Things you don't like about the Soul EV

[fanbanlo]

I think most of us here like our little EV's, but are there things that you started to notice about the car that you don't like about?

This is my list so far..

- Over bigger bump, the suspension is very harsh, and it reminds me this is really not a luxury car.
- The rear seats are not very comfortable for adults. They felt like sitting on a kindergarten's chair with very straight back
- XM Satellite Radio reception sucks in the city (same for all cars?).
- electric e-brake can be irresponsive at times and missed the engage command, need to pull it several times
- windows seem to fog up very easily when climate control is set to Heat and no A/C. Need to manually switch on the front defogger from time to time.

 

[Jagular]

Hmmmmm. There's very little we don't love about the car, actually. I'd say the info center takes awhile to get going sometimes...

My wife and I were talking about it and we like the car so much we might actually purchase it when the lease expires.

 

[notfred]

The sunglasses holder only has foam on the bottom, it should have it on the sides as well.

When I put my glasses in there it is fine and no rattling until I go around a corner and then they rattle over every bump. I'm going to see if I can cut out some foam shapes to fit.

 

[notfred]

Also one I just ran in to - the ABS on regen behaviour. I was in "B" mode and had my foot fully off the accelerator as I was slowing for a red light when I went over a bump. The bump and poor road surface around it were enough to cause the regen to kick out for maybe half a second. It felt like the car started accelerating towards the lights but I think that was just in the comparison to the full regen it was doing.

I think the ABS on regen needs fine tuning, maybe adding rear brake when dropping regen.

 

[TyrelHaveman]

My wife just switched from a 2013 LEAF to a 2016 Soul EV, and there are a few things we've missed already:

• Charging timers can only be configured with a start time, not an end time. The LEAF an be told to charge until 6am, and it'll decide when to start charging based on how long it'll take.
• Rear seats and cargo area are small compared to LEAF
• The UVO EV app has an annoying sound and animation when it starts up
• The UVO EV app doesn't have an option to save your password

 

[irfca]

It seems the aluminum body panels are very easily dented ... I noticed a door must have bumped the front driver-side panel and left a little dent ... fortunately didn't remove any paint ... but that is the other problem I've noticed on the hood - I bumped it with the charger connector, trying to open the inner charge port cover with the same hand, and it took a chunk of paint out. I've got a number of stone chips in weird places too ... not just on the hood as I would expect.

 

[dondon]

The sunglasses holder only has foam on the bottom, it should have it on the sides as well.

When I put my glasses in there it is fine and no rattling until I go around a corner and then they rattle over every bump. I'm going to see if I can cut out some foam shapes to fit.

My sunglasses holder frequently pops open on its own. I think it is just a plastic piece that isn't connecting well to the latch mechanism, and seems to be exacerbated by hot weather (happens much more frequently when we had heat waves of 90+ or triple digits). Sometimes just the bump from flipping up the sun visor is enough to trigger the sunglasses holder to pop open.

My biggest little pet peeve is with the iPod connection - the iPod does not stay in shuffle mode, so I have to engage it every time.

 

[Birkeland]

irfca wrote:

It seems the aluminum body panels are very easily dented ... I noticed a door must have bumped the front driver-side panel and left a little dent ... fortunately didn't remove any paint ... but that is the other problem I've noticed on the hood - I bumped it with the charger connector, trying to open the inner charge port cover with the same hand, and it took a chunk of paint out. I've got a number of stone chips in weird places too ... not just on the hood as I would expect.

Are you sure the body panels are made of aluminum? It would really be great if they are. I have got a deep scratch down to the metal, and I am afraid it will rust if I don't treat it properly. But if it is aluminum, it doesn't really matter what I do

 

[GenZeJohn]

1. That annoying "I acknowledge I should not pay attention to the touchscreen" message that requires me to tap yes every damn time I start the car! I've only owned my Soul 4 days, and it's annoying me already.

2. 3 different control buttons marked "mode".

3. No CD player! (Hey, I'm old school.)

4. A parking brake whose operation defies intuition. Up? Down? Sideways? Who knows?

 

[tractioninc]

That annoying "I acknowledge I should not pay attention to the touchscreen" message that requires me to tap yes every damn time I start the car! I've only owned my Soul 4 days, and it's annoying me already.

No need to tap; just ignore it for a few seconds and it disappears. I hardly even notice it anymore.

 

[notfred]

4. A parking brake whose operation defies intuition. Up? Down? Sideways? Who knows?

You always pull it up just like a normal handbrake. The trick is you never release it.

When putting the car in gear from park you have your foot on the foot brake, when you take your foot off the foot brake then the hand brake will release and you will creep forwards/backwards just like a standard automatic transmission. N.B. You need to press firmly on the foot brake otherwise it may decide to not fully release the handbrake at this point.

Also if you set the handbrake when you are driving and come to a stop for a short while, then you just accelerate and the handbrake will release.

 

[JejuSoul]

1. That annoying "I acknowledge I should not pay attention to the touchscreen" message that requires me to tap yes every damn time I start the car! I've only owned my Soul 4 days, and it's annoying me already.

I tend to ignore the legal screen and put the car straight into reverse. The rearview camera display replaces the babble.

My annoyance is we have no way of controlling the boot up process or knowing what is going on. My car is 6 months old. For the first 5 months I had near instant boot up. (As measured by the grid lines appearing on the rearview camera display). Recently however I often have a 20 second delay. On the times I don't reverse I have begun seeing a bootup screen, "UVO ITSELF" for 20 seconds before the babble screen. I tried to get a picture of this screen today but It didn't appear!

I know it connects somewhere at bootup because a 3G icon appears in the top right. But we have no way of controlling this behaviour. (Update monthly. weekly. manually for instance.) If it is sending telematic data to Kia then I would like to be told.

 

[JeffBacon]

#1 - I listen to my iPhone over bluetooth all the time but the volume on BT is much lower than the radio so I have the volume cranked. Every time I start my car up, it takes time for the BT connection to be established so the media goes to Radio and blasts my ears until I crank down the volume.

#2 - I can set the time to start charging but if it's AFTER that time, the car doesn't start to charge. The time is only effective if the car is plugged in before the time set. Would be WAY more convenient to just have start/stop times since the use for that is to restrict charging to off-peak power periods.

#3 - no UVO in Canada. double Ugh.

 

[tractioninc]

#2 - I can set the time to start charging but if it's AFTER that time, the car doesn't start to charge. The time is only effective if the car is plugged in before the time set. Would be WAY more convenient to just have start/stop times since the use for that is to restrict charging to off-peak power periods.

Agreed. From a user perspective, it would indeed be ideal to be able to define a 'charging window' instead of merely a 'start charging' time. The Leaf operates the same way, for what it's worth.