2 safety recall campaigns, 1 defect investigation, 1,137 owner complaints filed with NHTSA.
Complaints are reports from owners of this model year, not findings about any particular vehicle, and a model that sold in large numbers will collect more of them. They are counted here as filed; nothing is inferred from them.
Piston damage may result in an engine stall, increasing the risk of a crash. A broken connecting rod may puncture the engine block allowing engine oil to escape. The leaking oil may contact the exhaust, increasing the risk of a fire.
If the pinion gear separates, steering will be lost, increasing the risk of a crash.
Two 2016 KIA SOULs can have entirely different histories, and a recall campaign usually covers a build-date window rather than a whole model year — which a VIN does not encode, so only the door-jamb label settles it. Scanning the VIN adds the decode, the crash tests, the fuel economy and the complaints matched to that exact engine, trim and assembly plant.