Adventures in 2014 Kia Soul and Review

You know what I've been doing all last week?  TESTING THE NEW 2014 KIA SOUL!!!!!!!  I can't believe that I'm now testing out cars- what a amazing experience the girls and I had going on  adventures in the Kia Soul!  THIS CAR ROCKS!  I had heads turning and mouths dropping while this hot red inferno was cruising the streets!


I'll be honest, when I first found out what I was going to be driving for the next 7 days last week, I was a bit disappointed because I thought the Kia Soul would be too small for a family of 4.  Once the car was delivered to me, my assumptions about the car went quickly out the door after seeing how roomy it is.  Mr. M, the girls, and I all had enough room space without feeling like we were bunched in.

I felt instantly comfortable while driving the car.  The premium black leather seats are high quality, soft, and luxurious- even the steering wheel is covered in leather that is soft and helps your hands to have a good grip to it. 

No worrying about hot days and your body sticking to the seats, all seats including the backseats has a cooling system, even the steering wheel- nice!

After checking out the inside of the car, the next important place for me to check out is the trunk.  I'm a frequent shopper at Costco and you know all their products are in bulk and large in size.

Unfortunately, the trunk is not large enough for me.  But the good thing is the back seats folds down if I have large items, it's just that I can't have my girls along for the ride with me.  Another good thing is that the trunk has a piece on the floor that you can lift up and has more storage space there with organized departments.

Now the fun part!  This car was fully loaded to the max- it had the whole shabang!  Everything that you can think of, this car had!

The 2014 Kia Soul included:

• Panoramic Sunroof with Power Sunshade
• Infinity Audio System
• Speaker Lights
• Voice-Command Navigation with 8" Display & HD Radio
• Automatic Climate Control with Cluster Ionizer
• HID Projector Beam Headlights with Auto-Leveling
• Led Positioning Lights and Tail Lights
• Supervision Meter Cluster with Color LCD Display
• Leather Seat Trim
• Ventilated Front Seats
• Heated Front and Rear Seats
• Heated Steering Wheel
• Keyless Entry and Start
• Rear Camera
• Power Folding Outside Mirrors
• UVO eServices

Price is around $28,000 for the total luxury package.  That is a great affordable price!

So many different functions that this car includes that I was so overwhelmed trying to figure out all of it.  This car makes you feel like a kid on Christmas Day, opening and playing with all of their new toys from Santa!

The best feature I love about this car is the whole navigation system along with the HD Radio.  The minute you add a location in the navigation system, it stores it forever- no longer will you need to repeat a address you have already used.  From my understanding, you can have up to 250 locations saved on there.  Another great feature is while you're using the navigation system, on the screen it displays restaurants, gas stations, lodging nearby.

If you're in the driver's seat and you have a passenger playing with the radio while you're getting directions from the navigation system, the dashboard also displays the destination directions.


The steering wheel has buttons that you can also control the navigation system, bluetooth, radio, and more.

Wondering how the Kia Soul updates its system?  There is a piece above the 3:38 clock on the navigation picture below that you pull out and attach it to your computer while on Kia's website to do the download.  No need to go to a Kia dealership for a system update. 

The HD Radio is simply amazing!  The girls and I were pretty much rocking it out to Radio Disney and other children's programming the whole time!  While checking on the other stations, it looks like it goes up to 500, but I could be wrong.
 

And another thing, this car has no CD player since CD's has been played out years ago!  Well, I must be ancient because I still listen to CD's in my own car since I haven't turned on my satellite radio in it yet, but after being in this car, I need to turn it on quick, fast, and in a hurry!

No wonder those hamsters in the Kia commercials were jamming in their Kia Soul, sound quality is outstanding and there is plenty of different variety of musics to rock out to.

The rear camera was a very helpful feature because there was a couple of times I didn't see someone was behind me when I was backing up.  I think this feature should be in all future cars to help prevent accidents.

The Kia Soul is amazing on gas!  I only filled up once at the end of the week after doing a lot of inner-city driving and some short distance highway driving. (23 city/31 highway mpg)  The car drives well although you do feel every bump in the road but I didn't mind that at all.

You want to know where I took this baby to?  Here are some highlights of the girls and I fun adventures!

INK MUSEUM

First stop on our Kia Soul adventure, we went to The INK Museum in Gainesville, GA.  It is a interactive neighborhood for children.  The museum helps kids learn hands on about every day life like going to the doctor, grocery shopping, school, and so on.

IKEA EVENT

Towards the end of the week, we headed to the #IKEACataLove IKEA event to learn about their new catalog and what new home decor is now available this season.  More details about the event coming soon and $100 giveaway, stay tune!

Doctor Appointment

The following day after the IKEA event, the girls had doctor appointments for their annual checkup.  By the looks on Michelle's face, it didn't go very well.  She cried because she gotten her finger pricked.   Poor baby!  Lauren had a better experience.  Both girls are growing well and are healthy, they are ready to begin a new school year in a week.

 Back to School Shopping

On our last day with the Kia Soul, we went to check out the Nutella Truck Tour Event but couldn't find the food truck, so we left and started doing some back to school shopping at our local mall.  Boy was the mall crowded with people, and boy is my pocketbook hurting- sheesh!




This car was definitely hard to let go.  I felt like the star of the show everywhere I drove to.  People would stop what they were doing and check the car out and see who was the person behind the wheel.  Although I only had the car for only a week, it felt like apart of my car family because I grew accustom to it quickly.


For such a inexpensive car, I felt like I was driving a $50,000 car.   My only complaint about this car would be the small trunk.  I give this car a star rating of 4 1/2 stars out of 5.


To me, this car would be prefect for a college student, a couple, a single person, a family with 1 or 2 middle aged children that doesn't transport a lot of cargo.



Goodbye Kia Soul, you will be dearly missed!

Have you ever driven the Kia Soul before?

Disclosure- DriveSTI provided a car for me to test and review, I was not compensated and all opinions are my own.