Some may call Kia's brand new K900 an ambitious vehicle. Others may see it as a silly idea and think Kia is in way over its head with this $60,000 base price sedan. I personally feel that the 2015 K900 is an ambitious step in the right direction with nothing but positivity for Kia's future.
Overview
The 2015 K900 is new for the American market but has been in production as the Kia K9 in Korea
since 2012 and as the Quoris in other parts of the world since June 2013. The US version comes in one flavor which starts at $60,400 including destination charges. The VIP package can be had for an additional $6,000 which adds more features than you can imagine like soft close doors. My test vehicle was without the VIP package and came equipped with a 17 speaker Lexicon sound system, Lane departure warning and blind spot detection just to name a few. The standard Tau V8 is good for 420hp at 6,400 rpm and 376 lb-ft at 5,000 rpm. The vehicle comes standard with an 8-speed automatic transmission.The Drive
This vehicle is smooth. I applaud Kia's engineers because the ride quality of this vehicle is outstanding. The suspension is more on the soft side which means this vehicle is not for the enthusiast looking for a sporty ride. I am not saying the car can't handle, it just lacks spirit on twisty roads. I found myself pushing it on twisty roads but quickly stopped because I found more pleasure in driving at a moderate speed and taking curves with ease.
The K900 comes equipped with three selectable driving modes which really do make a difference. Normal is just that, normal. The vehicle shifts up smoothly and the steering has a light weight to it. Sport mode adds a bit of weight to the steering and keeps the vehicle in lower gears for a quicker throttle response. Eco helps to save gas by reaching higher gears quicker. I found myself driving in Normal the most and switching to sport just to try it out. I did not really feel much steering feedback in any mode but something tells me that is not something Kia was really going for.
The K900 is also whisper quiet. On the highway at speeds up to 75 to 80 mph, road and wind noise are muted very well. I only really heard road noise driving over rough roads but even then I was surprised by how muted that was. Kia has also done a fine job at muting engine noise too. While showing it off, I had one person ask me to turn the car on, but the vehicle was already running. I only really heard the engine while stepping hard on the gas but even then I could tell the engine was being deaden some kind of way. This also further proves that Kia did not intend on this being a sports luxury sedan.
The Ride
Riding in the K900 is a pleasure, preferably in the backseat. The backseat is extremely spacious and disconnected from the rest of the world thanks to all the window shades. There are shades to block sunlight for every window in the back seat including a powered shade for the rear windshield. The side window shades are manual meaning you have to pull and hook the shades into place.
The middle seat in the back folds down to reveal electronic controls for the air conditioning, rear
shade, controls for the passenger front seat and to heat the rear seats. Note: with the VIP package, the pull down also includes controls for the rear cooled seats but does not include a trunk pass through. I found the controls to be straight forward. The rear seat also has a fully independent temperature control for the air conditioning, but changing the fan speed from the back changes the fan speed for everyone. There is also a rear lock button which locks the controls. This can also be done in the settings part of the UVO system found in the front. The VIP package also includes rear power adjustable seats which can be found on the doors just like in the front.
Kia's UVO system is universally praised by journalists for being both simple and fast to use. The
UVO system in place here is packed with a ton of features, but I did find some inconsistencies during my test. The UVO system in the K900 comes standard with a high-res 9.2inch screen with: HD Radio, SiriusXM, navigation, Bluetooth, and traffic, weather, gas prices, stocks, and movie showings provided by SiriusXM. The system is controlled with an iDrive like controller (because luxury cars never come equipped with touchscreens) with buttons around the sides to easily navigate to different parts of the system.
Just like other Kia vehicles, the K900 comes with UVO eServices for absolutely free. eServices is a service that allows Kia owners to find where their car is parked and offers one touch road assistance. To connect to eServices one must download the Android or iOS app, make an account and register their vehicle. Some other features of eServices include My POIs which allows users to save points of interest for quick navigation access to places, and vehicle diagnostics information. eServices will alert users when the vehicle is ready for maintenance and will run self checks and alert users if a problem is found. Vehicle Diagnostic information is also available on the UVO website. More information about eServices can be found here.
The systems 17 speaker Lexicon sound system has a decent sound to it. I played a couple of songs from CDs and found the treble to be clear with a nice presence and the bass has a nice impact that reaches pretty far down to sub-bass territory. I was not so impressed with the mids though. I found the mids to slightly bleed into higher bass frequencies which creates a slight muddy Bose like sound.
The SiriusXM Data section of the system is where traffic, weather and other SiriusXM data provided aspects of the system are located. Favorite theaters, gas stations and stocks are displayed with detailed information available when clicked. Setting a favorite, for easy access, is as simple as navigating to the fuel section and clicking the menu button found right above the rotary controller. Think of the menu button as right click on a windows computer. Pushing menu from any screen brings up extra options just like right clicking allows the user to copy and paste among other things. Note: it does take some time for this information to fully load. Do not expect to check movie showtimes and stocks as soon as you power the vehicle on as these items take time to populate.
This UVO system not only comes equipped with satellite radio but has access to SiriusXM's 2.0 system. SXM 2.0 is a set of features, and roughly 20 extra channels, certain radios have access to. Lately, many car manufactures are adding 2.0 equipped radios to their vehicles and the K900 is no exception. The K900's system allows for up to 12 SXM presets, six of which automatically buffer and
save the stations content for up to an hour in the background. For example, say you have The Heat saved as one of your six favorite presets, you could change off of the station and when the channel is tuned to again, the system will have saved the past songs played allowing you to skip back and listen to each song. This feature also buffers int the background while listening to FM or CDs. Tuneselect and Tunemix (features found on aftermarket SXM 2.0 radios) are not available for this vehicle.
One annoying thing I came across with SiriusXM presets is that in order to move a preset to the top six favorite, I had to completely delete the station and add it back somewhere in the top six. I could not simply move the station up. This is just a note. I do not really see this annoyance bothering many because once presets are set, people do not usually change them - I think.
The system can also play DVDs in park as well as in drive. The movie will be shown on the 9.2inch screen in the front and heard all through the cabin via the stereo system. Movies can only be seen while in park. Once the vehicle is put into gear a message pops up saying you can't watch movies in drive but the movie can still be heard through the speakers.
shade, controls for the passenger front seat and to heat the rear seats. Note: with the VIP package, the pull down also includes controls for the rear cooled seats but does not include a trunk pass through. I found the controls to be straight forward. The rear seat also has a fully independent temperature control for the air conditioning, but changing the fan speed from the back changes the fan speed for everyone. There is also a rear lock button which locks the controls. This can also be done in the settings part of the UVO system found in the front. The VIP package also includes rear power adjustable seats which can be found on the doors just like in the front.The Tech
Kia's UVO system is universally praised by journalists for being both simple and fast to use. The UVO system in place here is packed with a ton of features, but I did find some inconsistencies during my test. The UVO system in the K900 comes standard with a high-res 9.2inch screen with: HD Radio, SiriusXM, navigation, Bluetooth, and traffic, weather, gas prices, stocks, and movie showings provided by SiriusXM. The system is controlled with an iDrive like controller (because luxury cars never come equipped with touchscreens) with buttons around the sides to easily navigate to different parts of the system.
Just like other Kia vehicles, the K900 comes with UVO eServices for absolutely free. eServices is a service that allows Kia owners to find where their car is parked and offers one touch road assistance. To connect to eServices one must download the Android or iOS app, make an account and register their vehicle. Some other features of eServices include My POIs which allows users to save points of interest for quick navigation access to places, and vehicle diagnostics information. eServices will alert users when the vehicle is ready for maintenance and will run self checks and alert users if a problem is found. Vehicle Diagnostic information is also available on the UVO website. More information about eServices can be found here.
The systems 17 speaker Lexicon sound system has a decent sound to it. I played a couple of songs from CDs and found the treble to be clear with a nice presence and the bass has a nice impact that reaches pretty far down to sub-bass territory. I was not so impressed with the mids though. I found the mids to slightly bleed into higher bass frequencies which creates a slight muddy Bose like sound.The SiriusXM Data section of the system is where traffic, weather and other SiriusXM data provided aspects of the system are located. Favorite theaters, gas stations and stocks are displayed with detailed information available when clicked. Setting a favorite, for easy access, is as simple as navigating to the fuel section and clicking the menu button found right above the rotary controller. Think of the menu button as right click on a windows computer. Pushing menu from any screen brings up extra options just like right clicking allows the user to copy and paste among other things. Note: it does take some time for this information to fully load. Do not expect to check movie showtimes and stocks as soon as you power the vehicle on as these items take time to populate.This UVO system not only comes equipped with satellite radio but has access to SiriusXM's 2.0 system. SXM 2.0 is a set of features, and roughly 20 extra channels, certain radios have access to. Lately, many car manufactures are adding 2.0 equipped radios to their vehicles and the K900 is no exception. The K900's system allows for up to 12 SXM presets, six of which automatically buffer and
save the stations content for up to an hour in the background. For example, say you have The Heat saved as one of your six favorite presets, you could change off of the station and when the channel is tuned to again, the system will have saved the past songs played allowing you to skip back and listen to each song. This feature also buffers int the background while listening to FM or CDs. Tuneselect and Tunemix (features found on aftermarket SXM 2.0 radios) are not available for this vehicle.One annoying thing I came across with SiriusXM presets is that in order to move a preset to the top six favorite, I had to completely delete the station and add it back somewhere in the top six. I could not simply move the station up. This is just a note. I do not really see this annoyance bothering many because once presets are set, people do not usually change them - I think.
The system can also play DVDs in park as well as in drive. The movie will be shown on the 9.2inch screen in the front and heard all through the cabin via the stereo system. Movies can only be seen while in park. Once the vehicle is put into gear a message pops up saying you can't watch movies in drive but the movie can still be heard through the speakers.
Things I Found And Extra Details
The K900's panoramic sunroof is large and gorgeous. The glass has a smoked tint to it helping block out the sun and operates in just one touch. With just one press of the button, the shade retracts and front portion of the sunroof opens all the way up. There is also a bug guard that pops up from the front of sunroof ,and as you can see, it works.I also noticed that pressing the Nav button or navigating to the Navigation option from the home menu took me to a map. In order to get to the main navigation menu, I had to click the menu button and navigate to the main page from there. In doing so, this brings up many new options for searching for points of interest, traffic, route information and many more. I found the navigation to be up to par but I was not fond of the systems speech capabilities. Simply saying, "find the nearest WalMart," kept yielding auto mart results from the system, but when I said, "find the nearest shopping," the system quickly gave me results for both food and other stores. Finding WalMarts or any particular store can be done by manually searching through the POIs menu.
Another thing I think Kia needs to work on is the reflectiveness of the 9.2inch screen. The screen becomes extremely washed out pretty much all day. No matter where the sun is positioned, some portion of the screen will be washed out. I personally do not know how Kia can fix this but I know it can be done. I have been in plenty of cars where the screen was not washed out by the sun all day.
Setting the beautiful analog clock is very easy. All I had to do was navigate to the settings menu and click on clock settings. From there I used the rotary dial to input the hour and minute and the clock's hands suddenly began moving to my desired time.The K900 also comes standard with an auto open and close trunk. Pressing the trunk button on the key or the button located on the drivers hand side of the vehicle, releases a beep and the trunk magically opens. A button found on the trunk lid will then close the trunk after one press. There are also little hooks located at the top of the trunk that allow for the hooking of grocery bags which will prevent them from rolling around the trunk, neat.
The K900 even has an Auto Hold feature. When activated, the vehicle will stay in place allowing you to take your foot of the brakes and rest. With a press of the gas pedal, the vehicle will begin moving in either drive of reverse depending on what gear you are in. I found the feature to be neat and can be useful for some but I personally rarely used the feature. The Auto Hold button is located bellow the shifter claw next to the electronic parking brake.
Speaking of the shifter claw (that is what I like to call it) it is very easy to use but can take some time getting used to how it operates. If you have driven any recent BMW then you know what I mean. The unlock button is located on the left side of the claw and has to be pressed (along with the brakes) in order to place the car in a desired gear. A big P located at the top of the claw is how you engage park. Moving the claw to reverse from park requires you to move it up just once. To get into drive either from park or reverses, just move the claw all the way back. It is very easy to operate but it can take some time getting used to pushing the stick up to get to reverse rather than pulling back. I also feel that the materials used for the shifter could have been better. BMW's version is made up of brushed metals and feels really solid in my hand. Kia's version is comprised of mostly plastics and feels kind of cheap to me. This is about the only thing in the vehicle that feels cheap to me as the rest of the materials are fairly top notch.
Merriam Webster defines luxury as, "a condition of abundance or great ease and comfort," great ease and comfort are two things Kia has definitely achieved with this vehicle. Everything from its comfortable plush ride to easy open trunk are fine examples of the luxury Kia is trying to reach. This car's ambitions are not that of sport but refinement. The big V8 is is powerful yet tame, road noise is anything but, and the technology presented in this vehicle can definitely rival some of its German and Japanese competitors. The K900 is a great example of what big dreams and ambitions can help achieve. This is Kia's first real attempt at luxury and while it is not perfect, I have nothing but high hopes for the future.More photos are below. Clicking on a photo will bring up a gallery of all the pictures throughout the article. All photos are my own.
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