CHAT Test drove Kia Carnival this weekend

bev

Has No Life - Lives on TB
We’ve been driving a 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe which we bought new. We keep up with general maintenance and it’s been great so far. About 60,000 miles.

I don’t understand why the gas mileage is still so crappy. Previous Honda CR-V got about 28 mpg. Our Hyundai gets about 28 mpg.

Oh, and the lots at most local car dealers here are pretty full.
 

robolast

Senior Member
I was quite impressed. I have been a Toyota guy for more than 25 years. However, my last Toyota purchases were in 2014. I'm done with the brand. 2014 may have been the last good year for Toyota, but some here would debate that. My last two outings to Toyota dealers were met with garbage Toyota products. Door handles jiggled, rattling noises from the interior, etc. Fast forward to this weekend, I drove the Carnival. It had a ton of tech features, including safety features I liked. No rattles at all. Solid door sound when closing them. Not so with the new Toyota Sienna junk. The thing rattles like a C130 filled with cargo about to leave the ground. I don't care if it does get 3x the gas mileage. It has become an econobox van if you ask me...only with a huge price to accompany it.

As Toyota dies on the vine, here comes Kia quality. I never would have thought such before. I might go test drive a Telluride next. Kias are hard to come by as people have found out how nice the Kias are. The dealer I was at had 2 Carnivals, none of the colors I liked...and one had 25K miles on it they wanted to sell. Of course, no one still has any inventory worth anything...not even junk Toyota.

I liked the suspension adjustment options on the Kia. Just click a button and you are in luxury mode. Click again and in sport mode. In sport mode, everything tightened up, even the steering. Luxury mode(normal) had a nice floaty ride. Wireless charging was nice, too. Even I was able to recline in the middle row seats on the passenger side. That surprised me(I had to push the front passenger seat up nearly all the way...but on a long trip...my wife could go in comfort!). One thing off-putting was all the buttons and gadgets. I found it distracting to drive due to that. Maybe I'd get used to it. Oh, and the steering wheel was smaller in diameter than most other cars out there. Not one rattle in the Kia and the back seats were easy to get back up once down...a more difficult feat in the Sienna without back strain.
We have 2 toyotas 2015 rav4 and 2016 camry. They seem fine to me and iv'e been buying Toyotas since 1976. But to each their own. I have no problem with Kia or Hyundai - would buy either one but for now sticking with Toyota until I experiene otherwise
 

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
As Location, Location is the real estate mantra, I've found maintenance, maintenance to be the key to any vehicle.
Vehicles are all cursed w/ some issue or other - it comes down to you're needs and what you'll tolerate I think.

If greed & stupidity hadn't taken hold at VW, I'd be buying another TDI but that's off the order guide now so, drive the one I've got until it craters I guess.

We had to use Uber last week and the vehicle was a RAV4 Hybrid - driver said it got 40MPG equivalent and we found it comfortable - that might be the solution.
 
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Tripod

Veteran Member
When it comes to buying automobiles there ain't no cheap chicken or free lunch. All the free stuff and good deals we seem to get, somebody has to pay for and it's not the dealer. Same old story, you can take it out of the left pocket or the right one but it still comes out of the same pants. One hunk of iron for another hunk of iron.
Mike
 

AlfaMan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
We bought a new Rav4 in 2019 and it just rolled over 50K and has no rattles or noise at all. We have had zero issues with it and it drives very well. Our granddaughter has a 2021 with no rattles or problems. It is best to avoid dealers of all brands unless it is warranty work. Find a good local mechanic that will fix problems and won;t try to sell you a bunch of unneeded services. One thing I do not like on our Rav4 , and a lot of manufacturers are doing it, is the 'sealed transmission' that they tell you is good for life. No dipstick to even check the trans fluid level. They do have a drain plug and fill plug. We have an appointment Wednesday to get our trans fluid changed. We tend to keep our vehicles for many years.
That's because the Rav4s no longer have actual transmissions. They use CVT transmissions and you're right, they have a drain and fill plug on them.

Advice-the second you start hearing whining when in a forward gear at speeds from idle to 25 mph; DUMP IT. The CVt is going out, and it's not a cheap repair.
 

AlfaMan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
We have a 2010 Toyota Tundra and a 2016 RAV4...the dealership we purchased from was a priorities for life, engine and transmission guaranteed for life plus free oils and inspections for life... we haven't had any problems..with either vehicle...the only buying tires for them.

i'd get under that Tundra with a screwdriver and poke every single patch of rust on the frame. If it flexes or punches through you have structural damage.

Tundras and Tacomas, and 4 runners from 2003-2016 had recalls on them for prematurely rusting frames. Many frames were replaced by the dealers under a massive recall (from the result of a massive class action suit against toyota). I've seen Tundras where half of the frame is good, and the other side has broken from the other side of the body.
 

AlfaMan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
JMHO and I hate to say it, but the demise of Toyota quality came about the same time as those cars started being made in the U.S.

Son and DIL both have KIA's and totally love them. Other than flat tires, they have had no mechanical issues on either of their vehicles.
You are exactly right. I'm a vehicle inspector for all the us manufacturers; and it is an extremely rare occurence to have a recall come out of any Japanese, French or Thai built Toyotas. It's always the US made models.

And I inspect Kias too-best value and engineering in a vehicle on the US market. Hands down and I look at everything from them to US makes to Porsches, Maseratis, Aston Martins, Lamborghinis, Bugattis and anything else you can think of. wonderful vehicles, great value for the dollar too.
 

TKO

Veteran Member
Costing more? Bought this car in March 2022(Ouch!) 2020 demonstrator car(Never titled) 7,100 miles. Paid $21,800, + TTL, and ext warranty. As I said, pretty cheap(OK, REAL cheap, like 10K under market, at that time). The GM at the dealer is a close family member. That's why. And, I do agree, the Gen. Mgr. is having the dealer cover the cost on the 5K changes. But they are getting done.
Outstanding deal then. I need a GM friend at a dealer so I can get free oil changes!
 

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
I'd only ever look at a Chevy Silverado. That's it for a Chevy for me. American carmakers are something I'm not going to move toward at this time.

We hadn't planned on that, and ended up with an Equinox for a variety of reasons! We had a Chevy Silverado 1500 years ago, great truck.
 

AlfaMan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I was quite impressed. I have been a Toyota guy for more than 25 years. However, my last Toyota purchases were in 2014. I'm done with the brand. 2014 may have been the last good year for Toyota, but some here would debate that. My last two outings to Toyota dealers were met with garbage Toyota products. Door handles jiggled, rattling noises from the interior, etc. Fast forward to this weekend, I drove the Carnival. It had a ton of tech features, including safety features I liked. No rattles at all. Solid door sound when closing them. Not so with the new Toyota Sienna junk. The thing rattles like a C130 filled with cargo about to leave the ground. I don't care if it does get 3x the gas mileage. It has become an econobox van if you ask me...only with a huge price to accompany it.

As Toyota dies on the vine, here comes Kia quality. I never would have thought such before. I might go test drive a Telluride next. Kias are hard to come by as people have found out how nice the Kias are. The dealer I was at had 2 Carnivals, none of the colors I liked...and one had 25K miles on it they wanted to sell. Of course, no one still has any inventory worth anything...not even junk Toyota.

I liked the suspension adjustment options on the Kia. Just click a button and you are in luxury mode. Click again and in sport mode. In sport mode, everything tightened up, even the steering. Luxury mode(normal) had a nice floaty ride. Wireless charging was nice, too. Even I was able to recline in the middle row seats on the passenger side. That surprised me(I had to push the front passenger seat up nearly all the way...but on a long trip...my wife could go in comfort!). One thing off-putting was all the buttons and gadgets. I found it distracting to drive due to that. Maybe I'd get used to it. Oh, and the steering wheel was smaller in diameter than most other cars out there. Not one rattle in the Kia and the back seats were easy to get back up once down...a more difficult feat in the Sienna without back strain.

Glad to see you found THE van to have these days. Best engineered, best driving, easiest maintenance minivan currently on the US market. Good choice. your'e one that actually found out just how nice those vans are. Tons of standard features, and you can option the thing into the 23rd century if you wanted to.

Another nice thing is, a 100k warranty. What's even nicer is, kia actually honors the full term of the warranty. They had some issues with oil pumps in earlier models; Kia changed out the motors in those for free. And I saw it done in cars at 98k miles, 92k miles, etc. Mileages most carmakers would laugh in your face if you tried to get something fixed under warranty. Kia (and Hyundai, which owns kia) honors their warranties.

The Telluride you want to test drive; I'll tell you-Kia bought a current Ford Explorer, took it to their plant in ulsan Korea and tore it completely apart. Then they built the Telluride with all the lessons learned from the tear down-and then made it better. Very impressive SUV. Try it-I guarantee you'll like it.

You have a good eye to catch the current failings of the Toyota Sienna. The new one is built on the previous generation unibody (dating from 2013 or so) with just new exterior sheetmetal. Oh, and you can't buy any new Sienna with just a regular gas motor-every one of the new ones is a hybrid. That's all they sell.

The squeaks and rattles are common to the new siennas-the plastic panels inside are rubbing against each other, seems to emenate from the driver side rear area. And don't ever try to change a flat in one of them-the spare tire is literally underneath the floor pan in the area of the front seats..........Painful! The hybrids generally don't have spare tires; the space is usually needed for the battery.

Oh, that "automatic transmission" in the siennas? It's a CVT.............not a "real" transmission in the literal sense. Buyer beware. And Toyota has swapped over nearly every car and crossover to using a cvt transmission. much cheaper to make.
Glad to see you enjoyed the Kia. If you want a real sporty drive, try the Kia stinger...............It's faster and handles better than a Maserati Quattroporte and it's literally half the price. What a car! And I know REAL sports cars-and the Stinger impresses me. No, it actually blows me away. What a car!
 

AlfaMan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
As Location, Location is the real estate mantra, I've found maintenance, maintenance to be the key to any vehicle.
Vehicles are all cursed w/ some issue or other - it comes down to you're needs and what you'll tolerate I think.

If greed & stupidity hadn't taken hold at VW, I'd be buying another TDI but that's off the order guide now so, drive the one I've got until it craters I guess.

We had to use Uber last week and the vehicle was a RAV4 Hybrid - driver said it got 40MPG equivalent and we found it comfortable - that might be the solution.

Some advice-don't bother with any of the TDI's on dealer lots. All of them have complied with the recall, which included a software reflash for the ECU, a new catalyst (that's more restrictive) and the software updates are only good for a 5 year period. Considering most were retrofitted in 2017; the software is ready to be updated again. And your gas mileage will be WAY off what they were pre recall.

VW MADE money on the Tdi recall. Billions. And i inspected so many of those TDI turnbacks i could take you through the car blindfolded.........
 

AlfaMan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
drove a 1997 Ford Aspire off dealers lot and until it literally died of lack of spare parts circa 2013. Was license built by Kia. That car was tough as a boot.
put over 120K miles on it and it never missed a beat.
Very solid car and well built. I really miss that car. It is my standing arguement against computers in cars finally died for lack ability to communicate with emmissions testing computers for annual inspections.
Kia builds some good cars.
The Ford Aspire was actually a badge engineered Kia Pride. and their first car sold in the North American market. Sales of the Aspire convinced kia to enter the North American car market, which they did in 1997 with the first Kia Sportage.

We used to rent those Aspires, we called them "Barney cars". Because no matter how many we'd infleet, some of them were painted in purple, like barney the dinosaur. They were far roomier and comfortable than the Geo Metros in the fleet.
 

Southside

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Outstanding deal then. I need a GM friend at a dealer so I can get free oil changes!
He even had the 5,000 mile oil change receipt in the glove compartment for me.
Trust me, I do feel fortunate. It was quite the deal.
 

night driver

ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
KIA builds TOUGH TRUKS!!

The Forte was a nice CAR.
we're on our second SOUL and DANG those thangs haul a LOT!!
RELIC does shows and we haul ALL the tables we can fit in a 10X10 area with some actual display fixtures and TONNES of framed pix. As well as some upcycled jewelry and schtuff. SOME HOW it all FITS!!!

I'm ALMOST afraid to run it over a scale!

But they just WORK!!!
 

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Some advice-don't bother with any of the TDI's on dealer lots. All of them have complied with the recall, which included a software reflash for the ECU, a new catalyst (that's more restrictive) and the software updates are only good for a 5 year period. Considering most were retrofitted in 2017; the software is ready to be updated again. And your gas mileage will be WAY off what they were pre recall.

VW MADE money on the Tdi recall. Billions. And i inspected so many of those TDI turnbacks i could take you through the car blindfolded.........
The one I have now is an 06. Had an 04 1.9 w M5; got 3.9l/100km - basically 62 miles/gal out of the box. It got written off by some drunk - took out 3 other parked cars. I was in a hurry, took my payout and bought an 06 - NOT my wisest move. The same car except for the programming because the 06 got about 40MPG. Chip tuned it & got it up to about 50MPOG/US Gal but that's as good it gets. Not interested in the 2.0TDI.

Thinking maybe a 3.0L TDI In an A6 Quattro. I can chip tune that & get about 45MPG and have AWD plus a bigger cabin but at the end of the day, might just get something solid and drop in a repower engine if it's miled out.

We'll see
 
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9idrr

Veteran Member
The Ford Aspire was actually a badge engineered Kia Pride. and their first car sold in the North American market. Sales of the Aspire convinced kia to enter the North American car market, which they did in 1997 with the first Kia Sportage.

We used to rent those Aspires, we called them "Barney cars". Because no matter how many we'd infleet, some of them were painted in purple, like barney the dinosaur. They were far roomier and comfortable than the Geo Metros in the fleet.
Had a pair of Ford Festivas. Same drive train as the Assfire and might still be in production under license in Iran. My '89 was a 3-speed auto trans with EFI, as most of the slushboxes were sold to meet Kommiefornia smog standards and as rental fleet cars. That car only got 30-33 MPG but the '90 model was 5-speed stick and made 40-45 for gas mileage. With some exhaust fabrication the same 1300cc Mazda motor with a turbo would fit right in the engine bay and you might have the fastest econo-box in 3 states. Ford-Mazda-Kia did a good job with those little cars. If'n they hadn't melted I'd still be drivin' 'em.
 

Countrybumpkin

Veteran Member
I had a 1992 Ford Festiva I bought new, and ran the crap outa it. 5 speed, got insane milage, and once I took the backseat out, I could haul a lot of stuff. In fact, was at a store a month ago, and saw it in the lot. Looking a little sad, but still driving!
 

AlfaMan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
The one I have now is an 06. Had an 04 1.9 w M5; got 36.9l/100km - basically 62 miles/gal out of the bOx. It got written off by some drunk - took out 3 other parked cars. I was in a hurry, took my payout and bought an 06 - NOT MY WISEST MOVE. The same car except for the programming because the 06 got about 40MPG. Chip tuned it & got it up to about 50MPOG/US Gal but that's as good it gets. Not interested in the 2.0TDI.

Thinking maybe a 3.0L TDI In an A6 Quattro. I can chip tune that & get about 45MPG and have AWD plus a bigger cabin but at the end of the day, might just get something solid and drop in a repower engine if it's miled out.

We'll see
The 3 litre TDI motors were recalled under the same TDI recall as the 2 litre TDI motors. There were only 375,000 of the 3 litres to inspect.....Also, any TDI older than 2011 model year got crushed. It was sad, VW couldn't come up with the right software flash for them . I saw multitudes of Jetta cup editions fed to a shredder; no parts saved they just fed the cars in whole.

The real trick would be finding a TDI that DIDN'T go under the knife with the 'fixes'. there are some out there but they're few and far between. find one of those and you'd be set.
 

Warm Wisconsin

Easy as 3.141592653589..
I rented a 2022 Kia Sorento when I was at Cape Canaveral and I had a hard time believing it was a KIA.

The self driving features on the KIA were way more refined than my much more expensive vehicle at home.

The vehicle was feature rich and were conveniently placed.

Have been seriously considering trading for one since I got home.
 

AlfaMan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I rented a 2022 Kia Sorento when I was at Cape Canaveral and I had a hard time believing it was a KIA.

The self driving features on the KIA were way more refined than my much more expensive vehicle at home.

The vehicle was feature rich and were conveniently placed.

Have been seriously considering trading for one since I got home.

That Sorento is one of the hottest SUV's in the European market these days. With the features it has for the price, it's one of the nicer cars at that price point. The Dacia/Renault/Lada duster is also a popular vehicle there. We'll never see those here though; unless someone starts building them stateside.
 

30.06

Contributing Member
Buy something old and rebuild it, either yourself (best way) or hired out (expensive way). I ditched a 2012 Subaru Outback POS and did this. I now have a 2001 GMC pickup that I know every inch of, have all the tools to work on it and can do almost anything except an engine/tranny swap in my driveway. Paid cash for it all. Sure, it gets at best 19 MPG, and with my driving it's usually 15 MPG. But I can buy a lot of gas with the money that would be going into payments.

I upgraded everything I wanted. All the lights are LEDs and I have a nice stereo. Suspension is mildly upgraded. OnStar stopped working in it before 3G stopped working. :-) Had a LineX liner shot in the bed. Getting ready to have the nicks and dings of 20+ years ironed out and the whole thing repainted. At that point, it's a new truck minus the nice smell and the payments.
 

TKO

Veteran Member
Another reason to rank the Toyota as getting crappier. Today, I had to replace the SECOND door lock actuator. Both failed within a 2 month period of each other. I cannot recommend Toyota anymore. I have 94K miles on this Sienna. The sliding doors have failed and warranty replacements done, the power seats have failed with warranty seats making. The infotainment screen has failed costing me 99 dollars in labor to replace it. It rattles like a motherf*u*ker...EVERYWHERE. PLUS the Sienna totally eats tires and needed replacement at 39K miles. Not even an AWD...which is notorious for eating tires.
 
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