Finding/Buying advice needed

[NonSequitur]

Owner forums have been essential to my ownership of other cars, and I’m hoping to get help now with a potential Kia Soul EV purchase.

The threshold question: should I even consider buying if I live in Florida, a state with NO Kia EV dealerships. Because wouldn’t this mean: (1) I can’t even get a SOH reading? (2) if I need a battery replacement, I’d have to ship to Georgia (one of the 8 states that sells these)?

Background: my teen needs an affordable EV, doesn’t like the Leaf, and a Soul with a few years of age is in budget (around $14k). I plan to own for 3-4 years (when they move out, and/or I’ll be in the market for a Tesla Y).

Related: I always buy cars, not lease, but does it make more sense to lease in this case? If the car is $15K now and has any residual value at all after 36-months ($7k?), that would be a pretty low monthly cost, and then I maybe don’t have to care about the SOH? What do you think?

 

[NonSequitur]

Update: apparently you can’t even lease a used car (duh), so forget the last paragraph of my prior post.

Maybe most service or repair could be done by a non-EV dealer? Does anything other than service to the battery require an EV Kia dealer?

 

[notfred]

It's not just the battery, there's the Onboard Charger and a bunch of other electronics involved in the electric powertrain. There are also things like the power brake system is unique and electrical rather than vacuum driven. There are a few odd ball things that are unique to the EV, some body panels, and I think wipers?

A non-EV dealer will not be able to do any of the recalls - even when it is something that is the same on EVs and gasoline Souls like seatbelts. Kia Corporate will not pay them for the work.

You may do better with an independent mechanic rather than a dealer.

You mention that you are in Florida. I personally would not go for a Soul EV without a dealer. In the southern US there is a strong chance that you will need a battery replacement under warranty given the temperatures.

 

[NonSequitur]

Thanks notfred - I think you are right, and given the number of EV-specific components (many of those you listed I hadn’t thought of), it seems like a bad buy this far away from the nearest dealer in Georgia.

I have another EV that’s 6 years old and showing no signs of battery trouble, so I thought I could probably coast for 4 years with a Kia, but since a used one is already 4 years old, my 4 would total 8, and from the posts here, there seems to be a strong chance I’d need a new battery during the time of my ownership. The question is: will Kia expand their dealer network beyond the current 8 states in the near future, and from what the salesman said at the dealership yesterday, it seems unlikely.