2010 Kia Soul Exclaim Car Review

2010 Kia Soul Review Brian Cooley: It's one of those hip little cars that makes an impression, permits Scion like lines to its hounds tooth check upholstery even its name is an exclamation mark. Let's get into the 2010 Kia Soul Exclaim and check the tech. Now, the Soul is not a big store house of tech toys. There's no navigation available on this guy. Where the display might go you get well, a storage bin. However, we have a couple of interesting features at this Exclaim trim level. I do have iPod connectivity, in fact, it's even iPhone connectivity and this is all standard. This is not part of anything in a package or an option. This is what comes on the Exclaim. AM/FM radio, no HD radio though, the CD Aux button here takes us to either the auxiliary connective device which in this case is our iPod or to our CD which is our single slot up here and SAT radio would be Sirius satellite radio. Notice the display's pretty good on all of this. It's a simple LCD with the red on black look but there's a fairly good amount of information rammed in there. You can tell by the Bluetooth logo right here that we have Bluetooth hands-free. Again, that is standard on the Exclaim trim level and in terms of your audio settings, this is an upgraded system but it's not surround sound or anything like that so you've got balance, fader, bass, middle and treble. The wild thing about those speakers is not how you can make them sound but how you can make them look. Seriously, these are called Speaker Lights and no, I don't get them either. You've got a control down here which I think gets entirely too much real estate for such a stupid feature but here it is. Now, this is certainly the damnedest thing you'll ever see on a modern car audio system but you know you'll play with it. Now, there are 8 of those speakers around the cabin. They aren't all lit up, of course. You've got these dash facing tweeters for example they brag about a lot. There's a sub in the car, 315 watts of power behind all of this rig. Now, of course as I mentioned, Bluetooth is standard on this car. Interestingly it transfers your phonebook by default into the head unit when you pair a phone. That's kind of an advanced feature but doesn't let you see the phonebook anywhere on the screen. So how do you use it? With voice recognition, watch this. Dial Brian Cooley. Female: On which number do you want to call Brian Cooley? At home, at work, on mobile? Brian Cooley: On mobile. Female: Calling Brian Cooley: Well I'll be dammed. Now we have the optional transmission which I wouldn't recommend. It's a 4-speed automatic, something they got from the 1950's. I would definitely go for the manual gear box. It's a 5 speed on this car. Now here in lies the heart of the beast. On a base Soul you get a crummy little 1.6 liter inline 4 but on all the other trim levels including our Exclaim we get this 2-liter inline 4. It's a very basic motor kind of the way we used to make them, not drive by a wire. It's good old drive by cable good old Soviet aero technology up here but it all works just fine, 142 horsepower, 137 foot pounds of torque. The mileage is a pretty darn good 24 city 30 highway. Zero to 60, eventually. The shape of the Soul is definitely well penned. You may not like this kind of car but you can't say they didn't do this kind of car well. Does the world need another Scion look alike? Well, for Kia anything hipper is a good direction. The Soul is a 2- row vehicle with a pretty good cargo bay in the back. And the seats fold down rather quickly to a nearly flat load floor. In general driving a Soul is fun and an enjoyable experience. Just get a running start if you're tackling one of San Francisco's steeper hills. This Kia Soul Exclaim is about $16,950.00. You can almost spend that much on options on that guy, but that's another story. The only option here really is the automatic transmission which I'd skip for $950.00.