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The all-new Kia K4 is here, but it has a couple of major flaws that we couldn't get our heads around. Paul Maric does a detailed review on the latest model from Kia, which replaces the Cerato in Australia. This one is the 2025 Kia K4 GT-Line.

Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE

Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:12
Interior: 03:08
Infotainment: 04:48
Safety tech: 06:24
Practicality: 07:11
On the Road: 09:49
Self driving tech: 19:40
Acceleration & Braking: 20:59
Verdict: 22:38

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#kia #k4 #review

Category

🚗
Motor
Transcript
00:00Tow room, not very good at all. Sort of very cramped under there. Headroom is surprisingly
00:04bad as well. Like, my head is on the roof. Let's see what that feels like in practice.
00:09Give that a kick. Yeah, nice. If you've got a little push in the back, like, it's really
00:14quite a healthy little thump that you get there. G'day, I'm Paul. Kia has launched a
00:20car in Australia with a completely different name you've probably never heard of. It is
00:23called the Kia K4, and it replaces the Serato. So, we haven't had the K4 in Australia before.
00:31We've only had the Serato, but this is a completely rehashed car. So, it's longer, it's wider,
00:37it sits on a different platform to the outgoing Serato, which means they've been able to add
00:41stack of new technology to it. That also means it's more expensive. It's grown in price considerably.
00:46So, this one here is the top-spec GT line. This one's priced at just under $43,000. If that is
00:52too expensive, the entire range kicks off at not much over $30,000. So, there is a fair bit of
00:57variety in that range to pick from. Today, we're going to do a detailed review of this car. So,
01:02if you want to skip ahead to other parts of the review, you can use the time codes. If you're on
01:06YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe
01:10to the channel and press the bell icon. Now, design, what do we reckon? I love this blue colour. It
01:15really does stand out. It's not overly offensive, and it really just catches your eye when you're driving
01:19around the place. This is now built in Mexico. So, it means they've been able to reduce some of
01:24their production costs. Kia logo up the front there. Look at these headlights. It kind of
01:29follows the theme they have on the Carnival and Sorrento, where you've got that sort of
01:33that design element. And then in the centre here, piano black on the grille there. And then a sort of
01:40graphite section down the bottom there as well. Full LED headlights with daytime running lights.
01:46Around here, you've got a set of 18-inch alloy wheels. Machined finish on the outside there.
01:51Piano black in the centre. Good profile on that rubber too. Very keen to see how that goes.
01:56You've got gloss black on those wheel arches. Not sure if I'm a fan of that sort of piano black
02:01setup on wheel arches. Just seems to me like it's going to scratch and mark pretty easily.
02:06Wing mirror has the indicator built into there, but no camera. No 360 camera, even on the top spec,
02:10which I think is a bit strange. You've got an opening glass roof. No privacy glass.
02:15Door handle built into the top here. So, you have those flowing lines down the side without the
02:20interruption of another door handle in there. Have a look at this shape as well. So, this is
02:24quite a sort of swoopy rear. They are going to do a hatch version. This one's a sedan.
02:29You can see there, it sort of swoops down towards the rear. And the rear looks interesting. Come
02:33around to the back with me. Now, around the back, have a look at this. It's such an interesting shape.
02:37I came in this morning, Sean drove the car in, and I saw it, and I'm like, well, that's
02:40different. So, you've got LED lights that run along the side and then have that teardrop off
02:45the edge there. You've got an exhaust pipe that's hidden under the vehicle and points down underneath
02:50this piano black diffuser. GT line badge just there. Another Kia badge with the camera and also
02:56boot release. Then K4 off to the side as well. Shark fin aerial up the top too. Let me know what
03:02you reckon about the design, and what do you think about the price? It's a big step up in price.
03:05I am keen for your feedback, so let me know in the comments section below. Okay, so we are inside
03:10the K4. It feels weird saying K4, not Serato. That's what the key looks like. So, you've got
03:15sort of blank there, but when you push any buttons, the Kia logo lights up, which is cool. You've got
03:20lock up the top there, unlock, boot, the back is blank, and then you have a push start to turn the
03:28car on, get climate control running. It's a proximity sensing key, so you can leave that in your
03:31pocket, and then you've got a push button start just up the front here. Now, in terms of
03:35this interior, look, I will say I love all the tech. There's a lot going on there. I'm
03:40not a fan of a lot of just dark. It has been sort of broken up a little bit by these sort
03:46of lighter sections, but it does feel quite sort of dark in here. You know, not the end
03:50of the world, but just something I thought I'd point out. Big infotainment display, though.
03:55Have a look at that. So, two 12.3-inch displays and then a 5-inch display for the climate control.
03:59I could already see that I can't even see that screen because of the steering wheel. It's
04:03completely in the way, so you're going to have to put your head around it to actually
04:06operate that, which I just don't understand. Why would you put that there, knowing that
04:11most people are not going to be able to see that because you have a steering wheel? It
04:15just seems like a really odd decision to do that, and it's in a number of care products
04:20as well. So, anyway, just a bit of a weird one. In terms of your touch points, all this
04:26stuff feels pretty nice. So, soft in the centre there, soft on the door as well. How soft
04:31is it? We have our durometer. If you do want to see how this car compares to others that
04:35we've tested before, look at the link in the description below. Now, build quality, what
04:40is it like? It feels nice and solid in the centre there. That's what our door slam sounds
04:44like.
04:48Now, let's chat infotainment. So, I mentioned before, two 12.3-inch displays. This central one
04:53is 5-inch. Pretty straightforward to use. They're both, well, this one is touchscreen,
04:57both colour, obviously. And then, in-built satellite navigation, which means you don't
05:03have to use smartphone mirroring if you don't necessarily want to. This is the latest version
05:07of Key's infotainment system. So, it's nice and quick, very easy to use, all nice and sharp
05:12as well. Additional functions, you've got a calendar, weather, because this is a connected
05:15vehicle now. What else have we got here? What is under vehicle diagnostics? Oh, okay. We'll
05:22play with that later. A voice memo, in case you get any good ideas while you're out on the
05:26road. And then, in terms of sound system, you've got an eight-speaker Harman Kardon branded
05:31sound system. Sound system is actually pretty reasonable, which is good. Phone projection,
05:37you have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. I'll show you what that looks like. So, this is
05:40Apple CarPlay. It's wireless. So, nice, very sharp and easy to use. Very happy with that.
05:48And this is what Android Auto looks like. So, there you go. Nice and easy and straightforward.
05:53You will notice there, when I'm having to access a lot of this stuff, I'm having to lean a lot.
05:58And I know we do our sort of reach test later in this section. But, yeah, that is a fair
06:04bit of reach to actually catch the edge of that screen. Now, ahead of the driver, you
06:08have another 12.3-inch display. Not a huge amount of customizability here. Pretty similar
06:13to the rest of Kia and Hyundai products. But, you know, unless you've got a nice display there
06:17to work with, which I think is pretty good. And then, of course, the climate control display
06:21in the centre there, which, as I said, I can't really see because of the steering wheel.
06:24Now, on the safety front, you've got autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist
06:29detection. This is going to be basically a feature that you have to have on cars that
06:34are on sale from 1st of March or April this year in Australia, which is why they've had
06:39to kill the Pajero Sport, ASX, and a number of other cars from the market because they don't
06:44have those features. So, basically, from that point onwards, I'm not even going to bother
06:47mentioning this anymore because it just comes standard with the car anyway. Auto-tipping
06:51rear vision mirror, blind spot monitoring. You have radar, cruise control. This one has
06:55the highway driving assistant. We'll test some of these functions out a little bit later
06:58on. So, you've got front and rear parking sensors and a reverse view camera. No 360
07:02camera. I'll show you what that looks like. So, that's looking out the back, and that's
07:06a sort of wide-angle view, and that's a tight view out the back as well. That's what the
07:10horn sounds like.
07:11Okay. So, let's talk practicality, and we'll start off with connectivity. So, you've got USB-C
07:16ports, and the cool thing is down the front here, you can switch between charging or charging
07:20and data. So, we've got our pixel charging at the moment, which is handy to just be able
07:26to move between those two. Wireless phone charger down the bottom there. Behind this little trap
07:31door, you've got a 12-volt outlet. You've got cup holders here that move to open up the
07:38space if you need to using these push buttons, which is cool, and a center console there that's
07:42sort of pretty reasonably sized. Glovebox, yeah, not too bad. We've got a sunnies holder. No sunnies
07:49holder, unfortunately. In terms of your comfort, you've got dual-zone automatic climate control.
07:54This is kind of cool. Up on the door here is where you're going to find your heating and cooling
07:58controls for the seats, the steering wheel, and the memory for the driver. In terms of seat
08:02adjustment, you've got manual seat adjustment for your front passenger, but driver has electric
08:07adjustments. You go forwards and backwards. Backrest can go forwards and backwards. You can lift the
08:11front of the seat, back of the seat, and also lumbar adjustment as well. Steering adjustment
08:17is tilt and reach. I mentioned before as well on our reach test, some of this stuff is just a little
08:23bit hard to reach while you're driving. Now, second row. What is it like back here? So,
08:28knee room is reasonable. Toe room, not very good at all. Sort of very cramped under there. Head room
08:33is surprisingly bad as well. Like, my head is on the roof. If you were any taller than me or had a sort
08:38of bigger torso, this would be a very poor seating position to be in. So, not thrilled with that.
08:45It's also just a bit sort of scratchy and a bit nasty back here. It doesn't feel like they've spent
08:50a fair amount of time actually, you know, making this a decent environment to be sitting in. So,
08:56a little bit disappointed with that. Events over here. You've got USB charging ports, USB-C there,
09:01little storage nook there, and a centre armrest as well with a couple of cup holders. So,
09:07now, in terms of our window test, that's manual up and down. Look at that. Almost all the way down.
09:14Now, let's talk cargo space. So, you just push this little guy here. Cracks open. So,
09:19you've got just over 500 litres available. It's one of the big benefits of a sedan. You can just
09:22kind of just jam things in there. The opening isn't too bad. The boot lip is quite high off the
09:27ground. So, you've got a narrow aperture there, but that's not the end of the world. You have a
09:32space saver spare tyre beneath the cargo floor, and you can drop the second row if you do want to,
09:37but I'll show you what it looks like with the bag in there. So, it sort of fits in pretty
09:42straightforward. So, decent car if you need to be moving luggage and stuff around.
09:46Okay. We've just hit the road in the K4. Let's see what this is like. So, Kia has fixed some of the
09:59annoying beeping things. Kia and Hyundai rolled out this software update, and basically, it allows you
10:04to now just push and hold the mute button, and it will then stop all the dings. So, I'm going to push
10:10and hold that, and then up here, it's a bit hard to see, but it comes up with a little cross on audio to
10:15say that it's not going to make noise, but it just continues beeping. Anyway, all right. So,
10:20then you go to hold OK to settings, and then you've got to actually go through this settings screen and
10:26manually disable everything, because it doesn't do speed reading correctly in my testing, and this
10:32inattention warning as well. I just find that stuff frustrating when we're filming. So, on the road
10:37works better, but here when we're filming, it just keeps beeping. So, I just switch all that stuff off.
10:41Okay. So, let's run through your engine. So, while the entry-level versions of the K4 have a
10:48naturally aspirated 2-litre, the GT line gets a 1.6-litre turbo, and the thing I like about that
10:53is that the 1.6-litre turbo in the Serato GT was actually a ripper of an engine. That was such a
10:59fun car to drive. It really only had a couple of flaws, and that was that the ride was incredibly firm,
11:04and that the dual-clutch transmission wasn't a huge fan of that.
11:08Kangaroo off the road. Yeah, it wasn't a huge fan of the dual-clutch transmission either. So,
11:13while this isn't a GT, this is just a GT line, so it's not like a full-fat, go-fast version,
11:19it still has a 1.6-litre turbo, and they've switched out the dual-clutch for a torque converter.
11:25So, it produces 142 kilowatts of power and 265 newton-metres of torque,
11:30and in a car that weighs under one and a half tons, that's actually not a bad sort of set of
11:34figures. So, let's see what that feels like in practice. Give that a kick. Yeah, nice.
11:39If you've got a little push in the back, like it's really quite a healthy little thump that you get
11:45there. One thing I did notice, and I can't sort of... It's hard to explain, but the car, for some
11:54reason, holds the throttle when you let go of the throttle. So, if you sort of go and put the throttle
12:00in and let go, it keeps on the throttle for like a second.
12:03And it seems to only be at higher revs at times. That's a weird one. I'm going to get Keir to look
12:21into that because that's annoying. Yeah. So, when you're on the throttle, it basically is accelerating.
12:30You then let off the throttle entirely, and it still accelerates just for like a second after.
12:35It's like there's a... Yeah. See, it's sort of like... And then it starts slowing down.
12:42Very weird sensation. So, I'm going to get them to look into that. If we do get an answer before
12:45this video goes live, I'll insert it in this part of the video. Hi, everyone. As promised,
12:50we've got a response from Keir. So, I thought I'd share that with you. Sorry, this has sort of been
12:55inserted into the video. We had a long weekend after we filmed, and they finally got their hands on the
12:59car and been able to test it for us, which I appreciate. And this is the email they sent back
13:04with regards to the throttle sticking. So, basically, what they've surmised is that it's normal
13:09and that it is linked to spirited driving. I left foot brake. It's been something I've done always,
13:16and according to them, if you don't do that, it should sort of perform normally, and that the
13:21throttle has basically been dampened in terms of the time it takes from you releasing the throttle
13:26and it no longer sort of accelerating the vehicle. So, look, I think, yes, I understand the reason
13:32behind it, but I haven't experienced this in any other cars, any other Keir models either. So, it is
13:37quite surprising that this is a standard function of the car. So, like I say, with every single car
13:42we ever test, make sure you do a test drive. Take it home. Drive it for 24 hours. Get your other
13:47half to drive it. Make sure you can park it at home. These are all normal things you should be doing
13:51on buying a car. Make sure you test drive it. Drive it the way you intend to drive it and that you're
13:55satisfied with it before you put your money down. So, thank you again to Keir for getting back to us
14:01with all that info. Let's talk fuel economy. So, the official figure is under 7 litres per 100 Ks.
14:05We're averaging around 8. So, yeah, enough sort of within cooey of the official figure and pretty
14:11reasonable for a vehicle like this. Now, let's talk about our ride and handling. So, we're going to go
14:20through our sine waves now. We do this at 130 Ks an hour. Frustrating thing is the only way to get a
14:25digital speedo is to have this particular cluster set up. You don't have this cluster set up, you
14:30don't get a digital speedo, which is a bit frustrating. They've done a lot of ride and handling
14:34tuning here in Australia for this car. So, let's see what this feels like. Yeah, nice. That's good.
14:41So, you're getting a sort of fairly comfortable ride in and around the city. It's sort of not too soft,
14:46but not too firm. And then when you hit consecutive undulations like that, which is what you're going
14:50to find out in the country in Australia, the car holds together really nicely. Some cars with a
14:57poor suspension tune will linger a lot and you'll find that they get those oscillations up and just
15:02become really sloppy and messy at that top end, whereas this actually feels quite nice.
15:08Okay, bumpy road time. Let's give this a shot. We do this at 90 Ks an hour. This will give us a good
15:13understanding of, with the ride tune they've done for Australia, how it copes with corrugations and
15:20potholes and stuff. So, we'll just get this up to 90. This actually feels really good. So, it's well damped
15:27and just nice and comfortable. Here's our condensed sine wave where things really pick up.
15:35It feels excellent over that as well. So, yeah, big tick to the local ride and handling tune.
15:39Now, let's talk drive mode. So, you can change them here on the steering wheel. You push that
15:45and go between eco, normal and sport. I'm going to go for a little fang around the track here. We'll
15:50see what this is like when the speed picks up. We test all cars back to back in the same way. So,
15:57whoa, what? Okay. So, what happened then was we're coming into turn one here and when I let off
16:07the throttle to get onto the brake, the pedal went really hard. Now, that's not a good thing to have
16:13because it means you can't pull the car up. So, I had to go harder on the brake and then eventually
16:17it went really hard on the brakes. Now, what has happened then is basically when I lifted off the
16:24throttle, it was still applying throttle for like a second there. And then when I went onto the brakes,
16:28the brakes are basically trying to counteract the car, applying virtually full throttle while the
16:33brakes are coming on. Then when it releases the throttle, it goes hard onto your brakes.
16:37Now, yes, if you're driving aggressively, you know, that could be an issue. But if you're driving
16:43sort of just normally in and around the city and stuff, that is going to eventually wear your brakes
16:47out more and more because you're having to work harder on the brakes to slow the vehicle down. So,
16:51that's definitely not a good thing. Yeah, so not a huge fan. We'll go back for another lap in just a
16:57sec now that I know that it's going to do that and we'll just see how it goes from there.
17:01Okay, let's go for our lap one more time. Now, you might be asking yourself, why do we drive like
17:08this? Well, we're really bringing the car closer to its limits to understand the chassis performance
17:14and how they've tuned it. And to unearth things like what we experienced before with the brakes.
17:19Now, when I let off the throttle earlier, brakes perform really well. So, that's definitely something
17:24they need to look at.
17:30You see, it feels really great once you actually get up and move.
17:33And the whole purpose of doing this is we can compare cars back to back and go, okay, well,
17:38their weakness there is suspension because it is bouncing around mid-corner.
17:41It may not apply to a vehicle like this because it's not really a sports car, but it just gives
17:49us a really good sound understanding of how much effort they've put into engineering the chassis.
17:53Cars that are really sloppy, that have super soft suspension, lift wheels in corners, have aggressive
18:00stability control, that will all translate to an occasion where you decide to go a little bit quicker
18:05or you want to do something fun with your car or you're in some emergency situation.
18:10That's when all that stuff will sort of unearth itself.
18:17Here with the ride and handling program, looking at giving this that sort of sporty feel behind
18:23the wheel, you can actually engage with this and have some fun with it. It doesn't feel
18:27anywhere near as sort of spicy as the Serato GT did, but given this is a GT line, it's still
18:35hoofing along really nicely and is very composed and fun to drive. It's just that throttle,
18:40stickiness thing that definitely needs to be addressed and we will chase that up with Kia.
18:47Now, let's talk about road noise. There is a lot of it and I was really surprised how much
18:52is coming into the cabin, especially on coarse chip surfaces. It is like super boomy in here
18:57and I don't know if our noise or our calibrated sound meter is going to pick this up, but I just
19:02find it really sort of infiltrates into the cabin a lot. So, a little bit disappointing. That comes
19:08down to tyre selection and I guess just the inherent chassis and how much sound deadening
19:12they add into it. Yeah, just a lot of tyre noise. This is how it went when we put it up
19:16against our calibrated sound meter. If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've
19:20tested before, there's a link in the description below. So, visibility, what's it like? Down the
19:24front there, it's great. Wing mirrors are nice and big. Visibility out the back is okay, but not
19:28amazing. You've got quite a narrow envelope there, so it's not a huge window to see out of.
19:33And then, given that you don't have a 360 camera, you kind of need to be watching your P's and Q's
19:38when you're parking and stuff like that. Now, it's time to test some of the semi-autonomous
19:41systems. So, we do this at 70km an hour in our bowl, just to get a good indication of how likely
19:49it is to follow some of these lines. So, we'll set that at 70. Worth mentioning as well that we have
19:57like a highway driving assistant here too, which actually works quite well typically in Kias. We
20:03can't test it here because it doesn't designate this as a highway. So, this will just be testing
20:08how well it holds the car in the centre of the lane. So, in the first lane here, that's great.
20:12We'll jump over to the next lane. We'll try it in all three of the outer lanes. Okay, there it is there.
20:20Beautiful. That's actually doing a great job. So, it's putting enough steering input in there to keep
20:24the car dead centre. This is the hardest lane up the top here. We'll give this a shot, see how well
20:29this works. Okay, wait for that steering wheel to activate. Sometimes they don't like activating
20:40up here in our outer lane, but based on the performance in the first two lanes. Actually,
20:45I think it's pretty decent. I'll try it one more time. No, no, bingo. So, yeah, look,
20:51it worked really well in those first two lanes. And it's my experience, typically, that this
20:55Kia lane support stuff generally works pretty well. Okay, let's do a little bit of performance
21:01testing. We'll see how quickly it accelerates up to 100 k's an hour. And we're going to go all the
21:06way through to 120 so we can see what the overtaking speed is like as well. It's in sport mode.
21:12Traction control is off. Build up a bit of boost. Here we go.
21:16It feels really nice and strong. All right, there's 90, 100, and 120. All right.
21:30Let's see how we went. So, 0 to 100, 7.61 seconds. Pretty impressive if you ask me.
21:4280 to 120, 4.88 seconds. So that's a really nice number as well. That's your sort of overtaking
21:48measure. How much sort of mid-range does it have to get around stuff? Yeah, that's not too bad.
21:54All righty. Let's see how quick it stops from 100. Let's see what the brake and tyre package is like.
22:13Nice. 2.73 seconds and 37.82 metres. So pretty decent stopping distance and time there. All right.
22:21So, how fast does it go in reverse? Here we go.
22:31All right. 74 k's an hour. Very good.
22:38Okay, so Kia K4. What do we reckon? Look, I don't know. I wasn't really blown away by it. It has some
22:44positive attributes. So you've got a decent sized boot. The engine's great. I love that 1.6 litre turbo.
22:49Now paired with a torque converter automatic. It does all the right stuff there. Big step up in
22:53price over the previous generation of this. I don't like the throttle sticking thing. I don't know
22:57what the go is with that, but they should have picked that up during the engineering process.
23:00And yeah, I don't know. I just think that the headroom in the second row, how does that work?
23:05Did nobody ever sit in the back there? It just swoops down so much. This is a sedan version as well.
23:10It has no excuse to have poor headroom in the second row. So yeah, look, I like it,
23:15but I don't love it. And maybe I need to drive one of the cheaper models to see what it feels like
23:19instead. But yeah, I wasn't really blown away with it. So let me know what you reckon in the
23:23comments section below. Have you bought one of these? Are you looking at buying one? I'm keen for
23:27your feedback. If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and share it with your mates.
23:31And if you haven't done so, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. But until next time, take it easy.
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