2016 needs Onboard Charger

I've just been informed that my 2016 EV Soul needs a need onboard charger and there was some coolant fluid on it. It was the last service 8 months ago with no issues. I'm told because I purchased this as a used car, the cost of replacing it will be out of my pocket and not covered under warranty. I'm looking at $3K for the part and $1K for the labor. Does this sound typical? Is this a typical issue? The warranty on this part is 1 year, 1,000 miles. I'm thinking this doesn't sound good and is probably not worth it. I do have an extended warranty through Mercury Mechanical production. I have no idea if they will cover it.

I had to replace mine this winter. I was outside of the 160,000km EV powertrain warranty coverage and paid ~$4,000.

Double check that claim that you're not covered because you bought it used. Mines used, and was a taxi prior, yet Kia footed the bill when it came to replacing the battery pack under warranty. I'm from Canada so Kia America for example might have a different policy, but that would seem..strange.

Best of luck!

I haven’t studied the job on a SOUL EV, but have swapped in salvaged chargers on the I-MiEV and early LEAF without trouble. $400 at the junkyard and no reprogramming required.

I think the issue with a DIY swap is the bleeding of the coolant system afterwards. I don't think anyone knows the codes to trigger the water pump, and without proper bleeding then the air bubbles could cause electronics both in the OBC and the power control to overheat and burn out.

My 2016 Soul EV's OBC failed unexpectedly about a month ago. Had enough juice in the battery to take it to the local dealership and after diagnosis they confirmed the OBC had failed and put replacement in to Kia Canada for warranty replacement authorization. It was covered but the story doesn't end there as the first replacement OBC was installed but found to be dead on arrival. Kia thought there might be something else wrong with the electronics that blew the replacement OBC. After a weeks delay and no other causal factors being found a second replacement OBC was ordered and installed. This one works and I got the car back after 3.5 weeks, no cost to me and I've put the car through two charge cycles since the repair.

-

Here's an old post of mine from December 2017.
see :- Charging Fault error.
As you can see from the Quebec DIY fix an official GDS connection was not required.
It is possible to recycle the coolant successfully without having the software support.

---------------------------------------------

-
I had my OBC fixed on Thursday. It took an hour. Excellent work by the local Kia garage. Car now charges fine. I will post a detailed series of images from this repair tomorrow. First though I just found these pictures on the Quebec Soul EV Facebook thread. The first time I have seen the inside of one of the OBC units.

Posted by Sylvain Belanger‎ - here https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212906196503462&set=pcb.1854263821270008&type=3&theater&ifg=1

The OBC fix was done at Véhicules électriques Simon André. This is the (first) used EV repair shop in Quebec. So it's not a Kia dealership. As the car was bought in the US, the warranty does not apply here so that's why they were on their own to change the OBC. They took the opportunity to open the OBC case to check if something is broken and repairable.






The good news here is that it is possible to fix an OBC out of warranty without going to Kia.
The one step that is not possible for DIY fixing is the recirculation of the cooling fluid.
In this case they didn't do it and everything was fine.
Don't know if they were just lucky because it was Quebec winter.
But it should be possible to do this by filling, driving a short distance and then filling some more.

The repair on my car required the official GDS to be running - and an Internet connection to Kia





Safety Hint
Disconnect the 12V battery and wear thick rubber gloves to disconnect the high voltage orange cabling.






-

About 3 months after having the battery replaced my OBC failed - perhaps not totally unexpectedly as running in "B" mode was becoming somewhat erratic in that the generation braking would sometimes suddenly quit and leave me pressing much harder on the brake to bring to car to a stop. In retrospect this was likely a symptom of the OBC's pending failure. Took the dealer a month to fix the car and installation of two new OBC's before they got the fix right (The first OBC failed on the first charge cycle at the dealership). Since getting the car back in Oct 2022 have completed 40+ charge cycles with no problems