Complete engine failure or seizure on the 2014 Kia Optima
5 fires 3 injuries 8 of the 29 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 complete engine failure or seizure gets reported
Owners of the 2014 Kia Optima report complete engine failure or seizure at a median of 115,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 100,000 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles, from 15 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 105,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 75,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 130,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 53,200 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 74,800 miles | 101,000 miles | 117,000 miles | 127,859 miles | 128,000 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, 5 a fire and 3 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 $4,500–$12,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2016, at a median of 50,000 miles, and latest on the 2014 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2015 carries the most reports, with 74; the 2014 has 29. 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.
Car completely shut down doing 40 miles per hour--- -was told engine seized --engine being replaced no power steering no brakes barely avoided an accident on a highway heavy traffic due to construction
My car (2014 kia optima) started having a faint gas smell about two days ago, I thought the gas smell was because I had gotten gas and some was on my shoe. I found out today that my direct injection fuel pump on the engine is the problem. The guy at the shop said the car could have blown up at anytime, and that I was blessed. I called the kia dealership because the engine locked up on me in september of 2017. The dealership told me they replaced a part, but is now telling me they replaced the entire engine. The problem that the car is having now is not under a recall. I don't feel safe in my car because this is the second time something tragic could have happened due to something that was not my fault. I am sending this to warn other kia drivers to be careful.
My car (2014 kia optima) started having a faint gas smell about two days ago, I thought the gas smell was because I had gotten gas and some was on my shoe. I found out today that my direct injection fuel pump on the engine is the problem. The guy at the shop said the car could have blown up at anytime, and that I was blessed. I called the kia dealership because the engine locked up on me in september of 2017. The dealership told me they replaced a part, but is now telling me they replaced the entire engine. The problem that the car is having now is not under a recall. I don't feel safe in my car because this is the second time something tragic could have happened due to something that was not my fault. I am sending this to warn other kia drivers to be careful.
Also reported on the 2014 Kia Optima
Other engine problem
Other steering problem
Other body or interior problem
Other electrical problem
Other fuel system problem
Other brake problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 29 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 complete engine failure or seizure happen on the 2014 Kia Optima?
Across 15 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 115,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 100,000 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is complete engine failure or seizure on the 2014 Kia Optima?
29 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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