Having said all that, I really like my Soul. It’s uglier than sin but it has a lot of features that I find useful like heated seats, blind spot monitoring, dual climate control, lumbar adjustment on the driver’s seat, rear intermittent wiper, and a damn good stereo, all for a lot less money than other comparable vehicles. It deceptively roomy inside and can haul a couple of teenagers comfortably plus a couple of week’s worth of groceries simultaneously, something my Civic could not do.
One thing to know if you’re buying new: most car manufactures have trim levels that build on the previous trim, so each trim gets you something new in addition to whatever was on the previous trim. Kia, at least the models I looked at, start with whatever their base model is and then branch off of that. So each trim level is a package of goodies that build off the base model that may or may not be found on their trims. For instance, I wanted heated seats and dual climate control as well as heated mirrors, but the heated mirrors were on one trim and the other features were on another trim, so I had to choose one or the other. Couldn’t have all of them the same car. I chose the heated seats and dual climate. My Soul is the GT line with tech package upgrade, which gave me the good stereo, heated seats, LED headlights, and a few other sparkly bits. For ~$26k no other car would give me the same features and functionality as well as a 100K mile warranty. The only thing I find lacking is AWD which no Soul has.
Edit: I liked my Civic, I really did. 6-speed manual, hugged curves like it was on rails, but no rear wiper, no heated seats or lumbar support… long drives got old fast. The Kia is comfortable and as I get older and fatter the creature comforts (as well as being able to easily get in and out of the car) outweigh the other factors. I didn’t realize how useful things like rear window wipers and lumbar adjustment are until I got a car that had them.
Given the choice to do it again I’d choose another Soul, same trim level. Maybe a different color though. Mine is a deep blue, and I really would’ve preferred white.
A thread I started 4 years ago about Kia Souls, which may or may not be of interest.