Car stuck at dealer for 3 months awaiting warranty battery replacement (2017 Soul EV)

[JB_Soul603]

Joined forum to jump into this topic. Thanks all for the comprehensive reporting of your situations. My current status:
-Own a 2016 Soul EV which had a battery replacement in +- 2019 (prior to my ownership)
-Had the BMS software update from May 2023 installed
-Car drove fine for about 10 months
-Dreaded Turtle appeared one day (a month or so ago)
-Towed to dealer last week
-New "software updates" and recalls were applied
-Turtle icon still illuminated
-Service Advisor communicated, "We have confirmed with Kia that your vehicle does qualify for battery assembly replacement." The batteries are "manual release parts" which means ETA is unknown.
-Waiting...

 

[RubberToe]

Well, some unexpected news from KIA headquarters. The buyout offer has been received. Mrs. Toe purchased the vehicle off my lease in 2017 for $17,500. KIA will be repurchasing the vehicle for $17,500. Not quite winning the lottery, but close.

The process is that once the paperwork is signed (that was yesterday), corporate requires 90-120 days to review the case and process the claim. Then the car is returned to a third party entity who does an inspection, takes possession, and gives us the check. When asked about what happens if the car is in an accident before then, the response was that it would be handled via the normal insurance process. Given what the KBB used value is showing, the car will be resting comfortably in our garage for 90-120 days. Mrs. Toe has had incredible luck with EV's, previously having scored a Fiat 500 EV lease for $89 per month. The Soul experience was frustrating, with the car in the shop for months on end, and many trips to the dealer. But in the end getting back the entire purchase prices was an amazing outcome. Essentially driving for free (we have solar) for 7 years.

RT

Ok, I was wrong about the "resting comfortably in our garage" part. Mrs. Toe about once a week or so takes the car around the block for a quick spin just to see if it is still resting comfortably. This morning the car wouldn't start, and throwing all kinds of error messages. We initially thought it was the 12V battery, but AAA checked it and it was recently replaced and is fine. The tow truck driver somehow got it out of the underground garage and onto his truck. Just took it to the service center. I told Mrs. Toe that she should INSIST that the car be kept at the dealer as we will not be driving it and given all the issues it is having, we don't want to risk keeping it around in our garage. Seems like a reasonable request. We will see what happens.

RT

 

[RubberToe]

Joined forum to jump into this topic. Thanks all for the comprehensive reporting of your situations. My current status:
-Own a 2016 Soul EV which had a battery replacement in +- 2019 (prior to my ownership)
-Had the BMS software update from May 2023 installed
-Car drove fine for about 10 months
-Dreaded Turtle appeared one day (a month or so ago)
-Towed to dealer last week
-New "software updates" and recalls were applied
-Turtle icon still illuminated
-Service Advisor communicated, "We have confirmed with Kia that your vehicle does qualify for battery assembly replacement." The batteries are "manual release parts" which means ETA is unknown.
-Waiting...

This sounds a lot like our chronology. Keep detailed records of all time in the shop, number of service visits, etc. You may end up hitting the $17,500 lottery like we might do!

RT

 

[JordanRieger]

I’m glad to see that many on here are finally getting some satisfaction from Kia. I have a 2016+ that was not originally put into service until almost the end of 2016, so I still have a little over two years left on the battery warranty. I expect (hope) to be able to avail it before expiration. Local dealership reported a 75% SOH a bit over a year ago, and it seems to be gradually deteriorating. I appreciate all who have come before me and suffered all the pangs with this situation. It appears that maybe Kia is finally getting it all sorted out. I’m really not interested in a buy-back; I definitely like my car, and would be ecstatic if I can get the results @JordanRieger did, even without a goodwill payment. How does that work though? If the car is (finally) fixed, and a comparable rental was provided for the duration, what is the rationale?

Semi-related question: I’ve had the car about 15 months; 58K mileage at purchase. I have no idea how it was treated prior to my ownership, but I have only ever charged it with level one charging. I always charge to 100%, and rarely let it get below 80% capacity. Should I run it down more? Do some DC fast charging? I really need to get that SOH down to 70%. Would those, or any other measures help?

Hah! If your car was at 75% SOH a year ago it might already be below 70% now, but I think you'll have no trouble getting it lower before your warranty expires. You could try buying the Soul EV Spy app and a compatible OBD-II dongle.

I was also wondering if I would be able to get my new battery down to under 70% SOH before the warranty expires in 2027 so that I could get Kia to give me a fresh one for the remaining life of the car. But I think it's unlikely in my case, given how good this new battery seems to be. So I've decided that rather than charging up to 100% all the time and running up and down hills with the heat and AC both running, I'll do the opposite and just really baby it and try to squeeze as much as possible out of it. So I've been using the onboard scheduler to limit charging to between 3:00~8:00AM, which is enough to keep me around 70~80% SOC given the limited usage the car gets as a secondary vehicle. I always drive it in B mode as opposed to D, try to let it warm a bit before I drive it, etc.

Not sure about your question about the goodwill payment, but in my case I never got a rental paid for. I bought an old 2002 Corolla out of pocket. The goodwill payment was due to the long ~9 month duration without use of the car. (A full buyback is another option, but didn't work in my case due to the Canada vs. USA title.)

 

[RubberToe]

Ok, I was wrong about the "resting comfortably in our garage" part. Mrs. Toe about once a week or so takes the car around the block for a quick spin just to see if it is still resting comfortably. This morning the car wouldn't start, and throwing all kinds of error messages. We initially thought it was the 12V battery, but AAA checked it and it was recently replaced and is fine. The tow truck driver somehow got it out of the underground garage and onto his truck. Just took it to the service center. I told Mrs. Toe that she should INSIST that the car be kept at the dealer as we will not be driving it and given all the issues it is having, we don't want to risk keeping it around in our garage. Seems like a reasonable request. We will see what happens.

RT

Car went into the shop on Friday. Supposedly repaired, but I'm not clear what was actually done. The 12v battery is less than 1 year old, so unless something is draining it for some reason it should have been good. The usual bad news is that Kia said the repair was done, and would send out someone to pick up Mrs. Toe to take her to the dealer. Window was 2-3pm yesterday and no one ever showed up. Typical Kia snafu. Looks like we are going to let the car stay at the dealer and let them figure out what to do with it before the buyback, since they seem unable to coordinate a customer pickup.

RT

 

[RubberToe]

Car went into the shop on Friday. Supposedly repaired, but I'm not clear what was actually done. The 12v battery is less than 1 year old, so unless something is draining it for some reason it should have been good. The usual bad news is that Kia said the repair was done, and would send out someone to pick up Mrs. Toe to take her to the dealer. Window was 2-3pm yesterday and no one ever showed up. Typical Kia snafu. Looks like we are going to let the car stay at the dealer and let them figure out what to do with it before the buyback, since they seem unable to coordinate a customer pickup.

RT

More hoops to jump through. Kia corporate came back and said they would only pay $5,500 for the buyback versus $17,500 They said that they didn't have evidence of the original owner's (my) 3 years of lease payments. MY bank was bought by another one a couple years ago, by I do have all the payment data in quicken, which I provided. And though I don't have a copy of the original lease agreement (10 years ago), I did find a couple e-mails from Kia concerning the lease start and the e-mail address of the Kia finance arm. So we gave them that too. The Kia person that Mrs. Toe is dealing with seemed to think that was sufficient, so it looks like we are back on track for the $17,500 buyback. May hear something this week, so fingers crossed. The car is still at the dealer per this recent snafu in picking us up to grab the car, which we are fine with as we have another vehicle to use.

RT

P.S. Moral of the story here is save all records related to vehicle purchase/lease transactions. Now that everything is typically via e-mail that should be easier now, assuming your e-mail provider doesn't lose the information.

 

[RubberToe]

More hoops to jump through. Kia corporate came back and said they would only pay $5,500 for the buyback versus $17,500 They said that they didn't have evidence of the original owner's (my) 3 years of lease payments. MY bank was bought by another one a couple years ago, by I do have all the payment data in quicken, which I provided. And though I don't have a copy of the original lease agreement (10 years ago), I did find a couple e-mails from Kia concerning the lease start and the e-mail address of the Kia finance arm. So we gave them that too. The Kia person that Mrs. Toe is dealing with seemed to think that was sufficient, so it looks like we are back on track for the $17,500 buyback. May hear something this week, so fingers crossed. The car is still at the dealer per this recent snafu in picking us up to grab the car, which we are fine with as we have another vehicle to use.

RT

P.S. Moral of the story here is save all records related to vehicle purchase/lease transactions. Now that everything is typically via e-mail that should be easier now, assuming your e-mail provider doesn't lose the information.

More progress: Kia corporate texted Mrs. Toe that auditing had approved the buyout and the only thing remaining was to coordinate the handoff at the dealership with the third party taking the vehicle. She requested evidence that this is actually the case, and was sent via e-mail a copy of the check that was cut in the amount of $17,XXX.

Toasted with a cold beverage, saving the bubbly beverage for when the check is cashed and the funds show up in the virtual reality known as the bank account as a large number.

RT

 

[RubberToe]

More progress: Kia corporate texted Mrs. Toe that auditing had approved the buyout and the only thing remaining was to coordinate the handoff at the dealership with the third party taking the vehicle. She requested evidence that this is actually the case, and was sent via e-mail a copy of the check that was cut in the amount of $17,XXX.

Toasted with a cold beverage, saving the bubbly beverage for when the check is cashed and the funds show up in the virtual reality known as the bank account as a large number.

RT

Vehicle surrender scheduled for November 12th at 9am.

RT

 

[RubberToe]

Car is turned in, check has been deposited, and a nice dinner was held in the Hamster mobile's honor, courtesy of Kia America.

They were very specific about what needed to be done as part of the third party return. Got a nice car wash the prior Sunday. The lady who handled the return said that many of the lemon law recalls take 18-24 months, so ours was relatively quick, which didn't seem like it to us. Car was just about 10 years old, on it's second large battery, with just over 83,000 miles. The unfortunate thing, other than the repair hassles, is that overall give the car only made it to 83,000 miles, the environmental benefit of driving an EV was probably outweighed by the short life. Kind of knew this could be an issue which is why I originally leased the car, then my wife bought it at the lease expiration. I was sold on the car when I saw the Hamster commercial (linked below) and realized that I could finally make the jump to an EV for local commuting, and use the wife's gas car for long trips. Couldn't afford a Tesla at the time.

When Tesla opened the Model 3 reservations in 2016, we stood in line outside the Pasadena store. Got it 2 years later, drove it for 3 years, then upgraded to a Model Y. Just sold that one to a relative and leased a new Model Y. No problems with any of the Tesla's so far. Will be leasing from here on out as I'm saving about $450 per month leasing versus buying, and can get a shiny new toy every so often. Hoping to see the EV revolution continue, with more reliable and less expensive models finally driving a stake into the heart of the fossil fuel industry and those profiting from destroying the planet.

 

[IanL]

.... when I saw the Hamster commercial (linked below)

Thanks for that. Best thing I've watched in years