An Almost Perfect Small CUV
Our 2024 Hyundai Kona Limited AWD has been an excellent all around small CUV over the last 30 months. It's got plenty of zip for a 1.6 liter turbo 4 cylinder. A hybrid powertrain with over 200 hp that got 35 MPG would really cement this car as the king of it's class though. It rides well, but not quite as well as our 2018 Subaru Crosstrek did, especially when not traveling on perfectly smooth roads. Interior comfort is great and we love the instrument panel and infotainment center layout. We especially love the blind spot view monitors and the high resolution 360 degree cameras. The 12 speaker Bose sound system is very good and fills the cabin with awesome sound! The wireless Apple CarPlay always dependably stayed connected and worked commendably. The smart cruise always did a great job maintaining vehicle distance as set, but could use some tweaking so not to lose so much speed when at first going uphill and then having to downshirt too much which cause the speed to exceed that which was set by several miles per hour. The car has great visibility all around.
As far as the styling, we had several people tell us the car looked like a space ship, and the bright Neoteric Yellow paint was always a show-stopper. We got our car with the light gray interior, as the black was just too demur. While we liked the dash layout, there's room for improvement here. The door panels are so plain and need some extra styling to bring them up to the level offered by competitors. And the center console needs more storage space that actually closes instead of leaving everything out in the open. Thankfully the seats are comfortable and the heating and cooling really is a great feature. We live in the South, so we didn't use the heated steering wheel a whole lot, but having it on occasional cold mornings was a plus.
We've had really good service out of the car, although the alternator did go out at 14,325 miles, which also killed the battery, so both had to be replaced. All four original Kumho Majesty 9 Solus tires had worn significantly prematurely and one of the tires developed a noticeable thump thump thump. This was remedied with a new set of tires and a full alignment job at 16,850 miles.
Verified Owner
