Other electrical problem on the 2017 Kia Forte
1 crash 1 fire 1 injury 3 of the 25 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When other electrical problem gets reported
Owners of the 2017 Kia Forte report other electrical problem at a median of 15,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 35,000 miles, from 13 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 60,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 55,880 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.
69% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,780 miles | 9,500 miles | 17,200 miles | 36,000 miles | 59,660 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash, 1 a fire and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $250–$2,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 11 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2019, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 2018 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2014 carries the most reports, with 29; the 2017 has 25. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
The autonomous emergency braking (aeb) and forward collision warning (fcw) systems on my vehicle never activate when traffic situations are obvious for the aeb and fcw to activate. Even home-spun system tests don't show the systems to be operational. The local kia dealership and repair center cannot validate the system's integrity because they cannot accomplish definitive tests to verify the system. They say "we don't know." this is a safety issue that must be resolved. This issue is ongoing.
The car was involved in an accident and the insurance company informed the lienholder that the vehicle was possibly a total loss and the lienholder ignored them and sold the vehicle to a public auction without contacting the original owner of the car to pay on the vehicle either. The owner of the car was injured in the vehicle in question as well as a passenger and the lienholder is aware and still sold without proper notice and they changed the locks of the vehicle to prevent the insurance company from doing a proper inspection of the vehicle. The vehicle cannot be driven on a highway and shakes at 30 miles at an in less than 10 mins. The vehicle also operates on its own. The lienholder had been aware of the issue since april 2018. Less than 2 weeks after the accident.
On march 1, vehicle had been parked for 10 min on a cold day after being driven for a few hours and 'engine oveheated' came up on the display. Vehicle was towed the following day to cable dahmer kia where they said the cause was an electrical glitch and that the car was fine. On august 3rd, I contacted cable dahmer kia because the car was idling extremely low/stalling. Dealer stated they were unable to provide a loaner car but they would let me know when one because available. Was driving on august 7th when car shut itself off while going 45mph down the road. All functionality was lost. Dealer was contacted and roadside was dispatched. Dealer provided loaner and had the car until august 23rd. Dealership unable to duplicate concern and corporate asked that I pick the vehicle up. Corporate stated to me that car was functional and I did not have a legitimate concern, even with my video proof of the issue. September 4th issue happened again driving at 60 MPH and had video footage. Dealer was contacted but corporate unwilling to exchange vehicle.
Also reported on the 2017 Kia Forte
Other engine problem
Other fuel system problem
Headlight failure or clouding
Other lighting problem
Misfire or rough idle
Other speed control problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 25 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other electrical problem happen on the 2017 Kia Forte?
Across 13 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 15,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 35,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other electrical problem on the 2017 Kia Forte?
25 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.5 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed