AtWhatMileage
Body · 15 owner reports

Other body or interior problem on the 2015 Kia Soul

5 crashes 8 fires 3 injuries 16 of the 15 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.

Reports of this failure 15
With an odometer reading 9
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 33%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 16
Typical repair $200–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 18th

When other body or interior problem gets reported

Owners of the 2015 Kia Soul report other body or interior problem at a median of 55,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 20,000 miles and a quarter after 75,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 18th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 90,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 87,420 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.

33% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 9 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
3,180 miles 21,000 miles 53,500 miles 75,000 miles 90,600 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 crash, 8 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 $200–$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 12 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2022 at 95,000 miles.

By volume the 2012 carries the most reports, with 20; the 2015 has 15. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

I was slowing down and was rear ended which caused the seat to fall backward, breaking backward. The car is currently sitting @ray skillman, 1300n. Shadeland, indianapolis, in. The seat is badly defomed and broken. I feel someone should check this seat to make sure no one else has this problem. My car is totaled and should be checked before it is destroyed. Please contact me if you want additonal information.

3,900 miles NHTSA complaint 1208198 filed 2015-08-11

You crank the car the doors lock. You lose electric power you can't open the doors!! No way to get out of car!! Was lucky one window was down!!all doors need to be able to open with out power< what if on fire or in water?? The car was setting in parking lot of walmart listing to radio and the bat ran down!!

36,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1317148 filed 2016-09-13

Also reported on the 2015 Kia Soul

Other engine problem

323 reports median 89k

Catalytic converter failure

159 reports median 111k

Excessive oil consumption

90 reports median 100k

Other fuel system problem

41 reports median 65k

Overheating

37 reports median 115k

Other electrical problem

36 reports median 57k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 15 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 body or interior problem happen on the 2015 Kia Soul?

Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 20,000 miles and a quarter after 75,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other body or interior problem on the 2015 Kia Soul?

15 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