This spring J and I were able to sneak away to Destin for a weekend to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary. The only tiny glitch in our plan was that our car needed to go in the shop around the same time. The kind folks over at DriveSTI offered to let me borrow a car for the trip so that we didn’t have to rent one, for which my pocketbook was hugely thankful.
(Plus I mean it when I say kind because the deal was that I would write a blog post about all my feelings on said car and obviously I did not get that posted in a timely manner. I’m real appreciative of their patience with me in a month that unexpectedly turned out to be one of the craziest times of my entire year.)
I should mention that I typically drive a 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier that I bought when I was 17 years old. Can you even believe that thing is still running? Her name is Esther and I love her. Except the thing is, Esther has no air conditioning. And I live in Georgia. So we’re currently car shopping in hopes that we can maybe get me in something a little more family friendly in the fall, which was why I was happy to get to really test drive the 2014 Kia Forte EX. I mean, road tripping from Georgia to Florida is a really good way to get a feel for whether or not a car is going to work for you.
So you can imagine that going from the cavi to the Kia I kind of felt all futuristic and fancy in a car that had so many bells and whistles. I was all “THIS CAR STARTS WITHOUT A KEY! AND IT SAYS HELLO TO ME! AND IT AUTOMATICALLY PUTS MY SEAT IN THE POSITION THAT I WANT IT TO BE IN! AND THERE IS A FAN IN THE SEAT TO COOL MY BUM! EXCEPT ACTUALLY THAT SORT OF MAKES ME FEEL LIKE I WET MY BRITCHES SO MAYBE I DON’T LIKE THAT SO MUCH. BUT IT TELLS ME WHERE TO TURN!”
I was a huge fan of the backup camera and dashboard navigation, because I’m kind of terrible with directions. My husband was more enamored with the Sirius satellite radio. Well, except for that one part of the trip where we crossed into Florida and I kept playing Florida Georgia Line repeatedly because “Baby you a song, you make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise.” That was not at all annoying of me.
My favorite part of the whole car was that the glove compartment had a little button you could push to make it double as a cooler. That might sound silly and inconsequential but as a mom who used to have to transport a ton of pumped breast milk back and forth to the hospital for months on end, I was like WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE GLOVE COMPARTMENT COOLER?! Seriously, do you know what is in my glove compartment? A manual and some random napkins. A cooler is SUCH A BETTER USE OF THAT SPACE. I mean THINK OF THE JUICE BOXES I COULD KEEP THERE!
And Scarlette’s favorite part of the car was the folding mirrors, for parking in tight spaces or people who sometimes misjudge how wide their garage door is despite the fact that they have lived in their house for four plus years. I mean, I don’t know anyone like that personally or anything. Anyhow, Scarlette’s obsession with the mirrors was so cute that I made a little video of her reaction to it, as well as some of my other favorite things about the car!
What I didn’t love? The driving options that would regulate your gas. It’s supposed to be eco-friendly and help keep you from overusing your gas but it felt a bit jerky and uncomfortable to me, like someone was ghost-driving the car with me. So I turned that option off and was happy that it was an optional feature. The gas mileage was great and the ride was smooth although we did notice that the driving noise was louder than what we are used to.
Overall I thought it was a really nice car and it is on our To Consider list for makes and models as we shop, although we would definitely look at a model with a few less extras than the one we test drove to better fit our budget. While they were really fun to try out, I drive so little that we just need the basics.
It’s a really cute little car though, I loved how it was compact because I am really short and don’t love big cars but still had a lot of space to fit our carseat and luggage and random child accessories. I hauled Scarlette around in it for a few days after we got back from our trip and it’s just so nice to have the extra room when you have a stroller and diaper bag and Buzz Lightyear to tote around everywhere.
Disclosure: I was not compensated for this post but I did get to test drive the 2014 Kia Forte EX in exchange for writing a post about my opinions on the car, so obviously all these opinions are my own.
