Kia Soul Won My Heart

The Kia Soul has won my heart - true story. I have been doing car reviews for a while now because we are looking for a new family vehicle ( yes we are still cramming 5 of us in a Camaro comfortable, not) and Dakotah a car for college. If you have been keeping track via Facebook you may know that Dakotah is graduating two years early, which means we have about a year to get a car. I thought we had two, so now I am scrambling. Those vehicles take precedence and even though Dakotah loved the Kia Soul it was me that completely fell in love. I can totally see now why that chick married the Eiffel tower. It is possible to love an inanimate object.

Before I get into everything else I just have to tell you how the Kia Soul saved us from a bad accident.

Sometimes things happen in our life and you have a guardian angel looking out for you. The Kia Soul was our guardian angel. I had a medical emergency when we had the car. My Mom was taking me to the hospital and asked if I wanted to take the Kia or the Camaro. Normally I would have said the Camaro because the Kia would have been easier on my Dad if he had to take the girls out. But this time I said the Kia and it was a good thing I did. While we were heading to the hospital a woman wasn’t paying attention, to be honest I have no idea where her mind was at all. She pulled out right in front of us. There was nothing we could do, traffic was coming on the other side. So my Mom just hit the brakes. I mean pushed them to the floor. The Kia just stopped. It took it a bit but it just stopped, dead. I swear on all that is holy that we were just a hair shy of hitting her and if we had been in my Moms Camaro we would have. It would have been a horrible accident and someone would have ended up hurt. My Mom said the Kia Soul had the best braking system she had ever seen.

Kia and Drive STI dropped that gorgeous Kia Soul in my drive way a couple of weeks ago. The first thing that got me was the color. It is called Inferno Red- it should be called “Give it up because I am going to get you Red.” It wasn’t just me that loved the color. Everywhere we went at least one person asked it what the color was called and where we found it. There are quite a few Kia Souls running around town but most of them are white, black, and silver. So the red definitely got noticed.

The interior was black and sleek. When you think Kia Soul you don’t think luxury, at least I don’t. But this car felt luxurious when you sat inside it. As usual Kia made sure we were connected while on the go. There were several USB ports and 12 volt chargers. I love that because I don’t have to hear “My [insert gadget that a teenager can't live without here] is dead.”

The front dash is classy and we LOVED the GPS. I get so tired of typing on a touch screen but with the GPS all we had to do was type a few letters and it gave us suggestions on our route. My fingers were very happy and so was everyone else because we couldn’t get lost.

The screen on the navigation was huge. It really felt like you were using a tablet ( think just a little bigger than a Kindle 7 inch) and very, very easy to read. That was great for my Dad who doesn’t have the best eyesight.

It was also push button start which I love. All you do is push the brake, push the button, and you were ready to roll. Some people have asked me about car theft. It is a misconception that you can just get in the car and go. That is not true. You have to have the smart key with you in the car before it will start. No one can get in the car and go without that smart key.

It seems all new cars come standard with Bluetooth sync and the Kia Soul is no exception. Maryland just passed the law that you cannot talk on your cell while driving. So having the ability to talk hands free was pretty awesome.

The Kia Soul had features I loved and some that I LOVED but the feature I loved more than anything was the panoramic sunroof. It is a running joke in the house that I was a dog in a former life because I love having the windows down and the wind in my face. With the sunroof I could not only have the wind in my face but the wind in my hair. Also, it was really awesome to look up and see the sky. Especially at night when there is a million stars out!

One more feature I would like to talk about before we get to the specifics, price, etc. is the mood lighting. On the passenger side and drivers side there is speakers in the door. Those speakers have colored lights that change. The girls loved this and made us take them out in the car several times at night just so they could see it. Then the talk about boyfriends and romantic car rides came up and I put a stop to that real quick

The Kia Soul was amazing on gas. We had the car for 10 days and still didn’t use a tank of gas and we rode it around everywhere. People don’t realize that at least one family member is out running errands every day. So these cars see some mileage. My Mom’s 2012 Camaro uses a tank of gas every 3 to 4 days. So fuel efficiency is a plus for us!

Of course I couldn’t get to the specs without talking about the dead body count in the trunk. * Please note I do not condone nor endorse sticking any dead bodies in the back of your Kia Soul or killing anyone. That is just wrong and stupid..just say no.* The Kia soul was a 1 body count trunk. But the seats do a 60/40 split allowing you to have more space. There was definitely a lot of space for everything we needed it for.

Gear Shift

Trunk Lights/Infinity Speakers

Trunk With Cover

Driver Side Controls

Leather Wrapped Steering Wheel

Back Seat

Front Seat

Kia Soul Specs

There is a lot to go over so I tried to break it down and make it easy to read. The Kia Soul isn’t all about beauty. This car had some amazing features!

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