Seat belt or retractor failure on the 2010 Kia Soul
4 crashes 3 fires 4 injuries 11 of the 13 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 seat belt or retractor failure gets reported
Owners of the 2010 Kia Soul report seat belt or retractor failure at a median of 5,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 55,000 miles, from 11 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 82,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 800 miles at the tenth percentile to 60,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 59,200 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.
55% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 800 miles | 2,600 miles | 3,000 miles | 53,000 miles | 60,000 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, 4 a crash, 3 a fire and 4 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 $200–$900 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 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2015 at 70,000 miles.
By volume the 2015 carries the most reports, with 20; the 2010 has 13. 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.
My 2010 kia soul has such severe interior damage from the sub-standard material they used that the market value has depreciated far beyond the norm. Any metal, even plastic that touches the doors (seat belt buckle) pillars, center console, glove box, etc....becomes damaged. The material has no padding under it so there is no absorption and it is "honey comb" design which when scratched breaks the "honey comb" which has a light grey under it. My father bought the same car at the same time and he too has this problem. The cars showing this damage immediately. The dealership has no way of fixing it and the manufacture is telling us to wait for their solution, many people have been waiting for over a year. Kia has put other 2010 souls on the lot with completely different material so this should be the solution. They will not send me anything in writing stating that they acknowledge this problem though they have given out hundreds, if not thousands of reference # and tell everyone they are working on the solution. I feel as though they are wasting time, letting time lapse so they can either claim that it is normal wear and tear or they…
My 2010 kia soul has such severe interior damage from the sub-standard material they used that the market value has depreciated far beyond the norm. Any metal, even plastic that touches the doors (seat belt buckle) pillars, center console, glove box, etc....becomes damaged. The material has no padding under it so there is no absorption and it is "honey comb" design which when scratched breaks the "honey comb" which has a light grey under it. My father bought the same car at the same time and he too has this problem. The cars showing this damage immediately. The dealership has no way of fixing it and the manufacture is telling us to wait for their solution, many people have been waiting for over a year. Kia has put other 2010 souls on the lot with completely different material so this should be the solution. They will not send me anything in writing stating that they acknowledge this problem though they have given out hundreds, if not thousands of reference # and tell everyone they are working on the solution. I feel as though they are wasting time, letting time lapse so they can either claim that it is normal wear and tear or they…
My 2010 kia soul has such severe interior damage from the sub-standard material they used that the market value has depreciated far beyond the norm. Any metal, even plastic that touches the doors (seat belt buckle) pillars, center console, glove box, etc....becomes damaged. The material has no padding under it so there is no absorption and it is "honey comb" design which when scratched breaks the "honey comb" which has a light grey under it. My father bought the same car at the same time and he too has this problem. The cars showing this damage immediately. The dealership has no way of fixing it and the manufacture is telling us to wait for their solution, many people have been waiting for over a year. Kia has put other 2010 souls on the lot with completely different material so this should be the solution. They will not send me anything in writing stating that they acknowledge this problem though they have given out hundreds, if not thousands of reference # and tell everyone they are working on the solution. I feel as though they are wasting time, letting time lapse so they can either claim that it is normal wear and tear or they…
Also reported on the 2010 Kia Soul
Other body or interior problem
Other electrical problem
Other visibility problem
Other engine problem
Other steering problem
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 13 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 seat belt or retractor failure happen on the 2010 Kia Soul?
Across 11 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 5,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 55,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is seat belt or retractor failure on the 2010 Kia Soul?
13 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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