2023 Kia Soul Overview

What’s new?

  • New, darker architecture on the outside
  • The turbo engine is no longer being made.
  • Standard features now include lane departure warning and forward collision prevention.
  • The Soul’s third generation will come out in 2020.

Ten years ago, the market for small, boxy cars with hatchbacks was growing. If you wanted a unique but valuable box on wheels, you could choose the Scion xB, the Nissan Cube, the Kia Soul, or the bigger Honda Element, which is more like an SUV. There is only the Soul left, and because it was updated in 2023, it no longer has all of the quirky features that made it so cute.

The third-generation Kia Soul came out in 2020 with a sharper look, a simple interior with some unique design elements, and a long list of valuable features that come as standard. In some ways, the Kia Soul 2023 speeds up this change, while it slows it down in other ways. The new Soul no longer has the thin headlights that made it stand out. Instead, it has more significant, more traditional-looking lights. For 2019, the Soul no longer has the sporty GT-Line Turbo trim level or its turbocharged four-cylinder engine option.

Even with these changes, the Soul is still a cheap little car with many features and an extensive interior and trunk, thanks to its boxy shape. The Soul’s main rivals are subcompact SUVs like the Chevrolet Trailblazer, Hyundai Kona, and Mazda CX-30. This is because its cube-shaped rivals are no longer made.

Pros

  • Quite a few features for the price
  • It’s bigger than many other small SUVs.
  • Easy to understand

Cons

  • At highway speeds, the wind and road noise is too loud.
  • There is only one option for the engine.

Even though there are fewer model levels for the Kia Soul, the EX grade in the middle is still our favorite. It adds heated seats and high-quality cloth upholstery to the hatchback while keeping the price low.

Kia Soul variants

For 2023, Kia only offers five trim levels for the Soul hatchback: LX, S, EX, GT-Line, and GT-Line Tech. All versions have a 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine with an inline layout that makes 147 horsepower and 132 pound-feet of torque. Since the Soul doesn’t have all-wheel drive, its motor drives the front wheels through a transmission that constantly changes speed (CVT).

2023 Kia Soul Video Review

Invoice Pricing

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