KIA Soul Review

Kia Soul is a young-oriented model that catches the eye with its unconventional design but it surely fails to impress when it comes to comfort. The car lacks several important features in today's automotive industry and, even if some of them are available as options, it's still a setback especially because we're talking about a vehicle aimed at the young public.

First of all, there was no lumbar support. You wouldn't expect this from a car equipped with power and height-adjustable driver seat but the lumbar support, which is often available on a lot cheaper cars, missed on the Soul we tested.

We already mentioned the suspension configuration in the city driving chapter but we have do it again because this is certainly a drawback in terms of comfort. The main problem occurs when driving on uneven roads or when passing over speed bumps, which are exactly the kind of situation in which an advanced suspension system could ensure a smooth and comfortable ride.

As we said, the same setup was previously offered on the first cee'd, but the issue was resolved on the facelifted version of Kia's popular hatch. We're not sure which is the reason behind using the same glitchy configuration on this urban crossover, but a Soul driver will surely be disappointed. The 18-inch wheels are probably contributing to this problem, but the lion's share goes to the suspension settings.

Another curious and hard to understand fact is the use of a manual air conditioning system, in a market in which automatic climate control becomes a must-have. Furthermore, such an option is not even available, albeit fitting it on a vehicle intended for the young market would be great.

One of the good things however is the amount of interior space. Regardless if you're traveling as the front passenger or just sitting on the rear bench, there's enough room even for a two-meter (6 ft 6 in) tall guy. And our test fully demonstrated it.
The 1.6-liter gasoline engine is enough to set the wheels in motion but it's just a mediocre configuration that doesn't impress at all. And this is the main thing you'll notice during a longer trip when engine power is vital, especially if you're a sportier driver.

The Euro IV-compliant engine has a displacement of 1,591 cc and a compression ratio of 10.5. It develops a decent 124 horsepower at 6,300 rpm and 156 Nm of torque at 4,200 rpm but all these figures mean nothing when stepping behind the wheel of a Soul.

The only way to experience a slightly sportier driving is to go for the “pedal to the metal” style and reach the red zone of the rev counter. This in turn means increased fuel consumption and fuel emissions, two things that are somewhat incompatible to the public the car is addressed to.

The 5-speed manual transmission is OK for most European drivers, although we reckon that an automatic configuration would increase comfort and fuel consumption figures. American buyers however can choose a four-speed automatic transmission.

Fuel consumption figures claim that Kia Soul achieves 7.9 l/100km in urban driving and 5.7 l/100 km outside the city, while combined ratings go around 6.5 l/100km. It releases 153 grams of CO2 every kilometer. The best you can get is a maximum speed of 177 km/h, while the 0 – 100 km/h sprint is done in 11 seconds.

There are no fancy (to be read top-notch and tree-hugger-friendly) technologies that would further reduce fuel consumption and emissions, such as start-stop systems, as Kia probably thought that young customers aren't looking for such things.
Kia's gadget department should be really proud of what they did on Soul, as the car is above average from this point of view. And there's nothing wrong about it because, in order to attract young buyers, you have to offer them the things they like the most. In our case, gadgets.

The first thing you'll notice inside the Soul is the audio system. A large speaker on the console, plus two tweeter speakers on the outer edges of the dashboard, two rear-door mounted speakers and a subwoofer inside the trunk are all there waiting to bring music to your ears. MP3 files are obviously supported but the most important thing is the iPod connectivity port that lets you connect any Apple device and play your favorite music. An USB port with folder browsing support is also offered.

Getting back to the enhancements of the audio system, we must mention what we consider to be the funkiest feature of the whole car: the so-called Sound Sensitive Mood Lighting system. In short terms, it is a LED surrounding of the front speakers that pulses on music rhythm, with four available modes: on, mood, music and off. And yes, such a feature could be very eye-catchy during your night-cruising sessions, but after an hour or two we found it pretty boring and disabled it completely.

Another “toy” on Soul is the rear-view camera that increases visibility when driving in reverse mode and displays the images on an LCD screen integrated into the interior rear-view mirror. Coupled with parking sensors, the whole assembly makes parking a piece of cake.

Other features that could be included in the gadgets category are ESP (controllable through a button placed in the left side of the steering wheel), foldable power exterior mirrors, heated front seats, audio controls mounted on the steering wheel, exterior thermometer and 12V laptop outlet.
Besides the fact that it looks unconventional, Kia's Soul is also a very safe vehicle and this thing is fully demonstrated by the crash results in both Euro NCAP and IIHS tests. The vehicle earned top safety picks in both crash tests conducted in Europe and in the United States, providing advanced protection for passengers, children and pedestrian.

Euro NCAP mentioned in the results papers that the passenger compartment reacted well to the frontal impact but some parts of the dashboard presented a risk to the driver and the front passenger, especially to their knees and femurs. Furthermore, chest protection in the side pole test was only marginal.

IIHS on the other hand raised concerns of injuries affecting the driver, mentioning that the dummies presented a possible fracture of the pelvis in case of a severe crash.

The car we tested was equipped with driver and front passenger airbags, side curtain airbag, pretensioned front seatbelts, rear seats seatbelts and warning systems, ABS and ESP. Additionally, all Souls are equipped as standard with front and rear crumple zones, side-impact door beams, impact-absorbing steering column and Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH) system.
Kia is surely a brave carmaker. In a time dominated by economic problems in all industry sectors, the South Korean carmaker chose to introduce a model that has only a few things in common with the current major demands: low fuel consumption and reduced emissions.

Soul seems like a model especially designed to complete Kia's line and, in the United States, to challenge the only existing player in this class, Toyota's Scion xB. And Kia is trying to follow the same path as Scion, as its very own urban crossover is offered with a multitude of options that, in the end, lead to a total of 10,000+ possible combinations, so that each Soul out there has the chance to be unique.

Furthermore, ever since the launch of Soul, Kia has debuted numerous limited editions of Soul which, in the American market, have proved to be very appealing to young buyers.

But unfortunately, it's all about the design and a few first-appealing-later-annoying features. Soul's design is indeed unconventional, but the experience you get when driving the car might differ from your expectations. The driving comfort isn't impressive at all and every single bump on the road feels like you're in a horse-drawn carriage.

The engine is, as we said, overwhelmed and, in order to obtain at least decent performance you have to bring the rev counter close to the red line. This however translates into increased fuel consumption which, in our times, isn't quite an appropriate car attribute.
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We liked however the gadgets inside the car, including the audio system we detailed in the Gadgets section. However, it's only fun at the beginning and it can become annoying or just unattractive after a few hours of continuous driving.

All in all, Kia Soul deserves a chance, especially here in Europe where driving a Scion is a bit more difficult unless you're ready to pay some thousands of Euros for transportation taxes. In the United States however...