Mr Mike Mars here on the In Wheel Time show.
Speaker 2:I got to get you down, Michael.
Speaker 1:He has a review coming up, and what is that review going to be on?
Speaker 2:Mike. Well, let's hear this they're 2024 Kia.
Speaker 1:Niro.
Speaker 2:Niro Niro SX Touring. It's a touring car.
Speaker 1:Touring car. It's a Niro, so I keep thinking of Greek mythology and Niro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really not sure how they came up with that name.
Speaker 1:Niro is burning. Once you think of it, you know Not Nero, but Niro.
Speaker 2:Niro of it, you know, not narrow, but nero, nero, yeah, and in fact this is actually the second generation because it was, uh, this generation was introduced in 2023. So this is kind of a carryover, going to do a little tweaking on it, tweak it kind of get it going. Comes in five available trim levels. You got an lx, an ex, an ex touring sx, sx, touring. We happen to have the sx touring, so we're sitting at the top of the line and this is a really nice vehicle, so it is considered a small, compact SUV.
Speaker 2:They kind of changed Everything's growing a little bit, so they're trying to get away, I think, from the compacts and the subcompacts and just say it's small. That way you don't have to worry about people getting insulted because they got the wrong thing.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:Nope, but this one one because of the styling wall. It goes between a. It almost looks like a hatchback to some people, but it's not really a hatchback because of the styling on it, so it gives you a little more room in the back.
Speaker 2:As far as the headroom in the back seat goes, it's not available with any r wheel all-wheel drive either, so it's got a couple of things here got led lighting all the way around, including the fog lights, got some gloss black body trim, including the rear spoiler and the roof rails. So it's got a nice combination. Whatever color you get, it's got some nice black to kind of offset it there. Power lift, gate, power sunroof. We had we were on the optional 18 inch alloy wheels, which were also black. So once we got into it we found out we had leather seating surfaces the front seats are heated and ventilated, as you would expect, or a car like this 10.25-inch touchscreen Now this is the bigger one because they're up in the trim level lines.
Speaker 2:But the strange thing is it's got a wireless charger. But if you want to use Apple CarPlay or Android, you have to wire it. You can't use Bluetooth. Oh, it's kind of weird. It took me a little while to figure out why I couldn't connect Old-fashioned yes, but, like I say, it does have the wireless charging pad. Now it also has a seven-speaker Harman Kardon system, so it's got plenty of tunes on it that you can crank it up. Now, up under the hood it's got a 1.6 liter inline four hybrid motor. This is a hybrid 139 horsepower, got 195 torque, equivalent with a six-speed automatic. You put this all together and the EPA says in the city, you should be looking for 53. The highway, 45. Combined, you're looking at 49.
Speaker 2:Now I drove this car 315 miles. I didn't have any issues with it as far as charging or keeping it going. I had to put a little gas in it and that was about it. It is very smooth and quiet around town. I mean, this is a nice, easy driving city car. You get out on the highway, you're going to pick up a little bit of road noise. That I think is probably the tires, but I also think that you could turn up that hard and Carmen, and you didn't even notice it at all.
Speaker 1:How about that?
Speaker 2:Now, if you get to looking at it, base model price is $28,315 for this car. Now the base trim price that we were driving, again top of the line $35,340. Now as tested, the MSRP on this baby was $37,105, wow. So if you're looking for something to compare it to, it's bigger. But the honda crv hybrid kind of falls into that same hybrid, smaller type car. It is 34,050, but again it's larger, smaller. So the toyota corolla cross, which is fairly new, has, uh, but it's closer in size. It's 28,220 dollars is what it's going to start at. And I do want to mention that the Kia does have the 10-year 100,000-mile warranty, which I think is personally outstanding. So if you're looking for something in that smaller, compact SUV CUV category, there's a lot of competition there, but this is one of them you ought to look at.