My Kia Soul And Its Haunted Headlights

My KIA Soul and its Haunted Headlights

Joseph Parish

Well, the paranormal events have finally made their appearance known close to home. No, my house is not the sphere of a vaporous apparition, nor are spiritual phantoms mysteriously pinching me as I attempt to sleep. It would, however, emerge that my KIA Soul has suddenly developed what is commonly referred to as Haunted Headlights. This is a peculiar situation at best.

My Soul has been trustworthy and dependable since I initially purchased it, and it has never given me any reason to doubt its reliability. That was until a few evenings ago as my wife and I were traveling on highway Route 13 returning home from a family reunion in New Jersey. It was an uneventful excursion with no traffic jams or accidents along the way, until a bizarre encounter took place before our eyes. Just prior to dusk we were happily driving along heading home to Seaford, Delaware when the headlights on my KIA Soul commenced to act as if a vengeful demon had suddenly possessed them. They would mysteriously switch off and on for no apparent reason what-so-ever. First, the right-side lights would enigmatically flicker, then the left side would repeat the eerie episode. Next, both headlights would flaunt their light on then off in unison and in some cases, they would remain extinguished for a short period of time. As I continued driving home, I was whisked into a fantasy world where it was believed that the Kia's headlights were possessed. On another recent occasion, I had been driving along at night when my headlights wavered for a few minutes and then they completely failed. I was forced to abandon my drive, and pull to the side of the road until the evil spirit had decided to pass, allowing the lights to come back on.

I was preparing to enter the highway from a side street when again my lights happening to act unusual and began intermittently to blink. I counted the number of blinks - 1, 2, 3 times it happened, and finally they smothered the lights in complete darkness. In a short period of time they returned to their former glory, and were fine for the remainder of my trip. This is certainly not the best driving conditions to have when darkness arrives. It could make one afraid to drive their car in the evening, for to do so, you risk the retribution from the spirit world, along with the likelihood that the headlights will go out once again.

As such, I pondered to myself what a potentially dangerous issue this could become if left unchecked. At the outset, I popped open the vehicle's hood and scrutinized all the wires, and battery connections to guarantee that they were tight. No loose ends were detected. I released the cover on the fuse box, and carefully pushed down on each of them to make certain that all were securely seated within their sockets. This too was completely acceptable. The following day, I contacted the local GM dealer who was located about one half mile from my home, and they scheduled an appointment for me first thing the following morning. They did at that time inform me that I would be responsible for one hundred dollars of the diagnostic fee when they checked the car. I was reminded that this type of repair could typically cost as much as $400 for the parts and labor. It seemed like a lot of money to merely replace the wiring connector within the light bulb.

Kind of costly, I thought, considering that I have a bumper to bumper and a 100-thousand-mile warranty. Fortunately for me my car is still in its warranty stage if serviced by the KIA dealer. It was then that I decided to investigate the problem further on my own. I immediately “Googled” the light situation, and soon discovered that I was not the first to have this paranormal experience. Other’s had come before me.

With such a common problem occurring in this car, it was logical to assume that the automobile manufacturer would issue a recall to get such a dangerous issue resolved, but that was not the case. After reading several articles on the internet, I contacted the KIA Automobile Company directly by telephone. They checked the information I provided, and confirmed that there was in fact an issue with the car. Actually, it was revealed that dozens of complaints had been reported concerning this headlight situation. The various auto blogs also have reported that this issue is happening frequently with the 2012 to 2014 Kia Souls.

I checked further online and discovered that there was a Kia Technical Service Bulletin, or TSB, released for this problem. There is however a major difference in a TSB and a recall. A TSB will typically identify a common failure that many owners may be experiencing and show the dealers how they can fix them. Again, I am lucky as many auto brands do not supply the TSB repair job for free. If you happen to be beyond the initial warranty it is not covered. My KIA only has 60,000 miles on it so it is still covered. A recall is different, in that the government-determines that the car has a safety defect and requires the manufacturer to repair it free for a period of ten years.

Upon concluding my talk with the KIA representative at the customer service, my car is now scheduled to go into the repair shop on Monday morning so here’s hoping the exorcists at the local Kia dealer can successfully expel the evil demons from my Soul.

As a follow-up on this problem. It was eventually discovered that there was a faulty switch in the steering column of the car, and upon replacement, all functioned well once again. I am now again a happy KIA owner.

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