Other engine problem on the 2017 Kia Soul
1 crash 8 fires 2 injuries 11 of the 106 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 other engine problem gets reported
Owners of the 2017 Kia Soul report other engine problem at a median of 82,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 107,500 miles, from 46 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 30,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 120,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 89,055 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30,945 miles | 69,215 miles | 83,500 miles | 108,164 miles | 120,000 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, 1 a crash, 8 a fire and 2 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 $300–$4,000 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2024, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 120,000 miles.
By volume the 2015 carries the most reports, with 323; the 2017 has 106. 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.
I purchased my 2017 kia souls base model on jun 28 this year from quirk kia in braintree, ma. After just 2 weeks this issue happened for the first time. I was at a gas station gassing up the car, once I was done, I turned the car on, put it in drive and the car would not move ' I was pressing the gas pedal and nothing was happening. I immediately put the shifter in park, turned the engine off and on again and the car started to move again. On july 26 same issue happened again and it also happened right after I gassed up the car. On september 15th while I was working as uber driver this issue happened again, but this time while I was driving. I stopped at red light, after few minutes I started driving but just after 50-60 yards I completely lost acceleration. The car would not respond to gas pedal, while engine was running and I had electricity. I had to completely stop the car, turn the engine off and on again and the car started to work again. After this incident I called kia usa (monday, september 18th) and was advised by customer support to bring the card immediately to kia dealership. I did some research on the internet and…
My engine shut off while I was stopped at a railroad crossing, on an incline. I had my foot on the brake when it happened. Once the train passed, I let my foot off the brake, and the engine shut off without a warning or indication. The car proceeded to roll backwards into traffic. I turned on my emergency lights on, put the car in park, and tried to restart the vehicle. It took a minute or so before I was able to restart the car. The same problem happened 3 days later - I was just about to make my turn out of a parking lot into a major street. I made a stop to make sure the road was clear. I took my foot off the brake and hit the accelerator and the engine shut off. I had to put my car in park to restart the engine again.
Also reported on the 2017 Kia Soul
Excessive oil consumption
Complete engine failure or seizure
Misfire or rough idle
Other electrical problem
Other powertrain problem
Other brake problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 106 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 engine problem happen on the 2017 Kia Soul?
Across 46 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 82,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 107,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other engine problem on the 2017 Kia Soul?
106 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 3.1 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