Gadgetory

you know the soul it's the car that fired the first volleys let the world know that Kia was going to be the urban cool cousin of Hyundai what's really changed for 2012 is under this hood where they used to have some pretty anemic little four cylinders hooked up to a four-speed automatic that would not have been unfamiliar to the Jones when they crossed from Oklahoma but before we see these changes let's go inside now inside things are cheap and cheerful as you might imagine and the distinctive look you've got this sort of what pill-shaped center console in this car because we have a premium audio system you've got a very pronounced center channel speaker we've also got some tweeters up here and the remaining I think four speakers around the cabin it all tells you that we've got the premium sound your base sources on this car are going to be am/fm CD satellite radio aux-in USB key and Hyundai have been very aggressive about putting that in at low trim levels how you control those systems is through the UVO interface UVO is basically your voice I think where it stands for this button here lets you do voice command of hands-free calling that's pretty common audio system and navigation none of those are groundbreaking but in a car at this price level it is command please find a dress find out dress we do have bluetooth streaming on this guy but unfortunately no metatag information it won't tell you what artist or song is playing at least not with my droid razr now as you can see on our navigation system it's not a huge screen but that's about as big as the console allows so it's the best they could do you see we have a serious traffic icon here you do have traffic information live the interface is common to Hyundai and Kia products we've seen before but it's simple its touch there's no controller to speak up and it responds quickly I like the way this guy moves around look at that I can bounce around that map and not lose it the premium audio by the way is Infiniti stuff it's also got better amplification the part of it that makes me nuts and it's not going to get in your way is the fact that we have these color lights on the speakers seen these you can set the color to be off that's what I do or set it to music where they pulse mostly to the bass in the music or set it to mood where they just do this mood thing independent of the music you can change the color by pushing and the intensity with the rocker switch that's an awful lot of engineering for something that's pretty much useless and as part of the UVO package strangely you also get the rear view camera bundled in with that I don't know what they have to do with each other oh by the way this power steering is electric to help the MGP okay not much has changed in the look of the soul the sheet metal is all the same but with some small changes here in the front bigger fog light pockets little different shape on the alien mouth which goes with the alien eyes on by the way the paint's called alien 2 or alien barf depending on your point of view and you'll also spot one of these guys by LED daytime running lights front and tail lights if it's a high trim car okay here's the engine with somewhere in here way down here sitting down low that's because it's not a very big thing but it doesn't need to be this is a new technology motor now they used to have some pretty anemic four cylinders in these cars they're still 4s but now modern technology your base engine the sole now has direct injection which is kind of the technology in gas engines these days but it's only at 1.6 we have a high trim car this is the highest trim Sol it's got a 2 liter motor 164 horse 148 foot-pounds of torque gets this guy up to 60 in about 7 seconds that's not a huge feat doesn't only weighs 2,700 pounds I have relatives who weigh that much mpg is good though 26:34 if you get the base car with a scrawny ER engine you get 27 35 mpg a little slower zero to 60 I don't think it's worth it for that one mpg gain just keep your tires pumped up and you can do that much better now I've mentioned before when I Drive these cars right when they arrive at the scene at garage first time I get in I don't look at the badges at all I don't want to know what the powertrain is I want to guess cuz that tells me how well it's doing its job so when I got in this car I figured it was a 2-liter four that's pretty obvious but I thought it had a CVT a continuously variable transmission in fact it's got a six-speed with real gears that's not a good thing because the CVT is a kind of slippery thing in most cars kind of an indecisive gearbox and this one feels that way to me I've got this eco button up here when I engage that and I see that light the car is really going to modulate acceleration to use the least amount of gas there's no electrical technology here no battery regen no auto start/stop that's coming in a future Sol but it makes the car very numb so I disengage it and it's still got lots of weird hunting so not a fan of the gearbox programming it's not awful but other Hyundai's and Kias I've driven have really sharp decisive transmissions and that's a big part of a car feeling responsive beyond that it's a nice old car to drive I mean it's taut it's firm it's not much fun the tossing corners its kind of shall we say rudimentary ly sprung but the build quality is good all around it seems to be bolted together pretty well it does feel it's lightweight the car definitely feels very featherweight and it is okay a Kia Soul can be had for about seventeen thousan in this plus trim level which is where I'd start because that's where you get into the 2-liter motor unfortunately all the CNET style tech is still missing at that price point so add in twenty five hundred bucks more to get to the exclaimed trim level that's going to roll in 18s six-speed automatic the UVO system a hard drive for media if you care and the Infiniti sound on the output side then another twenty three hundred bucks for the Premium Package that will get you a hard drive navigation the rear view camera automatic temperature control and heated leather seats you