2019 Kia Soul
This year drew an ordinary 271 complaints for a Kia Soul — the model's median is 288. What they were about is the unusual part: 6.6% of them mention safety risk, against 1.4% across the other years of this generation.
Last year of its generation. This Kia Soul ran from 2014 to 2019, so it had the whole run for its faults to be found and fixed. Last years are usually the most sorted of a generation.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 271 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 288 |
| Involving a crash | 24 |
| Involving a fire | 16 |
| Recalls | 1 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 28 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- safety risk — 6.6% of this year's complaints, against 1.4% across the other years of this generation (4.9×). Owners wrote it as: safety risk, policy, severe safety.
- cylinder — 8.1% of this year's complaints, against 3.2% across the other years of this generation (2.5×). Owners wrote it as: cylinder, coil, several occasions.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
VEHICLE DRIVING AT HIGHWAY SPEEDS EXPERIENCED A SUDDEN AND COMPLETE LOSS OF POWER FOLLOWED BY FLASHING CHECK ENGINE LIGHT. DRIVER WAS ABLE TO COAST AND THE EXIT HIGHWAY VIA OFF RAMP. DRIVER CONTACTED ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE AND VEHICLE WAS TOWED TO PARKSIDE KIA IN…
There is white smoke coming out of the tailpipe. The car is running in distress. We changed the spark plugs because there was oil on the original spark plugs. We took the car to Auto Zone for engine diagnosis. Their tests report Ignition coil failure in the po…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 22V031000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Kia Soul was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2019 Kia Soul? What happened to yours?
Loading comments…