2023 Kia Soul: What to check before buying

Driver-assist warnings flash in a cycle with alert chimes, naming the forward safety, lane safety, high beam assist and driver attention systems while those features briefly stop working. Dealers often cannot reproduce it, and one blamed a dirty windshield camera. Instrument clusters go blank and lose the speedometer and warning lights, and the fix described is a replacement. Other reports cover the car shutting down while driving with no warning light and a dead 12V system. One injury report describes the car rolling away while in park.

Wheels jerk, pull hard or lock without warning, and several reports tie this to lane assist. One pattern is the wheel tugging toward oncoming traffic on two-lane roads as another car passes. Others describe the wheel locking along with a stability light, radio static, stalling, lost power steering or sudden acceleration. Some cars were nearly new when it started. The data includes one crash with injuries where the car left the road and rolled down a hill, plus a second injury report.

Stalling and full engine failure on low-mileage cars lead these reports. One engine failed at 5,800 miles after the first dealer oil change, and another threw pistons with oil in the coolant. Other cars shut off at 40 to 45 mph with no warning light and restarted only to stall again; one dealer found no cause at 8,872 miles. Another engine was replaced after repeated shutoffs and ticking noises. One car stopped responding in an intersection for about 20 minutes.

Recall paperwork and part delays make up most of these complaints rather than driving failures. One owner waited on a recall repair for parts that were not available. Another saw battery and Auto Start/Stop warnings before the repair, then cruise control and lane keep switching on by themselves afterward. A separate report lists a transmission fluid pump replacement. One filing is marked as a crash and fire with 10 injuries, but it gives no detail beyond a mention of the airbag.

Random beeping and a cycle of dash errors, including brake, lighting and airbag system faults, top these reports. The failures are intermittent, and one dealer reproduced them overnight but did not find the cause after repeated visits. A separate report describes the steering wheel airbag bursting in a minor impact under 20 mph without fully deploying while no other airbags fired. The dealer and the manufacturer declined to investigate. The remaining entries only list part replacements.

Headlights are too dim and the beam pattern is poor. Owners say the car is close to undrivable at night, especially on dark, rainy roads with worn lane markings, and they worry about running off the road or into oncoming traffic. The problem is present from delivery and not a part that fails later. Visits to two different dealers produced no fix, and contacting the manufacturer did not help either.

Automatic braking engages with no hazard ahead. The car slows on its own with the brake and hazard lights flashing, most often when pulling away from a traffic light. A restart clears the warnings, but the problem returns. In another report, the manual parking brake let go with a loud bang a few seconds after being set and dropped all the way down. That happened twice with under 1000 miles on the car.