2018 Hyundai Kona: First Drive — Cars.com

small crossovers and suv’s are all the rage these days everybody’s buying oneand they’re buying them more and more every single minute hyundai does notwant to be left out of that party which is why they’ve brought us this this isthe new 2018 hyundai kona and while the name may make you think of volcanicislands and tropical breezes and beautiful Hawaiian beaches franklythat’s not what we have here today we are in Detroit on Belle Isle and asbeaches go this is pretty much what we’ve got however we also have this toplay with a fantastic new crossover from Hyundai so what makes this thing sospecial I’m not sure it’s the styling that makes it special because we’vecriticized the Kona in the past for kind of looking like a mishmash of everyother crossover on the market put together let me check this out these arenot the headlights these are the daytime running lights they’re LED and they’restandard the actual headlights are down here they’re in the bumper and if thatlooks like the last generation Jeep Cherokee to you well frankly it lookslike that to me too the grille is wider and is meant toevoke Hyundai steel making processes it meant to look like an urn where youmelting the steel and pouring it into something else and if you’re a fan ofblack plastic cladding while they’ve got it here – it’s all down the front it’son the fenders it’s on the back fender sits on the back bumper it’s meant tomake the thing look a little bit more rugged meant to look like some kind of amachine where you can see the bones of the machine instead of just the actualexterior and if you’re a fan of compact dimensions well check this out it’salmost a foot shorter than the Hyundai Tucson so it’ll fit just about anywhereyou want to put it depending which model you get you get a choice of wheel sizesbase wheels are 17 inch but this one has 18 inch wheels which come as you risethrough the various trim levels now the paint on this one is a special for 2018called lime twist optional is a contrasting roof either black or greyobviously this one doesn’t have it if you like this color however you’re goingto want to get an 18 because in 2019 this becomes bright orange so there area couple of things we should talk about inside the kona and the first is thisyou push this button and it automatically locks the all-wheel drivein a 50/50 torque split normally the all-wheel drive operates only the frontwheels and it activates rear wheels as needed if it detects anykind of slippage but if you think you can do better than the system detectingwhen you need to have that kind of torque you push that button 50% of thefront 50% of the rear sometimes it’ll help you get out of a slippery situationout on the street I’m actually really quite surprised at how well the kkonadrives it feels like a much larger vehicle than it actually is and that’snot to say that it’s got a larger footprint anything like that because itcertainly doesn’t it is a very small SUV and it feels like a small SUV but theride and handling of it make it feel like a larger vehicle the rideespecially is really quite well damped the handling itself it’s still a tallvehicle and it is a bit more tippy than say something like a Veloster or anElantra but in terms of overall ride quality even with these 18-inch wheelsit’s really not that bad until you get to some seriously broken pavement andthen you may have wished that you’ve gotten the 17-inch wheels instead withthe larger sidewall tires but overall it has a sophistication that we’re startingto find in a number of Hyundai vehicles that hasn’t been there before part ofthe reason I think for the better ride and handling in this vehicle at least isthe multi-link rear suspension base Kona’s only get a torsion beam rearsuspension was a little less sophisticated but when you get theall-wheel drive option you get a multi-link rear suspension as well soyou have a fully independent suspension front and rear and that definitely doeshelp things out in terms of dynamics underhood you’ve got a choice of twoengines if you get the base models you get a two-liter four-cylinder enginemaking 147 horsepower which it’s not a whole lot if you upgrade to all-wheeldrive you can get the 1. 6 liter turbocharged engine now it’s making ahundred and seventy five horsepower but it makes 195 pound-feet of torque and itreally does help the conus scoot around town with no problem whatsoever you geta choice of two transmissions in the Kona and it depends on which enginechoice you’ve specified the base 2-liter engine with the front-wheel drive comeswith a six-speed Automatic transmission but if you upgrade to the 1. 6 literturbo engine you get a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission thoseare the same power trains that you find in the Hyundai Veloster but the turboengine in the Kona is detuned a little bit it only makes 175 horsepower insteadof 201 that we see in other applications but it’s still making 195 pound-feet oftorque and that means that the code of scoots around town with really noproblem at all acceleration is brisk it really feels strong and the 7-speeddual-clutch transmission snaps off shifts pretty much imperceptibly theonly issue I have with the dual clutch transmission is that when you’reshifting you can say from park to drive or from the reverse to drive it doestake a half a second before it actually gets into that gear so you have to kindof let it do its thing before it’s ready to actually send you on your way onearea that sets the Kona apart from a number of its competitors in the classis the amount of safety equipment that is both standard and optional now for2018 things like forward collision warning and automatic emergency brakingare optional you can only get them on the higher trim levels but they’ve toldus that if you wait for the 2019 model all of those items become standard evenon the base model so they’re going to be a slight price increase for 2019 butyou’ll be able to get things like the forwardand the automatic emergency braking on a base-model instead of having to springover $25,000 for a higher trim level and for us it might be worth the wait thisis not the quietest interior that I’ve experienced in the crossover there issome wind noise around the top of the windshield and you’re getting goodamount of road noise through these 18-inch wheels and tires but overallit’s still a pleasant experience the seats are very comfortable franklythey’re supportive and if you’re driving an ultimate trim like this one you havea power 8 way adjustable driver’s seat with lumbar support as well sitting inthe kona the visibility is really quite good it’s a small SUV and so you’resitting up a little bit higher you’ve got great big windows all around therereally isn’t a problem in any direction in terms of visibility you’ve got plentyof headroom in here even though this one has the optional moonroof there’s noissue in terms of having front or back now there is a little bit of an issuewith legroom in the back it does feel kind of tight back therethere’s really not as much room as there are in some other small SUVs or evensome of Hyundai’s own products like the Elantra the interior quality is reallyquite good in fact you know most new Hyundai’s and Kias that we’ve seen thesedays they’ve really upped the interior quality game now everything in here isstill hard plastic there’s no soft touch stuff even on up high parts like on thedoor sills on the top of the dash it’s still all hard plastic but the grainingon it makes it look like it should be soft touch and as long as you’re nottouching it frankly it looks just fine this model is got thespecial paint on the outside and so it’s also got a special interior we’ve gotsome green trim rings and green piping in the seats as well now for 2018 that’sthe special color for 2019 this probably becomes orange and probably gets someupdates as well to what the interior looks like there’s a couple of differentinteriors you can choose from depending on the trim level that you’ve selectedbut there are cloth and leather options if you get a turbo engine youautomatically get leather interior as wellthe standard multimedia screen is a 7-inch touchscreen you get standardapple carplay and android auto but if you want to upgrade you can get thisthis is the 8 inch navigation screen and it comes also with the Infinity premiumaudio system which actually sounds pretty bumpy one of the reasons youmight buy a small crossover like this is for the utility of it and it does havemore cargo room than some competitors like the Jeep renegade or the ChevroletTrax but surprisingly it has less cargo room behind the second row thanHyundai’s own Veloster sports coupe so while you get a more comfortable vehicleand you get a lot more Headroom it’s not necessarily more practical in terms ofcargo so what has surprised us so much about the Hyundai Kona well it’s not howpretty it is because quite frankly it’s really not all that pretty we’re notsurprised by how roomy it is because unless you’re in the front seats reallynot all that roomy either but what has surprised us is how well it drives forhow big it is this is a really small SUV but it has a sophistication and a poiseto it when going down the road that makes it feel like a much larger moreexpensive vehicle and speaking of cost to start with it’s just over $20,000 fora base model and if you load it up with all the options like a turbo engine andall-wheel drive you’re looking at just under 30 grand out the door these are inHyundai showrooms right now and if you’d like to learn more you can read allabout it at cars. com

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