Let’s get the hard part out of the way first: the Kia Soul is dead. Kia pulled the plug. If you have been driving around Mentor loving that funky little box for years, that news probably stings a little. But here’s the thing, the car Kia built to take its place, the Kia K4 Hatchback, might just make you forget the Soul ever existed. It starts around $24,890, swallows nearly 60 cubic feet of cargo, and offers a 190-horsepower turbo that the Soul never dreamed of. So is it actually the better pick? Short answer: yeah, for almost everybody.

Stop by Kenganley Kia Mentor on Mentor Avenue and you can see exactly why the K4 Hatchback earns its spot.

So the Soul Is Really Gone?

Really gone. For years the Soul was Kia’s charming budget oddball, that upright, boxy shape you could spot from a block away, cheap to buy, weirdly roomy inside, and impossible not to like. Then Kia retired it and handed the keys to the K4 Hatchback.

That changes the whole conversation. You are not picking between two shiny new cars on the same lot. You are choosing between a used Soul, with somebody else’s miles and maybe a mystery stain in the back seat, or a brand-new K4 Hatchback that comes with a full warranty and zero baggage. When you frame it that way, this comparison gets a lot simpler for most Mentor buyers.

But Can It Haul Like a Soul?

This was always the Soul’s party trick. That tall, square body could hold about 62.8 cubic feet of stuff with the seats down, which is genuinely impressive for something so small and cheap.

The K4 Hatchback gets close, real close, with 59.3 cubic feet. Yes, that’s a hair less. No, you will never notice it. Both will happily eat a Costco haul, a stroller wedged next to a week’s worth of luggage, or a trunk-load of hockey gear for the drive to the rink. And with about 22.2 cubic feet behind the back seats, the K4 Hatchback carries roughly 52 percent more than the K4 sedan’s trunk. Translation: SUV-ish space, hatchback price, and it still slots into a tight spot off Mentor Avenue without a three-point struggle. The Soul wins this round on paper by a sliver, but it’s the kind of win nobody actually feels.

Where the K4 Hatchback Just Wins

Here’s where it stops being close. The Soul, even in its last years, felt a generation behind. The K4 Hatchback feels like it showed up to a different decade.

You get dual 12.3-inch screens stretched across the dash, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a wireless charger, and heated front seats, with a Harman Kardon stereo, heated steering wheel, and Digital Key 2.0 on the menu if you want to spoil yourself. And then there’s the fun part. The base 2.0-litre makes a reasonable 147 horsepower, but the GT-Line Turbo drops in a 1.6-litre turbo good for 190 horses and a sport-tuned suspension. The Soul never once put a grin on your face at a highway on-ramp. This one will.

It’s also loaded with up to 29 available driver-assist features, which matters when you’re merging onto I-90 in traffic or crawling through a snowy Mentor morning. One honest gripe, though: like the Soul, the K4 Hatchback is front-wheel drive only. No all-wheel-drive option, period. A good set of winter tyres handles most of what the Lake Erie snowbelt throws at you, but if AWD is a dealbreaker, go look at the Kia Seltos instead.

The Verdict

If you’re shopping today, the K4 Hatchback is the pick. It’s not even that close. You get almost all of the Soul’s practicality, plus a punchy turbo option, a genuinely modern cabin, current safety tech, and the simple relief of driving off with a new-car warranty instead of somebody’s old problems. The Soul is still a smart used buy if you stumble onto a clean, low-mile one for the right money, but as a car to actually go buy right now? The K4 Hatchback moved the bar.

Best way to settle it is to plant yourself in the driver’s seat and feel how far this thing has come. Swing by Kenganley Kia Mentor on Mentor Avenue to check out the K4 Hatchback and see current offers on the trims that catch your eye.

Tags: Ken Ganley Kia Mentor, Kia K4, Kia Soul
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