Nobody who buys a Kia K4 is going to give a damn about how it drives, but if you’re a sicko like me (which I think you are), you’re still going to be curious. Well, it drives like room-temperature oatmeal. It’s fine, but it’s never going to light a fire in your belly. It’s not supposed to. Kia very clearly had zero sporting ambitions when it designed the K4. Maybe the turbocharged model is different, but I’ve only driven the naturally aspirated K4.
The engine is good enough, but equally uninspiring. It’s a little 2.0-liter inline-4 that puts out an adequate-at-best 147 horsepower and 132 pound-feet of torque. All of that power is routed through a continuously variable automatic transmission to both front wheels. Enthralling, I know. It’s still enough power to get this 2,987-pound sedan from zero to 60 mph in 8.6 seconds. That’s not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s enough to get you going on a highway on-ramp for sure.
Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik
The highway is really where the K4 excels since it’s very clearly set up for cruising rather than driving fun. In the corners, it’s very wallowy and soft, which really is what you want in a simple commuter car like this. It certainly doesn’t feel sloppy, but there’s not much engagement. Steering feel is pretty much the same story. You’re not getting much out of it, and you shouldn’t expect it, anyway. The CVT does a really good job of making the motor fall to the background, and it still has eight fake gears if you’re a weirdo who is into that sort of thing.
You’d think that little four-cylinder would be noisy on the highway, but the CVT and sound deadening in the cabin keep both engine and road noise in check. It feels like a far more expensive car in terms of refinement than it actually is, and the K4 certainly has a leg up on other class competitors like the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla and Nissan Sentra in that regard.
Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik
The highway is also where you can use the K4’s excellent adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist systems. Sure, this is one of the cheapest Kias you can buy, but the Korean automaker didn’t decontent its best piece of software for budget buyers, making those features standard on every trim. It’s little things like that which really set the K4 apart from everything else — even cars in higher classes.
You also get Hyundai’s excellent safety suite that comes with all of the assists, radar systems and alerts you could want out of a car that costs three or four times as much as this mid-level Kia. It’s meant to make driving more relaxing, just like the sound deadening that keeps the outside, well, outside.