person or an object in the seat as the fold cycle runs, and may not halt the motion when it should. Hyundai's own recall notice puts it plainly. A seat that cannot detect an occupant increases the risk of causing serious injury or death to any occupant in or around the folding seat during activation of the walk-in and power-fold seat features. That is the risk category, and it is why the local arm paused new deliveries in the first place rather than let the fleet keep expanding while the fix was being worked out.

What the interim update actually does

Hyundai has not just tightened the detection logic and left the user interface alone. The interim update also strips the fold-flat convenience path in a couple of important ways, and it is worth reading before you drive to the dealer or accept the Bluelink push. Firstly, once the update is on the car, the fold-flat feature for the second and third rows will only run when the tailgate is open. Owners cannot fold the seats from the driver's seat, and cannot fold them while parked with the tailgate closed. Secondly, the fold and stowing shortcuts inside the central touchscreen are disabled outright. The only inputs that still work are the physical buttons in the boot area with the tailgate raised.

That is a real reduction in usability compared with what buyers paid for at handover. Hyundai's framing is that the seat cycle is a rear-of-vehicle task, and requiring the tailgate to be up means the boot is clear, the operator is standing at the tailgate line and can see what the seat is about to do. It is a workaround, not a full fix. Hyundai has publicly acknowledged the update is interim, and has committed to a permanent remedy without yet naming a date or scope. Hyundai has not confirmed whether the permanent fix involves further software changes only, hardware changes to the seat modules themselves, or a combination of both.

Image credit: Hyundai Australia

Why customer deliveries are still on hold

Hyundai Australia paused new Palisade LX3 customer deliveries in the days after the Ohio incident in March. That pause has not been lifted alongside the interim OTA release. The reason is straightforward. The interim update is designed to close the immediate risk on cars that are already in customer hands and already parked in Australian driveways. Rolling those existing cars over to a safer software load is a fleet-management problem. Handing over brand new cars into households while a permanent engineering fix is not yet signed off is a different question, and Hyundai Motor Company Australia has chosen to keep the deliveries in a holding pattern until the permanent remedy is ready.

For a new-car buyer, that means orders can still be lodged and build slots can still be held, but nobody is signing a driveaway contract on an LX3 Calligraphy right now. Nothing on the range walk has moved while the pause is on. The Elite still opens the range at $76,500 before on-road costs, the Calligraphy Hybrid holds at $89,900 before on-roads with an eight-seat layout ($89,900 also for the seven-seat captain-chair option in some dealer quotes), and the recently added Calligraphy Black Ink sits at $92,400 before on-roads with the same drivetrain and a full blacked-out styling package. Hyundai's five-year unlimited-km vehicle warranty and eight-year 160,000km battery warranty carry across, and the second-generation LX3 has not yet been ANCAP tested, so all three grades ship not-yet-rated regardless of what the recall does or does not do to delivery timing.

What owners should do this week

1. Check your VIN. The involved-VIN list is published as a CSV attachment on vehiclerecalls.gov.au under REC-006585, and Hyundai runs its own VIN checker on hyundai.com.au under safety recalls. Either page returns a yes or no on your specific car in a few seconds. Do not wait on Australia Post if you are unsure.
2. Enrol in Bluelink if you have not already. The interim OTA is delivered through Hyundai's Bluelink connected-car platform. The first three years of Bluelink are included with the car at new-vehicle handover, so most affected owners already have the account active. If you have skipped setup, the app is the free path to the update and does not need a workshop appointment.
3. Book a dealer visit if the OTA is not an option. Any authorised Hyundai dealer service department can apply the same software load in a workshop appointment at no cost. It is not a parts job. Bring the recall letter or reference REC-006585 when you book.
4. Adjust the way you actually use the seats. Once the update is on the car, the fold-flat and walk-in features only run with the tailgate open, and the touchscreen shortcuts do not work. If you use the boot switches for a school-drop-off or a Bunnings load, that workflow does not change. If you were folding the third row from the cabin, plan for a walk to the tailgate every time until the permanent fix arrives.

Timeline: how this recall unfolded

The Palisade LX3 landed in Australian dealers in December 2025 as a hybrid-only proposition, replacing the outgoing petrol V6 LX2 body that had run the range from 2019. Hyundai Motor Company Australia sold through the summer and into early autumn 2026 on the strength of the new body, the new dual-motor 2.5-litre turbo hybrid drivetrain and the electric fold-and-slide second and third-row seats that lifted the LX3 above the LX2 on interior packaging. The seat-fold feature is the piece the recall now touches, and it is the first big feature-set change from the LX2 architecture.

On 7 March 2026 a two-year-old child was killed by the power-fold third-row seat on an LX3 Palisade in Ohio. Hyundai Motor Company issued an immediate global stop-sale on the LX3 body while the incident was investigated, and Hyundai Motor Company Australia paused new Palisade customer deliveries in the following days. Recall REC-006585 was published on the federal vehiclerecalls.gov.au register on 31 March 2026 covering the 2,304 examples of the LX3 Palisade Calligraphy Hybrid then in Australian owner hands, with campaign code 61D092. Hyundai Australia committed to a two-step remedy at that point: an interim software update to keep existing owners safe while the permanent engineering fix was designed and validated.

Between April and July 2026 Hyundai worked through the interim software load. The over-the-air release began rolling out through Bluelink in August 2026, and dealer workshop reprogram bookings opened at the same time. The permanent fix is still not signed off as of the end of August 2026, and Hyundai Australia has not published a target date. New customer deliveries remain paused until the permanent piece lands. In the United States, Hyundai Motor North America ended the stop-sale on new deliveries at the start of August after applying a broadly similar interim update on that market's cars, but the Australian arm has held to the pause here.

The CarSorted cross-shop this touches

Where the delivery pause actually matters is at the shortlist stage. The Palisade LX3 is one of a small handful of seven and eight-seat family SUVs sitting between $75,000 and $100,000 that a family can genuinely daily-drive with a load of kids in the back. The cars a Palisade buyer is normally lining it up against on CarSorted are the Toyota Kluger Grande Hybrid at $85,135 before on-roads, the Kia Sorento GT-Line Hybrid at $74,540 before on-roads, and the newer Mazda CX-80 and Nissan Pathfinder at either end of the same bracket. None of those cross-shops is on a delivery pause right now, and none has an equivalent open recall on a power-fold seat.

For a buyer who was six weeks off signing on a Palisade Calligraphy, the honest question this week is whether the delivery pause pushes them into the next-nearest option instead of holding out for the permanent fix. Our side-by-side comparison tool gives you the driveaway maths on Kluger, Sorento and Palisade in one screen, and the CarSorted SUV directory filters cleanly to seven and eight-seaters if the family layout is what you are optimising for. If you have a build slot with a dealer and can wait, the recall does not change what the LX3 is once it lands. If the delivery timing is the whole point of the order, a Kluger Grande Hybrid or a Sorento GT-Line Hybrid becomes the more honest recommendation for that household.

How this fits Australia's wider recall pattern in August

August 2026 has been a heavy month for local recalls. Toyota Australia called back 16,238 current-shape Camry Ascent and Ascent Sport hybrids over a digital cluster that can go blank at start-up, a further 13,390 HiLux utes over an accessory wiring loom that can drop the electric power steering, and Mercedes-Benz Australia added 58,822 vehicles to the register over a door-lock microswitch that can allow unintended vehicle movement. The Palisade action sits under those in raw car count but on par with them on risk category. Between the four campaigns, more than 90,000 cars sold new in Australia in the last 24 months are on an active recall list right now.

The common thread is software rather than a fundamental mechanical defect, and that is where new-car complexity has landed. Networked seat modules, digital clusters and drive-by-wire steering assist all put more of the safety burden on low-level code that the driver never sees. When those layers fail the failure modes tend to be quiet, sudden, and hard to spot in advance. A quarterly VIN check on vehiclerecalls.gov.au is a cheaper habit than assuming your dealer will always ring first.

What this means for buyers

If you already own one of the 2,304 affected LX3 Palisade Calligraphy Hybrids, this is a Bluelink push or a coffee-length dealer appointment away from being sorted for now. Do it this week rather than waiting for the letter to catch up in the mail, and get used to opening the tailgate to fold the seats. That is a workflow change worth accepting to close the risk while the permanent fix is worked out.

If you are shopping a Palisade right now, the recall does not change the case for the car once deliveries restart, but it does change your timing. Dealers can accept an order and hold a build slot, but nobody is handing keys over until the permanent fix is signed off. If a specific delivery window matters (a growing family, a novated-lease turnaround, a school-holidays cross-country trip), the Palisade shortlist is the wrong one to hold out on this month. Our comparison tool and the seven-seat SUV directory will get you a working-week look at the Kluger Grande Hybrid, Sorento GT-Line Hybrid and CX-80 GT alternatives while the Hyundai queue works itself out.

See also: Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy Black Ink price | Toyota Camry cluster software recall | Mercedes-Benz door-lock recall.