Rental Review: Kia Soul

[12,000 RPM]

Car is in the shop getting repaired. Just drove it in to work.

Pros
- gas mileage
- engine sounds decent
- brakes aren't too bad
- I'm always impressed by modern infotainment, even bargain basement shit. BT integration

Cons
- steering is awful. Zero feel and slow ratio to keep you from flipping over. Weights up way too much on the highway; saps confidence when making small corrections
- seating position is just too high. Is it classified as an SUV?
- Wheelbase is really short; seems to pogo over undulations and bumps. Bad juju with the high CoG
- Radio has no bass

Just a shit car to drive. They didn't have anything else on hand. I'm going to call the other branch and see if they have that Golf or a Focus. Other thing is the weather is going to be downright orgasmic this week, so I might just end up riding the rest of the week and take this fucker back tonight. JFC this car is so terrible... do people just not cross shop anymore? I miss so much about the Civic already.

[SVT_Power]

The soul is a hatchback isn't it? Can't get a civic hatchback 

[12,000 RPM]

Civic hatchbacks dont exist down here and rental companies don't keep Hondas anyway from what I've seen. I wouldn't want an automatic Honda anyway. I liked the 1.8T Golf and want to give the Focus a try.

[2o6]

What gen of Soul?


The Kia has always been slammed for bad steering (I've said this about every modern HK product I've driven) and the ride on the Soul has always been kind of busy.



The high seating position is the appeal of this car; if you don't want tha you'd get a Rio or Forte. Old people love this car specifically for this reason.

[AutobahnSHO]

The high seating position is the appeal of this car; if you don't want tha you'd get a Rio or Forte. Old people love this car specifically for this reason.

yup.

[Laconian]

Yeah, Kia/Hyundai have crap steering. The variable assist/variable ratio is much too artificial. You can feel the IF THEN ELSE coarseness of the controller when you hit 20mph and the steering switches to the meaty feel "premium" mode.

[12,000 RPM]

What gen of Soul?


The Kia has always been slammed for bad steering (I've said this about every modern HK product I've driven) and the ride on the Soul has always been kind of busy.



The high seating position is the appeal of this car; if you don't want tha you'd get a Rio or Forte. Old people love this car specifically for this reason.

I am pretty sure it's the latest one.

The steering is awful. Wow! Took it out for lunch... the more I drive it the less I like it. It's not even that it's "bad" per se. Dynamically it just "is", with zero feedback. If this is what the average car is like, I get why folks text and drive and am even more enthusiastic about autonomous cars. With the complete lack of feedback and engagement this thing can't be far off.

Thank god the weather is gorgeous this week. I'm going to take a gamble and return it tonight.

[Cookie Monster]

With a motorcycle in the garage I don't even know why you took a rental car in the first place.

[12,000 RPM]

The weather took a turn for the awesome in the last ~48 hours. If it's <50 degrees in the morning I don't ride in, and it was easily ~43 or so when I left the house.

[2o6]

Oh come on, it's not that bad.


It's easy to place, but not really exciting but it wasn't meant to be in the first place. Also I remember the ride in the Soul 1.6 being actually really good, especially compared to the 1st gen Soul.

[12,000 RPM]

1st gen Soul had bricks for suspension. I rode in one of those about 6 years ago. Both me and a total non car guy were floored by how rock solid the ride quality was.

It's not bad. It's not anything. It just is, as far as how it drives. It's like that girl I met in college who didn't own any music. "I'm just not into it". It drives like it was made for people not really into cars.

[2o6]

Kia cars ride like ass.

[MrH]

The Korean twins in general suck all around at steering feel and overall vehicle dynamics. That's the two areas where the Genesis totally fell apart. My girlfriends Tuscan is even worse.

[2o6]

The Korean twins in general suck all around at steering feel and overall vehicle dynamics. That's the two areas where the Genesis totally fell apart. My girlfriends Tuscan is even worse.

Tuscon may literally be the worst riding car I've ever driven

[12,000 RPM]

I took that POS back. My wife's slow steering Rabbit with old school hydraulic steering was a revelation Thrilled to ride in the rest of the week

I still don't get how they botched it so bad. The steering so bad! My Civic steers like a GT3 RS by comparison.

Tuscon may literally be the worst riding car I've ever driven

This does not bode well for the Sportage I really like

[ifcar]

The Korean twins in general suck all around at steering feel and overall vehicle dynamics. That's the two areas where the Genesis totally fell apart. My girlfriends Tuscan is even worse.

The non R-Spec Genesis was better.

[Madman]

I am pretty sure it's the latest one.

The steering is awful. Wow! Took it out for lunch... the more I drive it the less I like it. It's not even that it's "bad" per se. Dynamically it just "is", with zero feedback. If this is what the average car is like, I get why folks text and drive and am even more enthusiastic about autonomous cars. With the complete lack of feedback and engagement this thing can't be far off.

Thank god the weather is gorgeous this week. I'm going to take a gamble and return it tonight.

I suspect the electric steering is to blame?

I haven't sampled a new-ish Kia, so I don't know how they drive but most other manufacturers seem to be coming to grips with making an electric steering rack feel more like a conventional hydraulic one.  As for the ride, it can't be any worse than my Mazda, which feels like somebody welded the axles directly to the chassis!

Also, your description of the ride height reminds me of the time I test drove a Chrysler PT Cruiser.  I was looking out the very top of the windshield during the whole test drive.  Naturally, I didn't buy it but, if I had, I would have had to find a way to chop at least four inches out of the seat frame just to make it driveable.

How the hell do car makers get seemingly simple things like these so very wrong?

[12,000 RPM]

I have no idea man. BMW still struggles with basic, basic, basic items like fuel pumps, automatic transmissions and radiator necks (!!!). To be fair, good steering feel is more of an art than a hard science so I can't blame companies for not getting it perfect. But this thing was inexcusably bad

[MX793]

I had a Soul as a rental maybe a year and a half ago.  I didn't think it was that bad.  Ride was a bit stiff, road noise was significant, and I'm generally not a fan of high seating positions, but the steering was no worse than many mainstreamers.  It didn't jump out at me for being especially bad, at any rate.  Then again, I was pretty used to numb steering by that point.  I don't recall it being any worse than my Jetta.  Both a far cry from my Mazda3.

The Chevy Cobalt loaner I had a few years back was pretty bad with regards to steering.  The EPS was "lumpy" and inconsistent.  Sometimes you'd turn the wheel and it would be overboosted, others it was like the system had to wake up and the initial turn in would be unassisted while it caught up.  Then it would resist straightening back out.  You couldn't just let go of the wheel and let the castor pull it back straight.  Hard to get much sense from the road when the EPS system is injecting so much noise into the steering column.

[93JC]

I took that POS back. My wife's slow steering Rabbit with old school hydraulic steering was a revelation Thrilled to ride in the rest of the week

lolwut

Mk V Golf/Rabbits have electric steering... And as I recall from having test-driven a MkV GTI, it was shit.

[MX793]

lolwut

Mk V Golf/Rabbits have electric steering... And as I recall from having test-driven a MkV GTI, it was shit.

Electro-hydraulic, not fully electric.

[93JC]

Nein, das ist nicht wahr.

http://www.volkspage.net/technik/ssp/ssp/SSP_317.pdf

See p. 6, the intro.

One advantage of the electro-mechanical power
steering, compared with hydraulically assisted
steering systems, is that there is no requirement
for a hydraulic system. This leads to further
advantages, such as:
- no hydraulic components, for example power
steering oil pump, hoses, oil tank, filter,
- no hydraulic fluid,
- saving of space in fitting location,
- reduction in noise,
- saving of energy,
- no complex hose and wiring system.
The components that assist steering are located
on, and operate directly at, the steering gear.

It's nothing like Mazda's EHPAS, which uses an electric fluid pump but is otherwise very similar to the old-school systems run off a belt-driven pump.

[12,000 RPM]

Wait so the Mazda I'm in now has an electric pump and old school hydraulic rack?

[MX793]

Wait so the Mazda I'm in now has an electric pump and old school hydraulic rack?

I think the latest Mazda3s are all electric.  1st and 2nd (I think) generation cars were hydraulic with an electric pump.

[93JC]

My second-gen has the electro-hydraulic system.