2024 Kia Soul: Quirky Looks, Serious Features

The quirky and boxy Kia Soul first took the world by storm about a decade ago, and now I’m going to be reviewing the 2024 Kia Soul, which has a few changes but still has a very affordable price of under $25,000. So, is 2024 Kia Soul the best combination of affordability and practicality? Let's go ahead and find out. 

Pricing

Before we move on, I’m very happy to tell you that Kia is only raising the price by $200 on all the trim levels, which certainly is a lot less than most of the other vehicles in 2024. Usually, the price hike is of $500 or more. Today, I am reviewing 2024 Kia Soul EX trim. The 2024 Kia Soul price starts at $21,565 for the base LX trim and goes up to $25,865 for the top EX trim. 

The last thing here to mention is your warranty for the 2024 Soul. It's going to be 5 years and 60,000 miles for your basic warranty and 10 years and 100,000 miles for your powertrain warranty. Kia's warranty coverage is class-leading in my opinion and very few automakers can come close to it. 

2024 Kia Soul Retains The Boxy Design

The Kia Soul has always been all about that boxy style, and that does continue for 2024. Now, last year, in 2023, it did get a refreshed design, and you'll see that carry on. It has a more aggressive front, basically. The lower fascia is quite large and goes all the way down to the bottom. 

The model I’m reviewing has some silver accents running through it because it's an EX trim. You'll have that same kind of finish on the grille, behind a little piece of glass. The headlights on the EX model aren’t LED. You can opt for LED headlights on the GT-Line model. That's also going to give you LED fog lights. 

The rear design, unsurprisingly, is boxy with that signature Soul design. On the EX trim, the taillights are incandescent, and just like with the headlights, you can get LED tail lights with the GT-Line. Now as far as the design of the taillight itself. It is a really cool look because it does have the kind of sweeping tail light design that kind of wraps around the edges of the rear and circles the Kia branding. 

Quite a quirky rear profile for a boxy crossover…

Of course there are no exposed exhaust outlets on any model besides the GT line. If you get a GT line, you're actually going to have a center-mounted exhaust outlet, which I think is quite cool for a vehicle in this segment. Now, of course, no stylish design would be complete without stylish wheel options, and indeed, you are going to have those on board. You're going to start out with 16-inch alloy wheels, and all the rest of the trim levels will come standard with at least 17-inch alloy wheels. The EX has a 17-inch contrast alloy wheels. 

I definitely like this design, but if you want something a little bit bigger for 2024, the EX designer package is the best. When you choose that, that's going to upgrade you to 18-inch alloy wheels with a little bit of a more aggressive design. You'll need to pay an additional $500 over the MSRP for the package. 

Spacious And Practical Interior

It's very stylish. It's also very practical, and I want to start off by talking about interior color and material choices. so most of the trims are going to come with some kind of cloth combination seat. The EX is going to be a full-cloth seat. Overall it's a soft material and looks nice as well. 

The Kia Soul interior lights up with the EX Designer Package

One of the things I want to point out, though, is that the EX designer package is going to make an enhancement as well. It's going to give you a cloth and leather-trimmed seat, and it's going to be an exclusive umber color if that's something that you're interested in. You also have power-adjusting seats on this top model. 

One of the things I've always liked about the Kia Soul is the fact that even though it's an affordable model, we still have solid build quality. So the armrest portion has a leatherette. The top part of the door panel is going to be a hard touch, but like I said, it feels nice and solid. The upper part of the dash is surprisingly soft-touch plastic. 

You also get piano black trim that's going to surround the vents, the area around the infotainment screen area, as well as the center console. And like I said, everything fits together well and feels really high quality. In terms of storage, you get a decently sized center console, two cup holders, and another storage bin ahead of that, which is very spacious. There’s plenty of storage in the doors, too.

Coming to features, you get a wireless phone charger as standard on all but the base trim, which I love. You get a backup camera as standard, dual zone climate control on all but the base trim, and two-stage heated seats in the top trim. The Kia Soul does have a digital gauge cluster on board. The center section of this gauge cluster is going to be reconfigurable. The other part is dynamic, but it's not reconfigurable. This is one of the enhancements from the refresh last year. 

Another premium feature inside the cabin is the large 10.25-inch infotainment screen, which is included in all but the base LX trim. It has a very high resolution and comes with the latest Kia software, which works great. It has a built-in navigation system and both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, but you do have to use a cable since it's only wired. 

As far as the sound system goes, you get a 6-speaker sound system. The sound quality of that system is perfectly adequate for the price of this car. You can get a 10-speaker Harman-Kardon sound system if you opt for the 2024 Kia Soul GT-Line trim. It also comes with cool speaker grilles that light up.

Spacious Rear Seats

The rear seats in the 2024 Kia Soul are very spacious. You get 39 inches of legroom and 39.5 inches of headroom. So, as you would expect, that big boxy shape on the outside does translate to a ton of interior space, which I certainly appreciate. It's very rare in this segment of vehicles. 

Comfy place for the rear passengers too….

I’m 5’’9', and I had plenty of knee room. I was also able to slide my feet up underneath the front seat. The seats themselves are pretty comfortable. They do not recline, though, so do keep that in mind here. In terms of features, you unfortunately don’t get any vents, but you do get two USB-C ports and an armrest with two cup holders.

Cargo Space

Another impressive element about the 2024 Soul is the amount of cargo space you get—24.2 cubic feet behind the second-row seats. If you fold the rear seats down, you’re going to have 62 cubic feet of cargo capacity as a maximum, which is larger than the vast majority of things in this segment. 

The Soul even outperforms the family's very own Venue in terms of cargo space.

It's going to be bigger than the Honda HRV, and it's going to be right in line with stuff like the Nissan Kicks, so it's a very good cargo figure. A couple of other things worth mentioning about the cargo space include the fact that the tailgate only opens manually and the rear seats have a 60/40 split. Besides that, you also get a spare tire underneath the floor and a 12-volt outlet on the side.

Adequate Power For The Price Tag

The 2024 Kia Soul just has one powertrain. Now it used to have that turbo engine option, but they've kind of simplified it down to just one engine. It's a two-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine that produces 147 horsepower and 132 pound-feet of torque. They used this setup in a lot of different Hyundai and Kia products on the entry-level side of things, such as the former 2018 Elantra. 

I mean, this powertrain is certainly acceptable. It's not going to knock your socks off acceleration-wise, but it's going to be good enough to get this vehicle up to speed in a reasonable fashion, as you would expect for this segment of vehicle. Of course, speed is not the primary focus of this model, but actually, it's not bad at all for this category of vehicle. 

There's certainly some that are slower than this, and I think one of the reasons why is because this is matched really well with its continuously variable transmission. When you put your foot down, it's nice and responsive; you're not sitting there waiting for the transmission to kind of get into the right ratio or anything like that. It also has shift simulation to help you avoid droning. 

As far as how the power is routed to the ground. The Soul is front-wheel-drive only. There is no all-wheel drive. So that's something worth considering. If you need the all-wheel drive system, you will have to get the Seltos model. The Kia Souls ride quality has always been an area that's pretty much impressed me with this model because I think it rides really, really well. Everything in here feels very solid, which is rare for the segment. I find my seats to be very comfortable, and also the wheels. 

I think being only 17 inches here on the EX model really contributes to not a lot of penetration entering the cabin. So when you go over a bump, it does a really good job of just soaking it up. I think this is one of the better ones in the segment. However, with the bigger wheels, there might be some noise. 

Fuel Economy

Now, as far as your fuel economy is concerned, the EX trim level is actually the one that's going to get the best fuel economy of the bunch. 31 miles per gallon combined. If you choose the LX, S, or GT-Line, that is actually reduced down to 30 miles per gallon combined. Very good fuel economy overall for this Kia Soul, especially considering its boxy shape, which doesn’t help with the aerodynamics.

Safety

As far as your safety systems are concerned, I'm happy to tell you that three out of your four active safety features are standard equipment on this model. These include a forward emergency braking system, auto-high beams, and lane-keeping assist. Additionally, on the GT line, with the tech package, you can get adaptive cruise control with their Highway Drive Assist function. 

Highlight and Lowlight

My favorite element about the 2024 Kia Soul is the amount of space and features you get for the money. The Soul is a very affordable model, even if you choose the top spec. You have a lot of nice unexpected technology features inside the cabin and just a lot of space and practicality that's afforded by the boxy shape. 

The one thing that I wasn’t the biggest fan of was the lighting in this model, which has full halogen headlights. Not even halogen projector headlights. Just halogen reflector headlights as standard on all models; that's a little cheap to me, and I honestly think at this point it's a safety hazard to not have some form of LED lighting. 

You can get it on the GT line, but that's only one trim level, and it's with an optional package. so certainly would like to see expanded availability of those LED headlights. Overall, the Kia Soul is a pretty solid product, and I wouldn't mind recommending it to someone who prefers function over form.