I think I need a new battery

[MSaav]

Hi, I bought a preowned certified 2016 Soul EV in july 2018 from Ventura Kirby Kia and love the car. I asked the dealer to charge it fully since I live far away but they said they ran out of time and gave it to me at 85 miles charged. They said the car has a 120 mile range when fully charged. I do understand the issues with the range depending on how we drive it. But, I have only been getting less and less with each charge and now with it saying 100% it shows 75 miles on the dashboard as the predicted range. I drive with no air or heat or fan, and in B most of the time like a grandma!. The energy use tree is full most of the time on the screen display. I have taken the car to 2 dealers now and they say the car is fine. That it is normal to have 75 appear on the dashboard after a full charge. They keep referring to how I drive which does get frustrating since I think that is not related here. The last dealer said that I had brought it in many times for this issue including to dealerships that I have never been to so clearly I am guessing this has been an issue for the last owner. I spoke with Kia Corporate and they are friendly but nothing is being done-they say that the dealer must tell them the car needs a new battery or they cannot do anything. It is impossible to have planned for use of this car to get to work and not be able to reach the nearest charging station! Any ideas on how to get the dealership to correctly address this real issue? I have had only a few weeks of usage of this car and have had to rent from Enterprise while the car sits in the shop while nothing is being done. So sad....

 

[notfred]

You need to know the battery State of Health (SoH). Either ask the dealer that you have been taking it to, or read it yourself with an Android phone and an OBD2 dongle using Torque Pro, see the thread in the Technical Forum.

 

[GizmoEV]

Our 2016 EV+ with nearly 54k miles on it is only getting about 75 miles range. The battery is at 98% SOH. I don't know how people can claim that the car could get 120 miles range. The EPA range was only 93 miles. As notfred said, get a SOH check on the battery.

For future reference, I take 70% of the EPA range rating as an EVs range. This makes sure I am not disappointed in the range in all kinds of weather and also helps me determine how long the car will fit my needs. As the battery ages, its capacity will drop. Buying an EV that barely fits my needs is a guaranteed way to be disappointed.

 

[MSaav]

SOH showed all cells at about 3.74 Not sure what that means. It is suprising though that with 54k miles (the other Kia Soul EV post in this thread) that they get 75 miles per charge. I would expect to get more. At what point do we try to get a battery replaced? It is also odd that I initially could get 105 miles per charge just 3 months ago. My driving is like a grandma-usually fill most of the EV tree when checking while driving. M