Kia Soul hands-on

The 2014 Soul is Kia’s second stab at the hotly competitive small crossover category following the Soul’s first iteration in 2009. The car has seen success in the US, selling more than 100,000 units in 2012, but fairly bland styling and a harsh ride meant the first Soul didn’t find a big audience in the UK.

Kia is looking to reach a young and affluent audience with the latest Soul, tweaking its design in an attempt to make it stand out. The car’s boxy styling provoked strong opinions from the Expert Reviews staff, with the majority failing to find anything to like about the way the car looks. However, those who did like its appearance were particularly fond of the bulging rear-end curves and the slightly hunched-over front-end.

We took the mid-range, £17,500 Connect Plus 1.6 CRDi diesel for a spin around Leeds and the surrounding Yorkshire countryside. The Korean firm expects this model to be the best-seller in the UK, and it is nearly £5,000 more expensive than the base Start petrol model, which we also drove.

The Soul Connect Plus comes with a generous array of extras which includes an 8in touchscreen. This screen provides you with a satnav system, telephony and media playback, with all audio being routed through the excellent Infinity sound system.

Also present is a fairly stylish, stitched faux leather steering wheel, a six-speed shifter. The 2014 Soul is a little longer and taller than the previous model, with a generous amount of space for passengers and luggage alike.

The 126bhp diesel engine is very good, and while its sound signature was sometimes reminiscent of a tractor, the engine has a real punch to it. The engine is a very drivable unit as long as you stay in the fairly narrow power band. We certainly had no qualms about pulling away from from junctions and roundabouts. Find yourself in the wrong gear, however, and very little will happen when the throttle is depressed, so vigilant gear changes are a must. Sadly, there’s no intelligent stop to cut the engine when you’re stationary. This fuel-saving feature is present in some other Kia models and is very much missed here. Although the Soul is placed in the crossover category, this is no off-road machine.

The cheaper, 130bhp GDi petrol engine was a less impressive affair. While acceptable for city driving, it failed to impress in situations where rapid acceleration was required. It may be £1,600 more expensive, but we’d choose the diesel every time. This is helped by the diesel’s decent fuel consumption figures. Kia claims 56.5mpg for the 1.6-litre diesel with manual transmission, and just 41.5mpg for the 1.6-litre petrol. All of the diesel Souls with manual transmission occupy tax band E, while the automatic diesel and manual petrol engines are in bands H or G.

Kia Soul engines and emissions – CLICK TO ENLARGE

In terms of handling, the Kia Soul is fairly responsive and fun to drive on winding roads. It’s far from a sporty machine, but we were able to let our hair down by changing the steering mode from “comfort” to “sport”, which gives you a lot more high-speed control. For city driving, “normal” was our mode of choice with the steering remaining responsive but also allowing for the easy negotiation of tight bends and parking spots. This is also helped by the wide-angle, rear-facing camera which automatically activates when reverse gear is selected. There are no parking sensors on the Connect Plus, as these are reserved for more expensive trim levels.

The Soul was fairly quiet and comfortable at speed on bumpy country roads, with the seats providing good support.

The Soul’s centre console houses a number of high-tech features that we’ve come to expect from modern cars. These include USB, an auxiliary audio input and Bluetooth music functions as well as video playback. The 8-inch touch screen allows users to hone the computer system to their liking, although it isn’t particularly responsive and sometimes takes a couple of prods to successfully select an item. We wouldn’t recommend playing around with the touchscreen while driving.

The satnav system is, as you’d hope, good at navigation, although we had trouble adjusting the screen when driving. Attempting to zoom in or change the view point proved difficult and some of the buttons aren’t labelled clearly enough for our liking. The inclusion of 3D buildings for inner-city driving is a nice touch, though.

The presence of a DAB radio as well as the FM receiver is also a welcome addition, although we were initially unsure how to change the station. We’d have liked a slightly nippier, more responsive onboard computer, but it’s not a bad system.

While many of the onboard computer’s functions can be controlled with buttons on the steering wheel, a great deal of them can also be activated via voice control. However, we found the reliability of voice-prompted actions to be fairly patchy, with some commands requiring a second prompt for the computer to understand what we wanted to happen.

More expensive Mixx and Maxx Soul models will be available from July, and will cost around £21,550. An all-electric model is also in the works for the fourth quarter of 2014, with Kia claiming a 200 kilometre range on a single charge.

The 2014 Kia Soul is really worth a look if you can stomach the styling, especially once the company’s generous seven-year/100,000 mile warranty is taken into consideration. However, crucial figures such as its insurance group and NCAP safety rating are yet to emerge, and this will undoubtedly influence your buying decision.

With a fairly good diesel engine and a high-quality interior coupled with decent technology, the Kia Soul is a practical and stylish car. The Nissan Juke and Renault Captur are well established in the crossover category, but the Kia Soul is a good budget choice for younger drivers. The Juke may prove to be a more steadfast rival, however, as it provides similar value, better fuel economy and more fashionable styling that may appeal to a wider audience.