I’ve been researching and waiting for over a year to be sure I was making a good decision, and boy was it worth the wait.
I never would have considered one but I ran across it while searching for small cars for tall people, and someody mentioned them in a thread here about tall things.
I could not believe how much room there is for the driver. I can stretch my left leg ALL the way out and touch the firewall with my toes.
I had to change clothes in the car yesterday, and it was 2x easier than doing it in my 2006 Impala.
I never would guessed, based only on how it drives, that it only has a 4-cylinder engine in it.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.
I got one last year, and I love it. I drove a Saturn SL2 into the ground, and I just got used to the roomy-ness of the interior. The Soul is huge inside, and it’s smaller on the outside than my Saturn.
It’s got a fabulous turn radius, and it’s phenomenal in the snow. Good choice!
I’m a fan of those cars and I have no idea why because it’s not something I’d ever choose for myself. Kia reminds me of the kind of innovative car company that VW used to be 20 years ago.
Keep up with rotating the tires or the fronts will be bald within 25,000 miles. I know that’s good advice for any car, but the tires for the ! model seem particularly short-lived to the point that I was thinking about finding a set of wheels from a base model.
Other than that, I’ve been quite happy with mine for the past four years. Huge headroom and gobs of space. A Ren Faire acquaintance wants automakers to abandon describing cargo space in cubic feet and to say how many Rubbermaid totes it will hold. The last time we moved, I think I was able to fit fifteen of Uhaul’s “small” boxes (18x18x12" or so) in the car.
The only gripe I have with the body design is the “creases” on either side of the back. I haven’t found an automatic car wash that can clean those areas.
If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you may want to make your Soul a bit hornier. I added a generic “low tone” horn so instead of the default “beep 'scuse me” mine says “BEEP! Move!” If there was room, I’d have put in a four-horn set of Cadillac horns, but four Caddy horns are nearly as large as the entire engine.
Just make sure you keep it until you drive it into the ground. I don’t want to hear someday that you’ve sold your Soul.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week…hey, stop throwing things!
I got the “Kale Green”, which may or may not be the color of kale, but it’s pretty kickass. I’m not a bells-and-whistles guy when it comes to cars, so I went with the “+” package but didn’t upgrade anything else. The only thing I had to have was an automatic and the Eco package which is pretty much standard.
No, but your mother was. And your father smelt of elderberries!
I have heard some critical things about the 17" wheels as far as ride but hadn’t heard about the wear.
I did give the horn a short burst this morning, and was um…undershelmed
My Corolla has a very underwhelming horn, too - I’ve thought seriously about replacing it with something like a semi truck horn. Then people might not cut me off as often!
I got to ride in a Soul when my nephew came to visit. It was his rental unit. Roomy enough, certainly, and they’ve improved the exterior looks of the thing. I didn’t get a good chance to look at the interior fit and finish, however.
Congrats! It certainly is the most stylish of the utiliboxes. Every time I see a Nissan Cube I want to murder the 5 year old that drew it. I love cars but I have yet to see another design that outright infuriates me like that. I may have to check the Soul out, the last tiny car with huge legroom I had was my beloved CRX.
I went and tried out a Scion xB, which is supposed to be comparable. No room! Especially in the foot box. And bad visibilty.
I’m much more a fan of the new Soul design, but I’ll admit it took a while to grow on me once I started researching.
Oh, ANOTHER nice thing. In a lot of cars where the back seats fold down to make a cargo space, the seats won’t lay all the way down with the front seats adjusted all the way back. I had a Blazer like that. In my Soul, they lay down with no problem.
We always get compacts when renting cars on vacation. Got to rent a Soul last year and thought it was pretty great. I liked it better than all the other cars we’ve rented; Corolla, Golf, Mazda3, etc.
Plenty spacious, good acceleration, and nice handling.
If I was in the market for a compact it would be my first choice.
Bump to say that after 4 years I still love this car, and have had zero problems with it at 73,XXX miles.
Not only that, but my wife was in the market for a different car, and we just last week bought her a used 2017. Which she initially liked, loved after a couple days, and is now practically infatuated with.
Great cars, as far as I’m concerned. We do have 3 boys, so the temptation was there to get a minivan or suburban assault vehicle. But honestly, 95% of the time each car has 1 adult and 1 kid. And we don’t do many road trips. So we figured we’d get another sensible every day car and if it comes down to it, we’ll rent something if we all need to go somewhere and pack a bunch of stuff.
It is a little odd to look in the driveway and see two of the same car, albeit in different colors!
Great runabout with good mileage and room for, well I’ve had a dozen 2x4 studs, among other things carried home. The suspension sucks pig shit. It’s a 2013, bought in 2012. I ended up driving it to work when the Missus quit driving. Up the 5 freeway to Burbank. I just want to point out that, at that time, there were bombed out goat trails in Afghanistan that were in better shape than than the north 5. Hated it, but was too lazy to go car selling and shopping. The suspension was noisy and groany, and I actually got this mailing from an ambulance chasing style attorney with a lemon law practice telling me that the 2103 Soul was prone to this groaning and clunking, and that she might be able to help me out. Other guys I’ve talked to confirm the suspension issues. I wasn’t interested and, since I’ve retired and only go to the grocery store and the home improvement store, it’s the best car ever. But the suspension really sucks.
