Car stuck at dealer for 3 months awaiting warranty battery replacement (2017 Soul EV)

[spidermonkey]

Oh man, they have had my 2016 Soul EV for going on seven months now. They offered to let me get a rental on my own dime and to reimburse me up to forty some dollars a day when all the work is done and the warranty claim is filed...thats when they are going to reimburse me the seven hundred dollars it cost me to have it towed to the dealership. Thanks for that extended warranty they sold me on. I really dont have thousands of dollars laying around for a rental and I didnt get an electric car so I could keep gassing up the Subaru. It also grinds my gears a bit I have licensed and insured a vehicle that has spent half a year on the dealers lot. My battery is in the States now awaiting "quality control", yeah give me a break, corporate does a pretty good job of telling me what I want to hear, I got a front of the line talk as well. The dealership is a constant "straight to voicemail no human contact allowed" loop. I imagine its frustrating for them too. Does anyone else feel like kia should figure out how to fit their new battery line into these older warranty issue cars? If this hold up is to try and get me to buy another car they have completely lost touch with reality. I would buy almost any vehicle other than a Kia at this point in my life.

 

[JordanRieger]

I asked Lina about a buy-back, and she said that gets escalated to a different team with a 7-10 day response ETA. So we'll see how that goes.

What do you guys think is a fair market value for a 2017 Soul EV with ~50,000 miles? $13,000 USD?

 

[JordanRieger]

@spidermonkey Good Lord, six months, that's awful! The rental compensation is a joke too, because you have to pay for it all out of pocket first.

I really do think that at a certain point, they could be found to be legally not honoring their warranty by playing these games with the battery supply chain. As @Ationg says, it's ripe for a class-action lawsuit.

 

[Ationg]

I've emailed ClassAction.org to see if they have any interest and I've also got the name of a law firm to contact. Just don't hold your breath,

 

[uspurs]

I've emailed ClassAction.org to see if they have any interest and I've also got the name of a law firm to contact. Just don't hold your breath,

Fwiw - and I'm not in the lawyering business - the challenge may be determining how many people have been hung up waiting for a battery; if it's, for example, a couple of dozen, is it likely to be financially worthwhile for a law firm to pursue a class action?
From what I've read - here and elsewhere - the cars affected are those with the E400 cells; so model years 18 + 19 + any of the prior years that have had their battery replaced with E400 cells (such as our 17). Numbers wise, that's maybe 3K vehicles? Of that 3K, how many are stuck at a dealer / out of service?

Don't get me wrong - I think the way Kia are (mis)handling this situation is a disgrace; considering the bad publicity they rightly earned with their ICE fiasco, one would've expected them to be better able to manage defective product by now. They could easily head off even the threat of legal action by being more upfront about compensation - loaner / rental / expenses that will be reimbursed; in our case, they made us aware that they would consider reimbursing some of the expenses we incurred only after the car had the battery replaced - those expenses would need to be supported by receipts, and there was no firm guidance regarding the precise expenses they might cover. A bit late for them to share the receipts part after the fact, of course.

I will add that we had the battery replaced last summer and had the BMS and EPB recall about 6 weeks ago; so far, we appear to be amongst the fortunate ones (touch wood) - tail end of winter, the GOM is showing ~105 miles on a full charge and running at 4.2 M/kWh yesterday, we saw 49% battery remaining after 61 miles of driving.

The Soul is really a great package - pity we didn't get the gen 2 EV here in the US.

 

[Nedhastings]

I was recently told that my Soul’s “repair hold” is pending an update and a new battery, and they’re waiting for the update to be deployed. I asked if the battery is there, they said no. I asked if the battery has been ordered, they said no.

 

[nileriver]

If it was me, I would _______.
Until it really happens to you, you really don’t know what you would do. But a lot of these examples of poor warranty service, I think I would have to look into hiring a lawyer, or something.
My 2016 + with 57k miles tested recently at local Kia place 75% SOH. So, I don’t have a dog in this fight. Yet. Strangely, others seem to have gotten prompt replacements with good results.

Someone asked about value of their 2017. I was thinking to trade mine for a used Kona EV last week. The guy offered me $4k trade in for mine. I felt insulted. Then I checked kbb. The bottom has dropped out of the value of mine, and I am quite underwater on it. Guess I will keep it for awhile, and hope the SOH drops before the warranty expires. And then hope Kia will fix it. Lots of hopes.

 

[uspurs]

If it was me, I would _______.
Until it really happens to you, you really don’t know what you would do. But a lot of these examples of poor warranty service, I think I would have to look into hiring a lawyer, or something.
My 2016 + with 57k miles tested recently at local Kia place 75% SOH. So, I don’t have a dog in this fight. Yet. Strangely, others seem to have gotten prompt replacements with good results.

Someone asked about value of their 2017. I was thinking to trade mine for a used Kona EV last week. The guy offered me $4k trade in for mine. I felt insulted. Then I checked kbb. The bottom has dropped out of the value of mine, and I am quite underwater on it. Guess I will keep it for awhile, and hope the SOH drops before the warranty expires. And then hope Kia will fix it. Lots of hopes.

Personally, I think the market value of the gen 1s hasn't been unaffected by these battery problems; that may possibly be the best avenue for a class action, but I would think it'd require quite a bit of research to determine if my suspicions are warranted / actionable.
When I looked into selling ours about 6 weeks ago (right before we had the BMS and EPB recall), I canvassed 4 or 5 locations and the value was $4-6K for a '17 EV+ with about 56K miles. If we don't have a battery problem in the next month, or so, I am inclined to think we'll be left with a Soul that has almost no retail value, but with a range north of 100 miles. Very odd.

 

[ClayPete]

The whole process seems super weird. My battery had good SOH and seemed solid but after I had the battery harness replaced on warranty it went into turtle mode. Now it has been 3 months and I have had a loaner. I am frustrated because I am pretty sure it is a harness issue as everything worked fine until the day before that replacement - but the dealer says it is a battery failure and KIA corporate isnt authorizing them to do anything.

Just not sure if I should start being proactive or just sit with the loaner and be happy. I am interested in how much the people that were offered buy outs received.

 

[Nedhastings]

For those of us with the battery warranty, is the Lemon Law applicable? I think it may be time to consult a lawyer.

 

[Ationg]

Same here, until they changed the harness, my 2016 Soul EV just puttered along, taking me from A to B whenever I needed. My car has been at Kia of Irvine, CA for 5 months now and we're still waiting for a battery from Kia Corp. As for the Lemon Law or a class action suit, I contacted [email protected] on the recommendation of a forum member and ClassAction.org to see if anyone had any interest and haven't heard a dickie bird from either.

 

[Ationg]

I also just made contact with Strategic Legal Practices, APC. thru an ad that came up on a YouTube banner and I gave them the link to this thread. Let's see where that goes.

 

[pgeller]

The whole process seems super weird. My battery had good SOH and seemed solid but after I had the battery harness replaced on warranty it went into turtle mode. Now it has been 3 months and I have had a loaner. I am frustrated because I am pretty sure it is a harness issue as everything worked fine until the day before that replacement - but the dealer says it is a battery failure and KIA corporate isnt authorizing them to do anything.

It feels like a well-intentioned attempt to comply with the (federally-mandated?) recall backfired on Kia. Now they are between a rock and a hard place. They may not have a good solution. The replacement signal/sensor harness and BMS reprogramming identified more potentially failing batteries than were expected. The supply chain for obsolete batteries is not able to keep up, if it exists at all. Once the cars demonstrate the detected failure, they cannot be put back in the hands of owners, especially if there is a fire risk. Kia does not want time-bombs in the field.

So Kia corporate does the right thing and has the dealers impound the cars. The dealers probably have no visibility into a factory resolution; they’re just a convenient place to store the cars and help insulate the customers. The national Kia rep (Kia NA here) is also in the middle, and probably has just as little info to work with to keep the dealers happy. The factory appears to be doing a lousy job keeping all the layers informed, but that’s the fog of war and all. I recommend you be nice to your dealer as they too are victims of this mess and aren’t making a living off it.

Eventually something will happen. Kia may be actively working on a solution, or waiting to be sued, or preparing to buy back these cars, or just twisted in knots in typical corporate fashion. I guarantee you nobody up and down the chain WANTS to spend time and money on old problems, especially on defunct products that never made a profit to begin with.

My suggestion would be for Kia to apologize for the inconvenience, offer to swap every one of the recalled Souls for a new Niro EV, and bask in the good will.

All my opinion, for what it’s worth.

pg

 

[uspurs]

The whole process seems super weird. My battery had good SOH and seemed solid but after I had the battery harness replaced on warranty it went into turtle mode. Now it has been 3 months and I have had a loaner. I am frustrated because I am pretty sure it is a harness issue as everything worked fine until the day before that replacement - but the dealer says it is a battery failure and KIA corporate isnt authorizing them to do anything.

Just not sure if I should start being proactive or just sit with the loaner and be happy. I am interested in how much the people that were offered buy outs received.

I don't think we really know enough about why the harness was replaced and the associated BMS update - perhaps it was intended for these two together to be more sensitive to battery condition and, hopefully, detect any danger of an incident. Maybe the software released was over-sensitive or too simplistic; or maybe a lot of people have been driving around with defective batteries that could have caught fire.

From what we've seen posted here, and elsewhere, it seems like some batteries have been shipped by Kia, but not installed - that leads me to believe that they don't have confidence in the SC267 recall approach.

That said, I don't doubt that they also have supply issues on the E400 cells, though they should've seen this coming as there are enough posters who had battery issues - presented as charging / range problems - prior to the recall. Personally, I had the suspicion they were hoping to get past halfway in the warranty before replacing our battery, so they wouldn't have to do it twice under the 10/100. But I may be paranoid

 

[ksoul2084]

It's probably all of the above. Might be some negotiation happening between KIA and the battery supplier in this case as well, to see how they want to split the costs too.

If I was KIA, I'd be looking at restoring customer goodwill and removing these ongoing problem cars from the road via buyback program. There seems to be no guarantee that any new E400 type cell won't develop similar issues down the road.

But I wouldn't let up on the dealers on this issue, they are the customer face of the company. Though I suspect if you're a KIA dealer you're skin is already a mile thick.

This is the same company that held people's brand new cars in a storage lot after delivery to Canada for months (that the customer's had already been waiting for many months) so they could report the deliveries in 2024 instead of 2023, because I guess someone already locked their bonus for 2023 by that point.

 

[JordanRieger]

So after telling me that my buyback request was escalated to another team and I would be contacted by a new case manager in 7-10 days, it has been 14 days and I've still heard nothing.

By the way, the battery warranty issues I and others are having are not limited to batteries that have already been replaced or recalled. In my case, it's just battery health degradation sooner and worse than anticipated (~50% SOH) on a 2017 Soul EV original battery.

 

[Nedhastings]

So after telling me that my buyback request was escalated to another team and I would be contacted by a new case manager in 7-10 days, it has been 14 days and I've still heard nothing.

By the way, the battery warranty issues I and others are having are not limited to batteries that have already been replaced or recalled. In my case, it's just battery health degradation sooner and worse than anticipated (~50% SOH) on a 2017 Soul EV original battery.

The escalation people don’t call. I called them back and there was lots of apologies and “oh my we are required to call back within x days and you should have gotten a call” when you call them. There’s no incentive for them to follow up with you.

 

[PopcornAndData]

Add me to the list. We got the diagnosis for our 2016 car on 3/27 at Kia of Irvine after about 9 days of them fiddling with it, and we’re waiting for battery replacement #2 with no ETA on it’s arrival from wherever. Linda is very helpful, but likely stuck in the middle of quite a mess. Meanwhile, we spent the first couple of weeks juggling rentals to get one that is below the $43.50 stated coverage by Kia for our 20 year old primary driver … something that the dealer’s rental partner (Enterprise) wouldn’t do. Some of the days will be over the promised amount; some below. Will Kia optimize their reimbursement for each day on each receipt, or let us average it out? I’m fearing the worst.

For reference, this battery that we’re waiting to replace was listed as part number 37510 E4200R in my records from when it was replaced (2/2021). That battery has been really good, and I was feeling really good about Kia for stepping up and providing it. I’m not at all sure how this chapter will turn out, with all those rental charges just piling up for us to pay, hoping they’ll step up in the end. Kinda crazy!

The thing that most amazes me is that Kia wouldn’t just make these customers a sweet offer to buy a new car or to just buy them out without a friction-filled request process. Are these rental car charges plus the cost of replacing the battery really less than doing that? It’s just hard to fathom the business case for that plan. Really hard.

 

[uspurs]

Add me to the list. We got the diagnosis for our 2016 car on 3/27 at Kia of Irvine after about 9 days of them fiddling with it, and we’re waiting for battery replacement #2 with no ETA on it’s arrival from wherever. Linda is very helpful, but likely stuck in the middle of quite a mess. Meanwhile, we spent the first couple of weeks juggling rentals to get one that is below the $43.50 stated coverage by Kia for our 20 year old primary driver … something that the dealer’s rental partner (Enterprise) wouldn’t do. Some of the days will be over the promised amount; some below. Will Kia optimize their reimbursement for each day on each receipt, or let us average it out? I’m fearing the worst.

For reference, this battery that we’re waiting to replace was listed as part number 37510 E4200R in my records from when it was replaced (2/2021). That battery has been really good, and I was feeling really good about Kia for stepping up and providing it. I’m not at all sure how this chapter will turn out, with all those rental charges just piling up for us to pay, hoping they’ll step up in the end. Kinda crazy!

The thing that most amazes me is that Kia wouldn’t just make these customers a sweet offer to buy a new car or to just buy them out without a friction-filled request process. Are these rental car charges plus the cost of replacing the battery really less than doing that? It’s just hard to fathom the business case for that plan. Really hard.

Did the latest problem show up after the SC267 / BMS recall? If so, how long after / many miles?

 

[Nedhastings]

Add me to the list. We got the diagnosis for our 2016 car on 3/27 at Kia of Irvine after about 9 days of them fiddling with it, and we’re waiting for battery replacement #2 with no ETA on it’s arrival from wherever. Linda is very helpful, but likely stuck in the middle of quite a mess. Meanwhile, we spent the first couple of weeks juggling rentals to get one that is below the $43.50 stated coverage by Kia for our 20 year old primary driver … something that the dealer’s rental partner (Enterprise) wouldn’t do. Some of the days will be over the promised amount; some below. Will Kia optimize their reimbursement for each day on each receipt, or let us average it out? I’m fearing the worst.

For reference, this battery that we’re waiting to replace was listed as part number 37510 E4200R in my records from when it was replaced (2/2021). That battery has been really good, and I was feeling really good about Kia for stepping up and providing it. I’m not at all sure how this chapter will turn out, with all those rental charges just piling up for us to pay, hoping they’ll step up in the end. Kinda crazy!

The thing that most amazes me is that Kia wouldn’t just make these customers a sweet offer to buy a new car or to just buy them out without a friction-filled request process. Are these rental car charges plus the cost of replacing the battery really less than doing that? It’s just hard to fathom the business case for that plan. Really hard.

Do you want the name of a lawyer who is handling these cases? I am starting the legal process, finally acknowledging that I’m not getting my car back.