Gadgetory

well it's about the shape of a Christmas gift box as somebody stepped on one end of it's got an exclamation mark as part of its formal name and this one's the color of a sick man's urine what do you say to a car like that turns out nice to meet you would be about the right line let's drive the rather impressive 2014 Kia Soul it and check the tech now the Kia Soul is a car that has never hidden its quirk never hidden its soul if you will but if you think this thing is a joke the joke's on you it sells like mad in fact the soul in 2013 in the US outsold the Scion xB the Honda Fit and the Nissan Cube combined by another 40% put another way it sells as many as BMW sells 3-series in America every year this is a bonafide homerun let's find out why now inside this theme of getting a lot for a little is really pronounced this is one of the nicer looking cabins in a little cheap car you're gonna see now admittedly we are full trim on this car but here is your 8 inch touchscreen LCD with optional navigation this is not your base head unit in any soul but it's a well packaged option as you're gonna find that at the end of the piece it only gives you some basics there's no 3d bird's-eye mode this is what you're gonna see it doesn't have Google search to NAV it doesn't have any of the really fancy later stuff but the guts work really well it's bright it's colorful they do a very good job of calling things out at a glance I think and since there's no controller it's touch your voice only both need to work well so as you're gonna see as is always the case with Hyundai and Kia I don't know how they do this they have the fastest responding touchscreens in the industry nobody can touch these people and I don't know why and the voice command works well in expensive car but it still lets you do a big price car trick which is enter the destination is one burp find a dress please say the editors in California 2 3 5 second Street San Francisco you can say start guidance trying again okay quick and painless got it right the first time that's the way navigation should be now let's talk about the media settings here's where things get a little bit kind of crunchy as you can see we have radio and media divvied up into two buckets I always hate that and when you go to media it immediately goes to the last one I was using but where are my other sources if I hit media again I go to this medium menu but that's not everything either because there are also some apps that you don't see here so I got to close that go back to I forget some kind of a main menu here we go under all menus and there I'm gonna find Pandora so it's this scattered mess of stuff spread all over the interface when you get to Pandora the frustration continues look at that works only with an iOS device and only with a cable no bluetooth streaming for the app support and no Android devices or Windows or Blackberry so super limited for app support what may be able to save this though is that Kia is part of that recent Apple announcement of supporting iOS in the dash so perhaps the 2015 Sol is gonna bring up the iPhone in a really iPhone style as we've seen previewed we'll see also Kia's sister company Hyundai signed on in January of 2014 to support Android in the dash which may then trickle over to Kia so there are a couple ways this could fork but right now this is not your apps powerhouse beyond that your sources are pretty classic am/fm Sirius HD radio is here but it's optional and you've got USB and auxiliary jack notice what you don't have no CD this is one of those first cars to say that's it CDs are dead not available period this is interesting the satellite radio automatically records the channels in your first six presets and lets you pause play and jump segments I've seen one channel before but not six automatically it's kind of like a high-end multi tuner DVR let's talk about how you hear your media we have an optional infinity sound system with a center speaker not to be confused with a center channel as far as I can tell this is not a surround system this is just a system with a center speaker there's an important difference there and we've also got a subwoofer in the back also optional are the speaker lights you remember these it's a Kiev rings around the speaker that either glow in colors randomly or follow the music like one of those weird color organs at RadioShack used to sell back in the 70s and here's the knob that controls it over here you can turn it off blessedly or if you're really into it you can crank it way up now unlike some $80,000 Mercedes I can think of this guy gives you a rear camera stock and that's on this trim level by the way it's a simple one though but look how big and clear and bright it is that's a very good rear camera for doing what our rear cam supposed to do show you it's back there you do have some color zones that indicate how close you are to whatever you're about to run into so here's a key thing you got to know about the Kia Soul they allow you to appoint it really nicely that's part of why this car is unusual in its sector look at it panoramic glass roof a big boy you can get on here as you can see this wheel is heated that's also optional but bow it gets really hot over here heated and active ventilated front seats are available same package brings you heated rear seats you don't see that in the car like this very often that glovebox that's got an air conditioner in it this driver's seat 10-way power adjustment though oddly there's no memory for where you adjust it to but the theme here is little car that can be nice not just cheap now one of the short chunky schnoz of this car you find the quote big engine this is the 2-liter sidesaddle inline 4 it is a direct injected gas engine no turbo something like that just plain old naturally aspirated the numbers 164 horse hundred and fifty-one foot-pounds of torque perfectly respectable especially considering this guy only weighs 2,700 pounds that's 2,700 wind resisting pounds given this shape as a result the MPG is kind of underwhelming 23:38 is the rated on this with a one choice only 6-speed automatic zero to 60 eventually if you drop down to a bass sole you can get a 1.6 smaller engine but a 6-speed manual a different driving experience some 30 less horsepower but it might be more engaging hard to say let's get on the road now and see how this package all comes together now underway the soul doesn't have a lot of soul to be honest the horsepower looks good on paper it doesn't get transmitted all that well I blame the transmission aren't the engines fine but this transmission is real kind of loopy and vague in fact both Antoine and myself has the double and triple check the specs because we could have sworn this was a CVT and that's not a compliment on the other hand the ride quality is good it's not super tense and bouncing it hard like cars in this category can be all souls every single model comes with if they call flex steer normal Sport and comfort steering settings there's an intrusive but not unpleasant engine no you hear that little busy for working but it doesn't make sounds like you know bolts in a coffee grinder like some other vehicles in this category I can think of a couple other notes I think you've noticed behind me you've got a lot of greenhouse so you can see out of in this vehicle so rearward visibility is quite nice the fact that it doesn't have any blind spot or lane departure or cross traffic tech available is at least forgivable under these kind of visible conditions now you've probably heard you can get a sole for under 16 grand that's true but not this one once you get into this exclamation mark trim level we're just over 21,000 base delivered now to make it seen that style you want the Sun and sound package for 2,600 bucks to get the panoramic roof infinity sound speaker lights unfortunately 8-inch with Nav HD radio it's a screaming deal but really go beyond that and get what they call the whole shebang which adds to that HID headlights a centre LCD between the gauges push button start that's where you get the leather trim heated and cooled front seats heated rear seats heated steering wheel we're kind of talking about a little baby Korean Bentley at this point now what Kia's done here for about twenty six thousand dollars all loaded up CNET style his create a car that speaks to the modern market where they want something very small quite affordable but also with lots of quality premium touches that aren't just gimmicks the text pretty good I think it might get better in the 2015 you