This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
The contact owns a 2013 Kia Soul. The contact stated that while exiting the vehicle, the seat belt retractor failed to retract the seat belt. The failure caused the seat belt buckle to be caught inside the door frame of the vehicle and was bent. The contact stated that the buckle no longer fits into the receiver. The vehicle was taken to family Kia of St.augustine located at 2665 U.S. highway 1 South, St. Augustine, fl 32086, (904) 808-0542, to be diagnosed. The contact was informed that the retractor, receiver, and buckle needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted. The approximate failure mileage was 37,504.
Windshield wipers too slow on fastest speed. Old car had faster wipers. Seat belts hard to click and unclick, very awkward access to seatbelt buckle. Brakes: User force too hard, very fatiguing. When engine starts initial idle speed control not smooth goes up and down yet computer does not log an error. This is more than 50 RPM. American car would probably log error if car did that. Causes car to lurch unexpectedly when pulling out of driveway.
I had 3 people in the back seat but the center seat belt would not stay locked from the start. This didnt change regardless of how many times it was attempted. It has since been replaced by dealer because I complained it was a safety issue when I have 3 people in the back seat. The car has always had a small gradual drift to the right. Dealer didn't find anything. Later I had the alignment done by someone else. They showed me both front and rear driver side tires could not be aligned to true. They said the front will be fixed by new strut but back is a straight axle that cant be aligned. The car always drifted right and still does. I bought the car from the dealer with 10 miles on
After buckling the seat belt on the front passenger seat and going down the road if you try to lean forward one finds that the seat belt is locked and will not permit any movement you have to release the seat belt and then return it to its parked position and then pull it back out again. Once that has been done you can move forward or pull on the belt only once before it locks up again. I feel very unsafe when the seat belt does this because I feel that in a serious accident one might not be able to release the seat belt if there was a lot of tension on the belt from its own tightening. One should be free to lean forward to open the glove compartment or turn to attend to matters in the back seats. I have actually simulated a scenario where there was extreme tension on the belt from pushing back in my seat and tightening the belt by pushing the belt back up over my shoulder and when I tried to release the belt it was so hard to press the release button that I had to ask my wife to get a rubber mallet and a long screwdriver so that I could hit the release button with the screw driver against the release button. It finally di disengage. I told my wife to go to the dealer and tell them to fix it and she was told there was nothing wrong with it. We now have A2015 Kia Soul and the seat belts do the same thing. The only advantage with the 2015 is that the seats are wider and as such its not to hard to get the screwdriver against the release button to disengage the seat belt. I find this situation to be extremely unsafe and in certain situations this problem could be the root cause of fatalities.I have mentioned this to the dealer in regard to the 2015 and they said they checked it and it works fine.it does not work fine by any standard. I think the dealer/Kia know ther's a problem but need to be told to fix it.
- Warwick, RI, USA
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Vehicle was hit in right rear corner by another car. Sent vehicle into a spin where it was hit in the front right by military truck, vehicle continued to spin until it came to a rest on the highway. The seat belt did not engage and the air bags did not deploy...updated 12/03/14 updated 5/11/2015
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- Pensacola, FL, USA