My Soul EV 2015 story

[ravichou]

Hello there,

I am a proud owner of a 2015 Kia Soul EV Ultimate (blue body/white roof), bought in 2023 at 85 kkm, now 100 kkm.
I chose that one because:
a/ I made my parents buy one in 2021, replacing a Kia Stonic chewming 7L/100 of petrol and which they barely used anyway. Plus they used to have a diesel Soul. Now they love their Soul EV and use only it when they're home.
b/ I was replacing a hybrid Toyota Yaris 4 (great car by the way), as I wanted to optimize/specialise more our family's cars for their respective usage.
c/ It is spacious enough to accomodate 3 kids seats.
d/ That model in particular had its HV battery replaced in January 2023 under warranty, and was at the same price than others on the market with their original HV battery. Part #37510E4200, so 96 E400 cell pairs, which is from what I understood from your posts here, tremendously better for longevity of the HV battery pack, compared to the E375.

Little did I know buying it that I would barely be able to use it during the 1st year of ownership, as immediatly after receiving it I noticed a strange tapping noise while driving it, and the wheels were absolutely free while in P position. Obviously having driven before my parents' Soul EV hepled me figure out that something was fishy, so I brought it to the local dealership and they ordered a new "reductor" (reducteur in French), or gearbox/transmission. I supposed that a previous owner had accidentaly put the P position while driving, and destroyed the lock that is supposed to, well, lock the gearbox while in P.
The new transmission arrived from Korea after 9 very long months of waiting, car stuck at the dealership.
The repair itself was free of charge as taken under the seller's warranty.

1 month later Kia did their big HV battery + BMS recall (March 2024) (https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2023/RCRIT-23V218-3300.pdf).
1 week later, my OBC blew up. I could still charge in DC/Chademo though, allowing me to take it back to the same dealership...
6 weeks of waiting (Kia must have had the part in storage in the EU), but at least this time they gave me a loaner + it was again under warranty of the seller (barely, as the warranty duration was 1 year).

HV battery + gearbox + OBC = ~30k euros. Which I didn't have to pay a cent for, but still, these repair costs are frightening...

So that's it for my little story. Ah, I'm a Frenchman living in Southern France

 

[JejuSoul]

Thanks for posting this.
Hope the car is now free from major problems for the next long while.
You have obviously read this forum or the similar one in France because you already know a great deal about the issues.

Your brand new E400 battery should be good for another ten years.It is great that you managed to get an old car with a new battery for the same price as the others.The flip side to this is that the owners of these 'good' cars won't get a high price for them if they sell. I have two 2015 cars both with new batteries. There is no point to sell them. The price of the battery alone is worth much more than the car.
We don't actually know the E400 cells will be good for ten years. So far we only have 7 years of very limited data.

The reason so many gearboxes get destroyed isn't 'accidental'. There are a couple of examples of such accidents. Putting the car into P while driving fast will destroy the gearbox instantly. This is not covered by warranty. It is seen as the driver's fault.
Most of these problems happened because the driver deliberately put the car into P while still coming to a stop. This damages the gearbox slowly over time. This will be covered by warranty. It is seen as wear and tear. As long as the warranty lasts of course. After that you have to pay.

Please explain what you mean 'the OBC blew up.'

 

[ravichou]

Thanks for your reply.

Well to be honest I've absolutely no evidence explaining how the gearbox got the issue. I only know that it had it when I bought the car, meaning it was automatically on the seller's warranty (as I bought it from a garage). I then only supposed that a previous owner might have put accidentaly P while driving, or coming to a stop, or whatever, he/she destroyed the P lock.
Others had this experience here (in French) https://forums.automobile-propre.co...e-levier-en-p-en-roulant-et-catastrophe-5238/

By 'the OBC blew up', I mean: "I parked at the office, plugged my EVSE cable in my car (type 1 / AC), and heard a very unusual loud BANG".
The charge didn't start and I got an OBC error both on the ODB and on the nav screen.
After a highway DC charge, I brought it back to the dealership which had already handled both the gearbox replacement and the HV/BMS recall (the week before). They were a bit worried that they may have done something wrong during the recall, but honestly I didn't care that much about responsibilities as I had still a few weeks of the seller's warranty to cover that issue. They plugged in their diagnosis tool and found that they had to replace the whole OBC subsystem.
I didn't open the broken OBC unit but from what I read on the Internet, there were many failed OBC in 2015-2017, some people had it replaced 3 times, and usually the issue was a single burnt out capacitor worth 10 euros.

 

[JejuSoul]

...
By 'the OBC blew up', I mean: "I parked at the office, plugged my EVSE cable in my car (type 1 / AC), and heard a very unusual loud BANG".
...

This is the first time a loud BANG" has been reported.
The OBC issue began in Quebec during winter. It has always been assumed that the major issue was the temperature differential. Changing very quickly from cold to hot caused hairline fractures in the aluminium OBC case. This allowed coolant to seep onto the circuit board causing a short.
Over the next two years almost all cars had their OBC case replaced.

Since then there have been a few OBC failures, some of which were self-repaired by changing a single burnt out capacitor.

See the long Charging Fault error thread for more details.