Complete engine failure or seizure on the 2012 Kia Soul
1 fire 1 of the 12 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 2012 Kia Soul report complete engine failure or seizure at a median of 100,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles, from 10 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 105,000 miles. It is the 12th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 75,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 150,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 73,200 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 77,300 miles | 82,250 miles | 99,760 miles | 119,848 miles | 150,500 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 fire is 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 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 35 miles, and latest on the 2020 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2014 carries the most reports, with 39; the 2012 has 12. 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.
Was driving on the express way behind a semi. When the semi got over in the right lane I accelerated and herd a loud bang and dark smoke started coming from my engine. It smelled often and impaired my vision. Several of my causation light illuminated and I was stuck at 60 MPH my car would not accelerate and stopped working. I got over in the right lane safely and coasted for about a mile and a half to the nearest exit. Something told me do not put your foot on the brakes or you will be in serious trouble. As I got of the exit I started to brake and my car stopped and died.oil was leaking out and nothing was working. I had to get people to push me off to the side of the road and get a tow to the dealership. They told me I had catastrophic engine failure. So my engine failed me and I could have been killed. I did research and there have been many kia's with recall and very similar situations as mine but not with my model car. I am sure this is a manufactures error and I pray kia does a recall to protect people's lives. *js *js
Was driving on the express way behind a semi. When the semi got over in the right lane I accelerated and herd a loud bang and dark smoke started coming from my engine. It smelled often and impaired my vision. Several of my causation light illuminated and I was stuck at 60 MPH my car would not accelerate and stopped working. I got over in the right lane safely and coasted for about a mile and a half to the nearest exit. Something told me do not put your foot on the brakes or you will be in serious trouble. As I got of the exit I started to brake and my car stopped and died.oil was leaking out and nothing was working. I had to get people to push me off to the side of the road and get a tow to the dealership. They told me I had catastrophic engine failure. So my engine failed me and I could have been killed. I did research and there have been many kia's with recall and very similar situations as mine but not with my model car. I am sure this is a manufactures error and I pray kia does a recall to protect people's lives. *js *js
Also reported on the 2012 Kia Soul
Other engine problem
Other steering problem
Steering column or shaft failure
Other brake problem
Catalytic converter failure
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 12 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 2012 Kia Soul?
Across 10 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 100,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 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 2012 Kia Soul?
12 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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