2018 Kia Stinger Review

[MUSIC PLAYING] CARLOS LAGO: When you think of the brand Kia, your mind probably wanders to the idea of fuel efficient hatchbacks and value priced SUVs. But what if I told you they made an attractive rear drive and also fun to drive near premium sedan called the Stinger? It's that guy right there. [MUSIC PLAYING] Under the hood in front of us is 365 horsepower courtesy of a twin turbo V6, which goes through an automatic transmission to the rear wheels. You can get this car with all-wheel drive. But the one that we're driving right now only drives through the rear tires. And that should create some performance benefits when under handling, but we'll see how well it does putting that power to the ground in this acceleration test. Now the first thing we do in this situation is just turn the car on, let it warm up, leave it in the comfort settings, and mash the gas and see what kind of acceleration we're going to get. And that's what we'll do now. Three, two, one. Good acceleration once the turbos get on boost. Pulls good, and the high RPM's at high speed. [MUSIC PLAYING] That's solid performance for just the key-up settings without having to launch the vehicle at all. When you roll onto the gas pedal, there's a little bit of a delay as the turbochargers start getting boost. It's a hot day out too, so that's going to affect acceleration somewhat. Now this is not a straight up sports car, it's more of a sporty sedan. But it still feels good when you get on the gas pedal, especially once you're at speed. OK for run number two, I'm going to put the drive mode in sport. I'm going to hold this stability control button until it gets turned off completely. There we go. Then I'm going to hold the brake with my left foot, roll onto the gas with my right, let the engine speed build up, and then release the brake, and see if that can help improve acceleration. Let's go ahead and do that. Got launch control or something like that, I saw a display on the dash. [ENGINE ACCELERATION] And that does improve acceleration by a good amount to 60. [ENGINE ACCELERATION] And a fair amount to the quarter mile too, cut a couple of tenths off. It didn't really feel like traditional launch control. I just felt like I was just on the brake, and mashing the gas, and automatic transmission. But there was an improvement in acceleration. My number three, I'm going to leave it in sport mode and I'm going to stay on the gas a little bit longer while holding the brake. And see if that helps get us out of the hole quicker. Let's do that. It only lets it go to about 20 to 50 RPM, no more than that. And what's interesting, too, is I'm not hearing any wheel spin, no tires squealing. So I don't know if all wheel drive is going to help this thing and go faster in a straight line. [ENGINE ACCELERATION] A hundredth faster in the quarter mile there. So not a dramatic improvement, that could be rounding. [MUSIC PLAYING] The center point of this vehicle has to be this twin turbo 365 horsepower v-6. That's the first thing you notice when you hop inside and when you get on it, because it really packs a lot of power. [ENGINE ACCELERATION] More than that 365 horsepower figure might lead you to believe. And I think it's the way the power is delivered. It comes in so broadly from this turbocharged engine, and smoothly, too. And that really works well, because this is a big sedan. It still weighs 4,000 pounds, even in the rear wheel drive variant we have right here. And that power just needs to be able to motivate something of this size and of this mass around. And it does that, and it does it very well. When you get this thing on a freeway, when you lay into the gas pedal, it's going to feel as big and as powerful as you would hope a sporty style sedan would. The transmission does its job. There's a little bit of delay from the shift pedals, but that's something I never really get too worked up against, because this is not something I'm going to be chasing lap times with. This is something I'm going to be chasing a enjoyable experience while driving. This delivers that pretty well. We're on a pretty sticky Michelin tire, a Pilot Sport 4 on this test car. You can hear them protesting from the front as I push in a little bit too hard. And that seems to be the default handling characteristics from this vehicle. And it works out well. Now, listen, you can provoke slides. You have the power to do it. You have a limited slip with the v6 engine. And they're very controllable, easy to drive-through, because you have such quick steering, because you have a longer wheel base. It's something that's genuinely fun to throw around. That said, the stability control does come in pretty harshly and pretty quickly in its default setting. So I recommend putting the traction mode off or turning it off completely if you know what you're doing. Don't do that just willy-nilly, be safe. It's going to auto upshift even in the manual setting. I guess that's OK, because then I don't have to worry about trying to guess when it shifts or not. Now one area that this car has been faltering a little bit, on this test day specifically, is the braking. The numbers are good and the initial performance is good. But sustain hard braking is something that we've seen a little bit of degradation from. Not the end of the world, we've seen far worse on some sporting cars. Again, there's a little bit of that stability control intervention, which isn't too bad, I've got to admit. Into that corner too fast, wrong wind, you get some understeer. The handling on this is approachable, it is fun. It's a nice balance. Though, when you start pushing really, really, hard, you lack some of the more sophisticated elements you might find out of similarly priced sports cars. Sports sedans are few and far between at this price, but the sports cars at this price level give you a little bit more refined handling. The rear on this, when you're really on it, it has a little more movement there than you'd expect. The heave and hunch of the rear comes up a little bit short. The lateral stability comes away really nicely and progressively. The important thing about a sporty car is that it still gives you that sensation of sportiness, how nimble it makes the car feel when you're not in the right gear, when you're out of the power band. Do you still feel like you're in something special? And I've got to say from the response of the wheel, it does feel like that. And that's a nice feat. This thing has a lot going for it. It drives close to the way it looks, especially when you have the big power that this thing does. All in all, I'm a fan. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let's take a look at the interior of this thing. At first glance, it's a pretty impressive look. You have a really good initial sensation or feel for when you sit in this interior. And that's because this is the fully loaded highest option version of the car you can get. And that's why it costs close to $50,000. The quality of the materials is generally very strong, and that's what helps give the sort of refined appearance that you'd expect of a car that costs this much. I like the trim around the dash right here, although the design of the vents looks suspiciously familiar to what you might see in a Mercedes Benz. Still though, if you're going to borrow some ideas, you might as well borrow from really strong ones, right? Now the brightwork on the center console here and some of the trims around the rest of the car looks really good. It's not too flashy, it doesn't reflect the sun too much. But it provides a nice contrast with the amount of black that you see in this interior. Let's fire the car up. [ENGINE START] And it doesn't make too much drama when you turn on. It's a pretty subdued response. And that kind of meshes with the sort of near premium sportiness feeling this car is attempting to deliver. And I think it does it quite well. Overall, the interior is straight forward and close to what I might call elegant, maybe. I like the switches down here that control the heated and ventilated seats, the diode that controls the drive mode. It's really easy and feels good to switch back and forth. You can also customize how you want your sport drive mode to behave. And that's a, you know, nice thing I've got the active engine sound set to enhanced. It's how I like to drive. Now in front of us, we have a traditional gauge cluster, two analog gauges on the sides. In the middle, there's a digital display that can show you different information like your speedometer. And above that, we have a head up display that can relay some safety information navigation prompts, too. Generally, this interior is very strong, very nice looking. There's a couple of warts. The one that sticks out most prominently to me is the material they use in the center of the steering wheel. It stands out, because it just doesn't look as nice as everything else. And I wish that you had a different material or a higher quality looking material right here. This is a sedan, so we have to talk about backseats. The design of this car uses a roof line that slopes pretty aggressively. And that's what helps it look the way it does. It gives it that sporty, you know, high class look. And that means headroom is a little bit tight in the rear if you sit straight up. If you slouch, it should be fine for average height adults and for kids, no problem. I'd also say this touch screen right here takes a little bit of a reach to get to, and that's, you know, something you notice when you have your phone plugged in, and you're using Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. But the fact that you get those is really nice. And I'd much rather have that and a touch screen than have to use a rotary dial here to maneuver through those systems. But overall, I think generally anybody who buys this car is going to feel very happy with the way this looks and feels and operates. [MUSIC PLAYING] For the first outing with a car like this, Kia has built something pretty special with a powerful engine, a fun to drive chassis, and a nice approach to luxury in the interior as well. We're sure anybody who's looking for a family sedan is going to really enjoy driving this thing. If you like what you see, keep it tuned right here. And be sure to visit edmunds.com. [MUSIC PLAYING]