Kia K4 review

Lackadaisical. The steering tells you next to nothing about what the wheels are up to, and the lack of feedback means you’ll have no confidence (or desire) to explore what the car will do in corners. All that plus frequent correction equals no sense of satisfaction for you.

Actually, the K4 feels quite portly – correct us if we’re wrong but at 1,850mm this is the widest hatch on sale, not helped by the chunky steering wheel. Hope you don’t live near any width restrictors.

The brake pedal travel is long and spongy, but you’ll learn to live with it. Ride quality is lumpy at low speeds, although the suspension (MacPherson struts up front, multi-link behind) does at least chamfer the harshness off potholes fairly well. The comfy seats help. There’s lots of vertical movement, but not much side-to-side.

Anything else?

The droney engine note is a chore (particularly in the three-cylinder), although it’s not overly loud and eventually gets lost amongst road and wind noise, which is intrusive on motorways and dual carriageways.

Ergo, you’ll refrain from hustling the accelerator so the car is even slower than the numbers suggest: the 1.0-litre needs more than 12 seconds to hit 62mph from a standstill, while the 147bhp 1.6-litre manages 9.1s. Go for the more powerful one and that becomes 8.4s. Steady now.

The auto's throttle response is woeful, and always a step behind what you want it to do. Pulling into gaps is more perilous than it ought to be and even something as simple as a three point turn will rile you up because the throttle is so fussy and dim-witted. A hatch should make life easy, and this doesn’t.

Thankfully the manual is more alert, though the gearshift is very light – no sense of engagement here either. And the 1.0-litre is slower than Eeyore: any more than a delicate press on the throttle and (to double down on the donkey metaphor) it brays noisily. 

Ouch. What will it do to my bank balance?

Not too much damage. In the 1.0 we saw 43.2mpg on a mixed route against an official 49.6mpg WLTP, while in the 147bhp 1.6-litre our test car indicated 46.5mpg versus a lab number of 43.6. So there’s a chance you’ll do better than what the brochure says is possible. Woo hoo!

Meanwhile the 177bhp 1.6-litre hits 42.2mpg WLTP. So if you’re frugal get the former; if you’re running late buy the latter. Bosh.