Rental car reviews: Kia Soul

I have been considering doing this for quite some time, and now that I'm traveling on business again at a decent rate I will finally begin this project.

Car reviews of cars you won't buy but do rent

How was that for a title? Well, in Hawaii last week I rented a Kia Soul, sort of a boxy little wagon/hatchback/micro-SUV-looking thing. I parked it at one point next to a VW Golf four door and the two are the same size, though the front interior of the Kia felt smaller as did the truck/hatch area. I assume the backseat of the Kia is larger than the VW, but at 6' 6" I spend VERY little time in the backseat of any smaller car.

So, how did it drive? Relatively well actually. On Oahu it's hard to get up to much speed (okay, excepting late night runs up or down the Pali, but that's wrong, man, wrong!) but the Kia felt stable and secure at the speeds that were available. There was an odd hesitation, and a bit of a dead zone around 30mph, maybe a bit too much space between gears? I wouldn't buy one, but it was an excellent rental car for the confined parking spots and streets of Hawaii. Oh yeah, except for one annoyance, the rental didn't have a cargo cover, so you couldn't leave items in the back of the car (at least not in tourist areas with the attendant thefts). Should have caught that back at the National Rental Car Emerald Aisle and picked a different one.