The Kia Soul: A Surprisingly Nice Car?

We're not mean to the Kia Soul, we love the Kia Soul, we think the Kia Soul is pretty good. It's just not a tiny SUV, it is the Kia version of the Scion xB which is not an SUV either. It is a not hot hatch, it's it's a hatchback that has a little bit more room for stuff and is a little taller. All the elements that make a tiny SUV in other words availability of all-wheel drive, higher ride height, all those things the soul does not fit that parameter.

That said, if you look at hey I need a small car that can do really well in urban environments, do I need a Honda HRV do I need a Chevy Tracks or can I get by with a Kia Soul? That's a pretty fair argument. You can think if you were sticking to the front drive versions of these tiny SUVs yeah the Kia Soul is a totally viable alternative. It's nicer than the IM uh that'd be tough, I like the soul the soul fits me really well I like sitting up high I like having the glass around me.

There are other cars that we seem to miss on the previous episode talking about tiny SUVs why was there no mention of the Nissan Juke or Subaru Crosstrek. The cross trek is essentially a smaller Forester or lifted hatchback which I feel fits this classic car better than any other offering and he has a point there about classic car but but the cross trek is in a different class, isn't it? Yeah, and we are splitting hairs between what makes a subcompact and what makes a compact and in this case we're talking fractions of inches uh the Juke and the cross trk are both just ever so slightly larger in certain Dimensions um well the the Juke is a bit smaller the cross trk is a bit bigger right.

And I mean to be honest, we just didn't mention it on the last episode because ran out, we ran out of time and you know there's only 20 minutes the cross trek though is a very good car. I mean it's a very practical car half size larger right and also so that sort of disqualifies it from that category based on size and the Juke while you can technically call it a subcompact crossover, I don't think its mission is that the cargo space interior volume isn't there although I got to say uh I moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles last two years ago and the amount of stuff that it swallowed was really surprising when you look at it from the outside, it says okay I can fit maybe a couple suitcases.

It swallowed an amazing amount I mean those giant blue Ikea bags I think it fit 12 of them and they were stuffed to the gills. And I'm just impressed, who doesn't like Swedish practicality? The Juke's also fun to drive, the the the 1.6 turbo has nice steering, it is it's entertaining there's a Nismo pack for there isn't yeah, I don't know we're not going to see a Honda Racing pack of the HRV HRV, the HRV Type R.

I'm some someone's going to do that, uh inverter 222 had some complaints about the pricing, that we talked about in the last episode because we said that our Honda HRV LX all-wheel drive was about 22 Grand. He points out the HRV LX is $19,100 and the EX Auto is $21,900 does Consumer Reports tell these guys how much these cost or do they repeat what Subaru tells them first of all, we are Consumer Reports so we are those guys second. That is the base price for a HRV with front drive with a six-speed manual without destination, Right add those things to it you get to $22,000 and and a couple options and and no destination is not negotiable.

No exactly it's like you you can't go to the factory and pick this thing up so people who leave destination out of discussions doesn't really make sense. Did you write that in all capital letters surprisingly not. You know I would have paid more attention to it, if it was in all caps but no, no don't do that that's right WR we encourage you to to write it all gaps that's going to wrap it up for this episode of talking cars we'll see you next time

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso what do the kids want these days in cars can thinks they have the answer with the new IIA and IM that's next on talking cars hi everybody Welcome to talking cars with Consumer Reports I'm Tom muchler I'm Mark Reon and welcome to the summer vacation people's kids are out with the flu uh people are stuck in meetings show with just the two of us yes just because there's two of us does not mean the show is any any less diminished we will have the full amount of content for you and uh it's going to be thrilling I can promise will be it will be awesome because we have a thrilling subject to talk about yes we do Canon cion I have to admit when you know behind us we have two newest San models we have the IIA and the IM and when they rolled these out at the New York auto show I was really not all that interested but these actually have an interesting story behind them and they're kind kind of interesting cars well they're they improvements from where cion was and we have to remember C is almost 15 years old now which is almost driving age wow I feel old yeah so s actually was the brainchild of a bunch of people within Toyota who realized that Toyota was getting much too old and that that they couldn't put a Toyota badge on something and say hey it's for the kids uh so they created an entire brand for it and actually the guy who ran what became Scion which was called The Genesis Project is a guy named Mark del raso who now COO of Audi of all things so but that's that's funny because has Canan really been a success well this is what the project was trying to figure out is how do you Market a car to the kids and only sell it to the kids and from that perspective they created sort of a bodal sales uh sales chart in terms of they they made affordable cars that didn't feel completely cheap but that were also really easy for storage and stuff which also made them really attractive to senior citizens so you had this great arch of kids who wanted the vehicle because it was affordable and it held all their stuff and then you had this second one of 60 and 70 year olds because it was easy to get into and it was cheap but I mean the car that defined can was was the XB I me the little box on Wheels right and that was an interesting choice um and for a long time there were a lot of Toyota people uh that said no don't do it it's too controversial and then finally they decided they would do it precisely because it was controversial if there was ever going to be a car that broke the mold that was Toyota it would be that one I mean they were looking at a lot of really unusual cars that will'll never see here there's one I can't remember it's a code name in Japan but it's basically shaped like a pumpkin and they or or a robotic pumpkin if you can imagine that robotic pumpkin a robotic pumpkin and uh they decided against that one but they did bring the box and the Box did really really well it they they thought it was going to be a little niche product and instead it was the volume leader for the first 3 years sure then what happened was it came time for the second round of products and everybody knows anybody who's been to NBA School knows the sophomore challeng is much harder than the original Innovation and what they found was that they took it off its cute little platform and they Americanized it they made it bigger no it became I mean it became it was quieter it rode better but you know it was getting like 22 or 23 mes per gallon in our test which is was ludicrous for a four cylinder with not a lot of power yes and they sort of kind of lost their way with that and and the entry-level car never really did all that great the X the XA and the XD were really I mean Yus based kind of second thoughts the second generation box was more more Corolla based okay uh the XB was the original XB was not based on that oh it was based on a Japanese platform that was actually borrowed I think from dhatu oh okay but XA and XD were always Ys weren't they the the really basic yes the basic ones were were from from yarus although there's a Japanese platform that also shares with yarus they were having uh the XA I think was subb built by a dhatu subsidiary and shipped over it was very complicated uh and we're actually getting away from from the most fun car that can built in in the in the initial uh realm which was the TC the one was a proper Coupe it was based on a European platform it had great Dynamics and and it it did really well for the brand I think there was a report once that said the most ticketed driver drives a Scion tC now that may be demographic well no but I mean yeah in the end the TC we weren't recommending it in the last generation because it had horrible crash test results uh the the in the um Insurance the Hildy data the highway loss data Institute data was horrible for it because the demographics were just we're talking about the second gen now we're talking about the first gen first gen now the second gen like you said had the same sophomore slump yes yes it became bigger you know it looked it looked sporty but it really wasn't anything sporty to drive did not make the promise but Canan has almost clean swept everything the XP is gone us to those you've got the TC remaining you have the F FRS remaining which is great fun right but the drift drift King of the cheap compact car segment but these and the TC are going to be the volume the volume of leaders yes so how how's the I how's the IIA okay the IM that guy yes since there is no box anymore that's going to have to sort of fill that area and Toyota did something really cool in that they realized that hot hatches are still kind of a thing and because you don't see there's no Honda Civic hatchback anymore yeah there's a Mazda 3 yeah there's a golf there's an Elantra too which is kind of a lousy yeah yeah that didn't work no um and as far as a proper boxy hatchback that pretty much fills the build the cool thing is they didn't borrow some clunky made for America Toyota generic machine underneath they didn't just make it a Corolla and put a box on it this is from the uh European market um orus okay is it orus I think it's horse okay uh and uh the cool thing is normally Toyota goes for the the uh efficient shall we say because we don't want to say cheap uh the efficient way out and uh practical yes and so that means mcf and struts at the corners and things like that this has a double Wishbone rear suspension which really helps when you're exiting Corners it it gives you that extra little feeling like you actually know what you're doing when you clip that Apex just right well that's the thing that amazed me about the IM is I was more than ready to dismiss this as a Corolla hatchback and I think most of us here at the track were ready to dismiss this as a Corolla hatchback but Gabe actually paid that the ultimate Gabe compliment which he said that it reminded him of a last generation in Volkswagen Golf and it does the car is Fun the car is enjoyable to drive yes you know and also you know you're in this world of when you when you have only $220,000 to spend it's a practical you know it's it's it's there's some sacrifices you know you're not getting anything that's really fun or appealing I find the IM to be very appealing yeah I in fact I would put it I mean we don't know what his reliability is yet but in terms of the fund a drive quoti for $20,000 it's way up there I mean yeah there's Mazda 3 also and yeah there's a golf but those are really tough to get in under 20 grand yeah you're not going to touch a four-door golf under 20 grand uh you I don't even know if you can touch a a hatchback um Mazda 3 for under 20 grand it's real tight yeah and so yes this is this this will just get in under 20 and yeah there's some sacrifices I mean the interior I guess if you're a fan of the piano black finish you'll like it well I mean it it reminds me of the' 70s period of Japanese car design with the round Vents and the Very sort of prominent Dash it feels old school in a way fine yeah and they sort of the Tweed of you know the the sort of Herring bone seat cloth but I mean you're getting a welle equipped car including navigation uh and the CVT for $20,000 okay we got to talk about the CV oh you going to R you're going to rant on the CVT the okay if you have a if you have a car and you want to say it's sporty and even give it a half decent engine and then you saddle it with a CVT which in in this car that bad is it that bad in this car if you drive it in manual mode and it emulates shift points it works okay it's like instant shifts and that works but the problem is when you leave it an automatic and say you're going on a freeway onramp and it does that CBT drone and then you finally get to speed and you let your foot off the gas you can almost hear the disappointment in the car itself that the engine room go it's just but but it's done it sounds like it's disappointed in itself it sounds like it's disappointed in your decision to buy the car and it's just wow so unfair I mean they they didn't have to have to put a CVT in it but they're going to because it's economies of scale they're going to use basically it probably got them an extra 1.035 miles per gallon over a traditional step transmission and it may have a you know maybe it was cheaper to put it in there yeah all I know is that it just as far as the driving and Joint car it just that's punes it around town I can handle this fight winding back roads I can handle this fight you're right the highway onramp I had the car over the weekend merge on the onramp my wife kind of looks she hears the same thing you describe she's like really really I'm like yeah okay that's fair but you can get a stick yes so and and the funny thing is the CVT has the old style fake leather but it looks like a leather uh boot around the bottom of the shift of the gear well but it's for a CVT so it gives the illusion that you're driving a stick shift when it has the least stick Shifty like emulation of anything yeah it's it's the looks now the the IIA yes is a different proposition yes and it's um we we had a little test which was pop the hood and see how quickly we could see something stamped with the Mazda logo because that's what it isda San and you pop the hood and there's a giant Toyota valve cover but then you look down and there's all these little stickers all over the hoses and Vents and everything that have the Mazda whale uh whale fluke uh design I don't know what else do you call it I think it's a stylized M it is but when you look at that so whale fluke it's a whale fluke it's waving at you it's waving bye-byes um so it's but this car is all Mazda and I mean you know the interior the dashboard looks straight from the cx3 which is derived from the Mazda 2 which is a good thing yeah no it is a good thing uh you the infotainment system straight out of Mazda you will not find that on any other Toyota any other San product but also the driving Dynamics are straight from Mazda and that's a very good thing because previously this would have been based on a yarus please please please elucidate about the Excellence of the yarus see the thing is is that Toyota for all of for all the brilliant of our Toyota corporate overlords you know people want to think the the Yus is a dire excuse of an automobile um it is eminently practical it it is so reliable the Yus is like the automotive world's cockroach okay you cannot kill it but you do not want to live with it you don't you don't want to be seen with it no you don't and and I mean that's the thing Toyota kind of phones it in when it comes to small cars so they outsourced they went to Mazda and in fact you know it's funny because the S lineup right now there's a lot of Outsourcing going on you know you've got this this Mazda based IIA you have the Subaru collaborated um they argue over who did it the F FRS yeah t the TC is theirs and the IM is theirs but but you know it's well it's Toyota Europe Yeah well yeah and over it's this Clearing House of of of mixing stuff up the IIA that we have for $116,000 I mean it you know it has navigation there are no options because Canan is a build- it oneway car company you can add accessories because that's part of the San business model is that they want you to add dealer installed accessories I mean I don't think I could beat that for $16,500 it's pretty tricky I mean there's there's a couple at the lower end of the Hyundai food chain that accent K Rio yeah I don't know if you get that for 16 and as far as how this is done versus the other small cars this may be a better Mazda 2 than the Mazda 2 because C always spent a couple hundred extra bucks in terms of sound dampening and things like that that I mean we have not been in the new Mazda 2 yet because it's not for sale not here right and the cx3 is a more premium product so they're going to add deadening to that so so if you look at this versus say a Honda Fit which has a lot of interior noise this is quieter I will not call this quiet but this is quieter also uh when you only have I think this has like 103 it has not a lot horsepower so you are you are rowing that stick shift which is fine because it's a Mazda stick shift so it's it's a very good stick shift the steering is spot on I almost liken this to a Miata no oh come on no no in a first generation underpowered why not no I it's not the Miata of small cars why not because that's unfair to the Miata um the Miata the Miata self the Miata will be okay I won't hurt the miata's feelings no the the Miata will not be okay it will take it very personally um and and I've never owned a Miata but I've driven every version of it and uh especially when you look at how they do sort of elegant interpretations of the roster design the fact that even with the new most current generation they actually didn't bloat it further out they didn't engage in segment Creek made it smaller lighter Qui be fair okay it is more enjoyable than anything else I'm really going to buy for this price it is more fun to drive than a Kia Rio it is more fun to drive than a Hyundai ACC and it is more fun to drive than a Chevy Sonic and it's and Honda Fit well the new fit they've they've watered down the steering feel they continuously water down the steering feel in Hondas so it doesn't have that same Nimble feel that the first and and to some extent the second generation had so for all those people out there who love to say the consumer reports we're just in the pocket of Honda and Toyota we've just spent the last 15 minutes just absolutely shredding them so if there's any doubts out there uh I think we can kind of put them to bed right okay well don't worry because we can always go to the YouTube comments where people will will mention DS so or or the reader comments right here there we go uh so going back to the last episode we talked about tiny SUVs yes uh we got the question reading the reviews of all compact SUVs in virtually every magazine and website including years no one ever includes the Kia Soul why and if you see it as a viable option in this segment how would you rank it among the HRV Renegade cx3 and tracks why are we so mean to the Kia of Soul we're not mean to the Kia Soul we love the Kia Soul we think the Kia Soul is pretty good it's just not a tiny SUV it is the Kia version of the Scion xB which is not an SUV either it is a not hot hatch it's it's a hatchback that has a little bit more room for stuff and is a little taller but all the elements that make a tiny SUV in other words availability of all-wheel drive higher ride height all those things the sole does not fit that parameter that said if you look at hey I need a small car that can do really well in urban environments do I need a Honda HRV do I need a Chevy tracks or can I get by with a Kia Soul that's a pretty fair argument you can I think if you were if you were sticking to the front drive versions of these tiny SUVs yeah the Kia Soul is a totally viable alternative and it's in how I would compare to those it's nicer the Kia Soul is a really surprisingly nice car and it's probably what I would buy if I had only $20,000 to spend on a car more than more so than the IM uh that'd be tough I like the soul the soul fits me really well I like sitting up high I like having the glass around me there's other cars that we seem to miss on the previous episode uh talking about tiny SUVs why was there no mention of the Nissan Juke or Subaru cross Trek the cross Trek is essentially a smaller Forester or lifted hatchback which I feel fits this classic car better than any other offering and he has a point there about classic car but but the cross Trek is in a different class isn't it yeah and we are splitting hairs between what makes a subcompact and what makes a compact and in this case we're talking fractions of inches uh the Juke and the cross trk are both just ever so slightly larger in certain Dimensions um well the the Juke is a bit smaller the cross trk is a bit bigger right and I mean to be honest we just didn't mention it on the last episode because ran out we ran out of time and you know there's only 20 so minutes the cross Trek though is a very good car I mean it's a very practic car half size larger right and and also so that sort of disqualifies it from that category based on size and the Juke while you can technically call it a subcompact crossover I don't think its mission is that the cargo space interior volume isn't there although I got to say uh I moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles last two years ago and the amount of stuff that it swallowed was really surprising when you look and that's kind of a you couldn't have borrowed anything bigger no they needed the miles on the car okay um and and the idea of how much how much stuff you can fit when you look at it from the outside it says okay I can fit maybe a couple suitcases it swallowed an amazing amount I mean those giant blue Ikea bags I think it fit 12 of them and they were stuffed to the gills W I'm just impressed you had 12 giant blue Ikea bags I I like my Swedish practicality who doesn't I mean the juke's also fun to drve the the the 1.6 turbo it has nice steering it it is it's entertaining there's a Nismo pack for there isn't yeah I don't know we're not we're not going to see a Honda Racing pack of the HRV HR the HRV Type R I'm some some someone's going okay H product planners challenge accepted someone's going to do that uh inverter 222 had some complaints about the pricing uh that we talked about in the last episode because we said that our Honda HRV LX all-wheel drive was about 22 Grand he points out the HRV LX is 191,000 the ex Auto is 21,900 does Consumer Reports tell these guys how much these cost or do they repeat what Subaru tells them first of all we are Consumer Reports so we are those guys second that is the base price for a HRV with front drive with a six-speed manual without destination Right add those things to it you get to $22,000 and and a couple options and and no destination is not negotiable no exactly it's like you you can't go to the factory and pick this thing up so people who leave destination out of discussions doesn't really make sense did you write that in all capital letters surprisingly not you know I would I would have paid more attention to it I think if it was in all caps but no no don't do that that's right WR we I encourage you to to write it all gaps that's going to wrap it up for this episode of talking cars we'll see you next timeso what do the kids want these days in cars can thinks they have the answer with the new IIA and IM that's next on talking cars hi everybody Welcome to talking cars with Consumer Reports I'm Tom muchler I'm Mark Reon and welcome to the summer vacation people's kids are out with the flu uh people are stuck in meetings show with just the two of us yes just because there's two of us does not mean the show is any any less diminished we will have the full amount of content for you and uh it's going to be thrilling I can promise will be it will be awesome because we have a thrilling subject to talk about yes we do Canon cion I have to admit when you know behind us we have two newest San models we have the IIA and the IM and when they rolled these out at the New York auto show I was really not all that interested but these actually have an interesting story behind them and they're kind kind of interesting cars well they're they improvements from where cion was and we have to remember C is almost 15 years old now which is almost driving age wow I feel old yeah so s actually was the brainchild of a bunch of people within Toyota who realized that Toyota was getting much too old and that that they couldn't put a Toyota badge on something and say hey it's for the kids uh so they created an entire brand for it and actually the guy who ran what became Scion which was called The Genesis Project is a guy named Mark del raso who now COO of Audi of all things so but that's that's funny because has Canan really been a success well this is what the project was trying to figure out is how do you Market a car to the kids and only sell it to the kids and from that perspective they created sort of a bodal sales uh sales chart in terms of they they made affordable cars that didn't feel completely cheap but that were also really easy for storage and stuff which also made them really attractive to senior citizens so you had this great arch of kids who wanted the vehicle because it was affordable and it held all their stuff and then you had this second one of 60 and 70 year olds because it was easy to get into and it was cheap but I mean the car that defined can was was the XB I me the little box on Wheels right and that was an interesting choice um and for a long time there were a lot of Toyota people uh that said no don't do it it's too controversial and then finally they decided they would do it precisely because it was controversial if there was ever going to be a car that broke the mold that was Toyota it would be that one I mean they were looking at a lot of really unusual cars that will'll never see here there's one I can't remember it's a code name in Japan but it's basically shaped like a pumpkin and they or or a robotic pumpkin if you can imagine that robotic pumpkin a robotic pumpkin and uh they decided against that one but they did bring the box and the Box did really really well it they they thought it was going to be a little niche product and instead it was the volume leader for the first 3 years sure then what happened was it came time for the second round of products and everybody knows anybody who's been to NBA School knows the sophomore challeng is much harder than the original Innovation and what they found was that they took it off its cute little platform and they Americanized it they made it bigger no it became I mean it became it was quieter it rode better but you know it was getting like 22 or 23 mes per gallon in our test which is was ludicrous for a four cylinder with not a lot of power yes and they sort of kind of lost their way with that and and the entry-level car never really did all that great the X the XA and the XD were really I mean Yus based kind of second thoughts the second generation box was more more Corolla based okay uh the XB was the original XB was not based on that oh it was based on a Japanese platform that was actually borrowed I think from dhatu oh okay but XA and XD were always Ys weren't they the the really basic yes the basic ones were were from from yarus although there's a Japanese platform that also shares with yarus they were having uh the XA I think was subb built by a dhatu subsidiary and shipped over it was very complicated uh and we're actually getting away from from the most fun car that can built in in the in the initial uh realm which was the TC the one was a proper Coupe it was based on a European platform it had great Dynamics and and it it did really well for the brand I think there was a report once that said the most ticketed driver drives a Scion tC now that may be demographic well no but I mean yeah in the end the TC we weren't recommending it in the last generation because it had horrible crash test results uh the the in the um Insurance the Hildy data the highway loss data Institute data was horrible for it because the demographics were just we're talking about the second gen now we're talking about the first gen first gen now the second gen like you said had the same sophomore slump yes yes it became bigger you know it looked it looked sporty but it really wasn't anything sporty to drive did not make the promise but Canan has almost clean swept everything the XP is gone us to those you've got the TC remaining you have the F FRS remaining which is great fun right but the drift drift King of the cheap compact car segment but these and the TC are going to be the volume the volume of leaders yes so how how's the I how's the IIA okay the IM that guy yes since there is no box anymore that's going to have to sort of fill that area and Toyota did something really cool in that they realized that hot hatches are still kind of a thing and because you don't see there's no Honda Civic hatchback anymore yeah there's a Mazda 3 yeah there's a golf there's an Elantra too which is kind of a lousy yeah yeah that didn't work no um and as far as a proper boxy hatchback that pretty much fills the build the cool thing is they didn't borrow some clunky made for America Toyota generic machine underneath they didn't just make it a Corolla and put a box on it this is from the uh European market um orus okay is it orus I think it's horse okay uh and uh the cool thing is normally Toyota goes for the the uh efficient shall we say because we don't want to say cheap uh the efficient way out and uh practical yes and so that means mcf and struts at the corners and things like that this has a double Wishbone rear suspension which really helps when you're exiting Corners it it gives you that extra little feeling like you actually know what you're doing when you clip that Apex just right well that's the thing that amazed me about the IM is I was more than ready to dismiss this as a Corolla hatchback and I think most of us here at the track were ready to dismiss this as a Corolla hatchback but Gabe actually paid that the ultimate Gabe compliment which he said that it reminded him of a last generation in Volkswagen Golf and it does the car is Fun the car is enjoyable to drive yes you know and also you know you're in this world of when you when you have only $220,000 to spend it's a practical you know it's it's it's there's some sacrifices you know you're not getting anything that's really fun or appealing I find the IM to be very appealing yeah I in fact I would put it I mean we don't know what his reliability is yet but in terms of the fund a drive quoti for $20,000 it's way up there I mean yeah there's Mazda 3 also and yeah there's a golf but those are really tough to get in under 20 grand yeah you're not going to touch a four-door golf under 20 grand uh you I don't even know if you can touch a a hatchback um Mazda 3 for under 20 grand it's real tight yeah and so yes this is this this will just get in under 20 and yeah there's some sacrifices I mean the interior I guess if you're a fan of the piano black finish you'll like it well I mean it it reminds me of the' 70s period of Japanese car design with the round Vents and the Very sort of prominent Dash it feels old school in a way fine yeah and they sort of the Tweed of you know the the sort of Herring bone seat cloth but I mean you're getting a welle equipped car including navigation uh and the CVT for $20,000 okay we got to talk about the CV oh you going to R you're going to rant on the CVT the okay if you have a if you have a car and you want to say it's sporty and even give it a half decent engine and then you saddle it with a CVT which in in this car that bad is it that bad in this car if you drive it in manual mode and it emulates shift points it works okay it's like instant shifts and that works but the problem is when you leave it an automatic and say you're going on a freeway onramp and it does that CBT drone and then you finally get to speed and you let your foot off the gas you can almost hear the disappointment in the car itself that the engine room go it's just but but it's done it sounds like it's disappointed in itself it sounds like it's disappointed in your decision to buy the car and it's just wow so unfair I mean they they didn't have to have to put a CVT in it but they're going to because it's economies of scale they're going to use basically it probably got them an extra 1.035 miles per gallon over a traditional step transmission and it may have a you know maybe it was cheaper to put it in there yeah all I know is that it just as far as the driving and Joint car it just that's punes it around town I can handle this fight winding back roads I can handle this fight you're right the highway onramp I had the car over the weekend merge on the onramp my wife kind of looks she hears the same thing you describe she's like really really I'm like yeah okay that's fair but you can get a stick yes so and and the funny thing is the CVT has the old style fake leather but it looks like a leather uh boot around the bottom of the shift of the gear well but it's for a CVT so it gives the illusion that you're driving a stick shift when it has the least stick Shifty like emulation of anything yeah it's it's the looks now the the IIA yes is a different proposition yes and it's um we we had a little test which was pop the hood and see how quickly we could see something stamped with the Mazda logo because that's what it isda San and you pop the hood and there's a giant Toyota valve cover but then you look down and there's all these little stickers all over the hoses and Vents and everything that have the Mazda whale uh whale fluke uh design I don't know what else do you call it I think it's a stylized M it is but when you look at that so whale fluke it's a whale fluke it's waving at you it's waving bye-byes um so it's but this car is all Mazda and I mean you know the interior the dashboard looks straight from the cx3 which is derived from the Mazda 2 which is a good thing yeah no it is a good thing uh you the infotainment system straight out of Mazda you will not find that on any other Toyota any other San product but also the driving Dynamics are straight from Mazda and that's a very good thing because previously this would have been based on a yarus please please please elucidate about the Excellence of the yarus see the thing is is that Toyota for all of for all the brilliant of our Toyota corporate overlords you know people want to think the the Yus is a dire excuse of an automobile um it is eminently practical it it is so reliable the Yus is like the automotive world's cockroach okay you cannot kill it but you do not want to live with it you don't you don't want to be seen with it no you don't and and I mean that's the thing Toyota kind of phones it in when it comes to small cars so they outsourced they went to Mazda and in fact you know it's funny because the S lineup right now there's a lot of Outsourcing going on you know you've got this this Mazda based IIA you have the Subaru collaborated um they argue over who did it the F FRS yeah t the TC is theirs and the IM is theirs but but you know it's well it's Toyota Europe Yeah well yeah and over it's this Clearing House of of of mixing stuff up the IIA that we have for $116,000 I mean it you know it has navigation there are no options because Canan is a build- it oneway car company you can add accessories because that's part of the San business model is that they want you to add dealer installed accessories I mean I don't think I could beat that for $16,500 it's pretty tricky I mean there's there's a couple at the lower end of the Hyundai food chain that accent K Rio yeah I don't know if you get that for 16 and as far as how this is done versus the other small cars this may be a better Mazda 2 than the Mazda 2 because C always spent a couple hundred extra bucks in terms of sound dampening and things like that that I mean we have not been in the new Mazda 2 yet because it's not for sale not here right and the cx3 is a more premium product so they're going to add deadening to that so so if you look at this versus say a Honda Fit which has a lot of interior noise this is quieter I will not call this quiet but this is quieter also uh when you only have I think this has like 103 it has not a lot horsepower so you are you are rowing that stick shift which is fine because it's a Mazda stick shift so it's it's a very good stick shift the steering is spot on I almost liken this to a Miata no oh come on no no in a first generation underpowered why not no I it's not the Miata of small cars why not because that's unfair to the Miata um the Miata the Miata self the Miata will be okay I won't hurt the miata's feelings no the the Miata will not be okay it will take it very personally um and and I've never owned a Miata but I've driven every version of it and uh especially when you look at how they do sort of elegant interpretations of the roster design the fact that even with the new most current generation they actually didn't bloat it further out they didn't engage in segment Creek made it smaller lighter Qui be fair okay it is more enjoyable than anything else I'm really going to buy for this price it is more fun to drive than a Kia Rio it is more fun to drive than a Hyundai ACC and it is more fun to drive than a Chevy Sonic and it's and Honda Fit well the new fit they've they've watered down the steering feel they continuously water down the steering feel in Hondas so it doesn't have that same Nimble feel that the first and and to some extent the second generation had so for all those people out there who love to say the consumer reports we're just in the pocket of Honda and Toyota we've just spent the last 15 minutes just absolutely shredding them so if there's any doubts out there uh I think we can kind of put them to bed right okay well don't worry because we can always go to the YouTube comments where people will will mention DS so or or the reader comments right here there we go uh so going back to the last episode we talked about tiny SUVs yes uh we got the question reading the reviews of all compact SUVs in virtually every magazine and website including years no one ever includes the Kia Soul why and if you see it as a viable option in this segment how would you rank it among the HRV Renegade cx3 and tracks why are we so mean to the Kia of Soul we're not mean to the Kia Soul we love the Kia Soul we think the Kia Soul is pretty good it's just not a tiny SUV it is the Kia version of the Scion xB which is not an SUV either it is a not hot hatch it's it's a hatchback that has a little bit more room for stuff and is a little taller but all the elements that make a tiny SUV in other words availability of all-wheel drive higher ride height all those things the sole does not fit that parameter that said if you look at hey I need a small car that can do really well in urban environments do I need a Honda HRV do I need a Chevy tracks or can I get by with a Kia Soul that's a pretty fair argument you can I think if you were if you were sticking to the front drive versions of these tiny SUVs yeah the Kia Soul is a totally viable alternative and it's in how I would compare to those it's nicer the Kia Soul is a really surprisingly nice car and it's probably what I would buy if I had only $20,000 to spend on a car more than more so than the IM uh that'd be tough I like the soul the soul fits me really well I like sitting up high I like having the glass around me there's other cars that we seem to miss on the previous episode uh talking about tiny SUVs why was there no mention of the Nissan Juke or Subaru cross Trek the cross Trek is essentially a smaller Forester or lifted hatchback which I feel fits this classic car better than any other offering and he has a point there about classic car but but the cross Trek is in a different class isn't it yeah and we are splitting hairs between what makes a subcompact and what makes a compact and in this case we're talking fractions of inches uh the Juke and the cross trk are both just ever so slightly larger in certain Dimensions um well the the Juke is a bit smaller the cross trk is a bit bigger right and I mean to be honest we just didn't mention it on the last episode because ran out we ran out of time and you know there's only 20 so minutes the cross Trek though is a very good car I mean it's a very practic car half size larger right and and also so that sort of disqualifies it from that category based on size and the Juke while you can technically call it a subcompact crossover I don't think its mission is that the cargo space interior volume isn't there although I got to say uh I moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles last two years ago and the amount of stuff that it swallowed was really surprising when you look and that's kind of a you couldn't have borrowed anything bigger no they needed the miles on the car okay um and and the idea of how much how much stuff you can fit when you look at it from the outside it says okay I can fit maybe a couple suitcases it swallowed an amazing amount I mean those giant blue Ikea bags I think it fit 12 of them and they were stuffed to the gills W I'm just impressed you had 12 giant blue Ikea bags I I like my Swedish practicality who doesn't I mean the juke's also fun to drve the the the 1.6 turbo it has nice steering it it is it's entertaining there's a Nismo pack for there isn't yeah I don't know we're not we're not going to see a Honda Racing pack of the HRV HR the HRV Type R I'm some some someone's going okay H product planners challenge accepted someone's going to do that uh inverter 222 had some complaints about the pricing uh that we talked about in the last episode because we said that our Honda HRV LX all-wheel drive was about 22 Grand he points out the HRV LX is 191,000 the ex Auto is 21,900 does Consumer Reports tell these guys how much these cost or do they repeat what Subaru tells them first of all we are Consumer Reports so we are those guys second that is the base price for a HRV with front drive with a six-speed manual without destination Right add those things to it you get to $22,000 and and a couple options and and no destination is not negotiable no exactly it's like you you can't go to the factory and pick this thing up so people who leave destination out of discussions doesn't really make sense did you write that in all capital letters surprisingly not you know I would I would have paid more attention to it I think if it was in all caps but no no don't do that that's right WR we I encourage you to to write it all gaps that's going to wrap it up for this episode of talking cars we'll see you next time\n"