Other suspension problem on the 2012 Kia Soul
2 crashes 1 injury 3 of the 6 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.
Only 4 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When other suspension problem gets reported
There are 6 reports of other suspension problem on the 2012 Kia Soul, 4 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 100,000 miles. It is the 23rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 17,000 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, 2 a crash 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 $350–$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 5 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 2013 at 60,000 miles.
By volume the 2016 carries the most reports, with 8; the 2012 has 6. 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.
Driving south on i65 between gardendale, al and birmingham, al. At approximately 60 MPH - clear day, sunny appx 80 degrees at 11:00 am cst. Concrete roadway with expansion joints. Experienced violent gyrations - car literally bouncing off roadway. Slowed to 50 MPH and moved vehicle to far left lane - roadway was smoother and car returned to a stable condition. The original lane was rougher. But the car became very unstable to the point of fearing that I would lose control. I was able to resume normal freeway speeds without further incidents. No apparent damage but I will have the suspension checked by the dealer. *tr
My car was going approximately 50mph when it rear ended a stopped vehicle in the middle of a busy highway. Then my car was rear ended seconds afterwards. My car was scrunched (totaled), both front and back, and the airbags never deployed. Had the airbags deployed, the injuries to the driver would've been much less severe. I have huge concerns and doubts about the safety of this model. I don't think the airbags in this model propertly function.
Bought wife brand new 2012 kia soul in 2012. Got standard transmission. At around 20k I noticed a squeal coming from the vehicle when the clutch was completely disengaged, by that I mean vehicle running foot completely off clutch. I presumed it was a throw out bearing. Took it to local mechanic and he agreed. So I took it to local kia dealer. Bought vehicle in denton texas, but had moved 7 hours south to corpus christi area. When I took it to kia in corpus I got the run around. Yes of course they could hear it but everything was working mechanically. So I was basically told too bad. Wife really wanted the soul. And now I have to tell her kia doesn't care if it makes embarrassing noises while she's driving, just as long as I'm making the payments. Throw out bearings are not supposed to squeak or squeal. That noise is metal on metal friction, the energy it takes to make that noise has to be made by some sort of fuel. In this case it's metal rubbing on metal in a fashion that causes an unbearable amount of pressure until something finally gives prematurely. Wife decided she would do her best to ignore it. And just enjoy her new car…
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
This page is kept out of search results because 6 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 6 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 suspension problem happen on the 2012 Kia Soul?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 15,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other suspension problem on the 2012 Kia Soul?
6 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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