When everyone tells me the same thing, my first instinct is not to believe them, it’s to doubt them. So when all my auto writer pals told me that the Kia Carnival was an almost unmatched road-tripping vehicle I wondered how it could meet my heightened expectations. Reader, it didn’t. It surpassed them.
Kia has made a considerable effort to label the Carinval a seven- or eight-passenger MPV and not a minivan, I suppose hoping to avoid the soccer mom stigma or, perhaps, to conjure up images of the beloved and gone Mazda5 [Editor’s note: No mention of Biz Markie? -TH]. I’m not sure it’s worked, but Kia also put considerable effort into making this the perfect family hauler and, frankly, it’s so good they can call it a luxury sports coupe and I’d probably give them a pass.
There are no bad minivans on the market and all of them make great road trip machines. The trick to the Carnival is that everything works so well and so harmoniously in such an attractive package at such a good price that I don’t think anything else can touch it now that the Ford Flex is gone. It’s this or a used Flex, those are your options.
(Full disclosure: I bumped into a buddy at Kia and asked when I could get into a Carnival and he promised one by the end of the year, which timed out nicely with a holiday trip I needed to do. They actually shipped the whole thing from CA to NY so I got it factory-fresh with a tank of gas. I returned the favor by having all the mini M&Ms vacuumed out of it – MH)
What Is The Kia Carnival?
Here’s an actual conversation that took place in the Carnival:
Wife: I can’t believe I want a minivan, but I want this.
Me: Actually, it’s an MPV.
Wife:…
Kid: More like an MVP, right?
Whatever you want to call it, it’s a large-ish van with a tailgate, sliding doors on each side, and the option of either a seven-seat configuration with second-row captain’s chairs or an eight-passenger layout with two rows of benches. It’s based on the same platform as pretty much every other larger front-wheel drive Kia/Hyundai vehicle and comes only with a V6 and only with an eight-speed automatic transmission. It’s not a perfect vehicle and lacks the efficiency of some of its competitors, which is an issue that’s likely to soon be fixed.
The Basics
Price: $33,200 base LX, $46,300 SX Prestige, $49,480 as tested (with dual screen rear entertainment and $1,365 destination charge)
Engine: 3.5-liter GDI V6
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Drivetrain: Front-wheel-drive
Horsepower: 290 horsepower at 6,400 rpm
Torque: 262 lb.-ft. of torque at 5,000 rpm
Fuel Economy: 19 mpg city, 26 mpg highway, 22 mpg combined
Body Style: Five-door van
Curb Weight: 4,727 pounds
How Does It Look?
I saw a Kia Sedona out on the street and it’s hard to imagine that the Sedona is somehow the predecessor to the Carnival. There’s no nice way to say this, but the Sedona looks like it plays the sousaphone. IYKYK.
We did a whole podcast with one of Kia’s main designers and he explains why the cars look so good. This does not look like a minivan. The new Toyota Sienna looks confusingly bug-like, the Honda Odyssey is needlessly fussy, and the Chrysler Pacifica was handsomer before the refresh.
Compared to its competition or, really, any car, the Carnival is taut and elegant. I had someone think it was an SUV due, I think, to the short front and rear overhang and muscular door lines. The DLO (daylight opening, aka the windows on the side) also has a proportionality to the doors that feels un-minivan.
[Ed Note:Â I feel like we’re splitting hairs, here. I mean, if this thing didn’t have sliding doors, wouldn’t it be an SUV? -DT]
The metallic textured C-pillar is the little flourish that really ties the design together and it nicely mimics the effect on the grille. It looks premium and expensive.
How About The Inside?
I put about 2,000 miles on the Carnival and rarely has 2,000 miles felt so effortless. The heated and ventilated front seats were just firm enough to keep my tuckus from falling asleep on long hauls. The dual 12.3-inch panoramic screens are sensibly placed and make for easy viewing
This is the SX Prestige model with the optional second-row powered VIP “Lounge” seats, which offer an almost full, first-class recline as well as also being heated and ventilated. Here’s my daughter and her buddy about 15 minutes into a trip to a museum if you want to know how comfortable those are:
Her seat is mostly reclined and has the footstool up so she can full-on chillax. Her buddy is flat-out asleep. Because I’m picking up some grandparents for the drive, you can see that the foldable third-row seats are also engaged. The second-row seats can actually move both laterally and fore/aft depending on how you want to configure the interior:
With the seats down, there’s plenty of room for an IKEA run, which I quickly did before having to give the van back (something I was loathe to do):
Is the interior the best interior I’ve ever seen? Not quite. There are more buttons on this car than can be found in some cars, but a few touch capacitive and piano black bits remain. The Stow ‘n Go seats in the Pacifica are the industry’s gold standard and the Kia’s hideaway third-row seats work, but they don’t have that Chrysler ease.
I’d also kill the rear seat entertainment package. The screens look nice and I appreciate that no remote control is needed, but the kids just want iPads these days.
Also, my daughter is now offended when she sees something that seems too “babyish.”
The VIP lounge seats are a sweet touch and everyone loved them, but if I buy one of these (I might) I’m definitely going to try for the eight-passenger setup because I respect the utility. I might get outvoted here.
What’s It Like To Drive
Should I put the pic of the kid asleep in here again with my daughter giving the old this guy jab?
The way to judge a minivan is not on its ability to hold the road (it holds it just fine), rather, most owners care that it can smoothly transmit partial genetic copies of themselves from one place to the next.
Here is where the Carnival excels. It’s just a MacPherson strut-type suspension ahead of the driver and a multilink setup out back. There’s nothing particularly novel about that. It’s the tuning here that prioritizes a Charmin-soft ride without sacrificing handling on the rare times you find yourself bored enough to try and hoon a minivan.
With almost 300 horsepower on tap from the same direct-injection V6 that Kia/Hyundai use across their line, the Carnival isn’t slow (Car and Driver managed to get one to 60 mph in seven seconds flat). Even better, it doesn’t feel slow, thanks to an honest-to-Iacocca eight-speed conventional automatic. No CVT nonsense here.
All that power is going to the front wheels, so if you want to beat on it, you can induce a little wheel chirp under hard acceleration. Understeer? Yeah, you can get understeer if that’s your bag, which makes it just like every other minivan.
One of Kia’s great features is that it offers most of its advanced driver assistance features on all trims, which include lane keep assist and rear cross-traffic collision avoidance. All but the base trims also get Highway Driving Assist. I’m not a huge cruise control person, but I did try the Highway Driving Assist, which is a Level 2 ADAS system that combines radar cruise control and lane keeping assist with GPS data about road speed and curves. I liked it and used it more than I expected.
Gee, This Seems Perfect, What’s The Catch?
Other than the sliding doors, which are awesome but seem to scare some people, the fuel economy is not great. Kia says it’ll get just 19 MPG in the city and 26 MPG on the highway. I managed a much better 24 MPG around the city and up to 30 MPG for long stretches on the highway, but this doesn’t stack up well against the competition.
On the lower end, the Kia compares favorably with the Honda Odyssey, which is 19/28/22 (city/highway/combined). The Pacifica Hybrid is 30 MPG combined and 82 MPG combined if plugged in first. The best comparison is probably to the Toyota Sienna 2WD Hybrid, which offers 36/36/36.
The good news is that a Kia Carnival Hybrid is almost certainly coming in 2025 and that should fix this one glaring issue. The only other piece that isn’t ideal is the road noise is a little high for this class, which sounded to me like it was caused by the Continental CrossClimate tires.
Does The 2024 Kia Carnival Fulfill Its Purpose?
Hell yeah it does. I had another dad come up to me after an ultimate frisbee game and he was so excited to see the car. He told me he has almost exactly the same one and it rules. He still feels this way after buying at the height of new car prices and apparently putting down $10,000 over the sticker price.
I’m used to people stopping me to talk about pink Porsches and the like, but not for a minivan. If you need to move people then you can hardly move people more easily or more comfortably than this.
How Would You Build One?
I’m glad you asked. The pricing here is really stellar, starting almost $6,000 less than a base Pacifica and about $4,000 off of the Toyota Sienna. The high level of standard features means that you don’t get that much more for the super lux-o SX Prestige (which itself is $6k off the starting price of the Pinnacle Pacifica, which isn’t as nice).
I got the EX because I like the passenger talk system that allows you to talk to the rearmost passenger, I want Highway Driving Assist, and the Flare Red paint looks great. I also added carpeted floor mats. That’s just a hair over $40,000, delivered, for a vehicle that does pretty much everything I’d need a car to do. That’s hard to beat.
What’s The Punctum Of The 2024 Kia Carnival?
This is a USB port built into the rear of the front passenger seat for use by the rear passenger. This is the ideal place to put one of these. Everything in the Kia Carnival just makes sense. It’s a vehicle that makes sense.
(Photo credits: Matt Hardigree, Kia)
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Is anyone gonna acknowledge that these earned a MASSIVE fail in the IIHS side impact? Even after fixing the seats that broke off the rails?!
No way I am putting friends or family in something that gets the lowest side impact score these days. Not with all the heavy EVs running around here in CA.
I’ve never been willing to buy a minivan, because they were always so dreadfully ugly. And no, not because I care what other people think. It’s all about me. I don’t want to spend money on a thing I can’t stand looking at. The Carnival is the first minivan ever that I would consider buying, because damn it looks sharp! Will I? I dunno, maybe. I don’t need a car right now, nor will I for some time, but we’ll see.
If this 3.5L V6 doesn’t have the same GDI engine oil restriction issues that the smaller liter engines have then the Carnival is the best minivan for the price and features. However, if the engine does have the same issues, I still think the Sienna is the best if you want AWD or the Pacifica if you don’t need AWD.
Not sure of the carnival v6 but our Telluride V6 grenaded before it even hit 1,500 miles…
Any idea what happened to it?
No it just started sputtering and blowing white smoke. I think they had said two cylinders failed and those engines have a history of oil delivery/consumption I think so maybe they were starved? Regardless Kia was the worst to deal with. The dealership treated us like shit and ultimately we’ll never buy another Kia.
If it had AWD, this would have been the only thing (besides a Mazda) that I’d replace my SantaFe XL with. In the meantime, I’m losing hope, and just making it last.
At least to me, this would be so much more interesting if it had AWD. Awesome mobile changing & lunch room when taking the family skiing / biking etc. on the mountain. But for my personal use, AWD is a must.
Well we know who agrees with you: Alanis King has sung the praises of the Carni for awhile now. And you’re both right.
Make it a plug in hybrid and you got me. Minivans live for 2 things short trips around town chasing kids and long roadtrips. A plug in hybrid could do most of the around town stuff on house juice then it would help a bit on the roadtrip.
The Carnival is the best looking minivan for sure, and could certainly be argued to have the best features for the money as well. But given KIA/Hyundais abysmal reliability record over the past decade+ I could never own one or recommend one in good conscience.
BTW, my Soul got the anti theft recall fix today. Mom’s Forte got her recall fix last week. A lot more Ram’s and Chevy trucks are stolen around here than anything else, especially Kia’s, and their not getting recalled for lack of theft prevention.
The last gen Sedona was handsome for a minivan, it lost the previous frumpy mom jeans look. That color on your test carnival is gorgeous. The Kia dealer I go to for service never has any Carnivals on the lot. Sales tells me they are sold before they get off of the shipment trailer. They briefly had one in the showroom when they came out, they were cavernous in and out. And just for the record, not all KIA dealers are pond scum. Mine has been wonderful. I’m on my sixth purchase with them and in over 20 years of my business with them they have never tried to rip me off in sales or in service. They handle all of my service and the department is top notch, I always get my vehicles back when promised for the $ amounts agreed upon, and get a free vehicle cleaning to boot!
I read the review, but I don’t get why on the overall you consider this better than the Sienna, Pacifica or Odyssey.
I get the vibe that it looks better (I agree that it looks better than the Sienna and Odyssey at least) and it sounds like the interior is nicer, which is probably the case as the Sienna interior is pretty mediocre, and the Pacifica/Odyssey are old products at this point.
I’m patiently awaiting what Chrysler and Honda are going to come out with as a rebuttal.
Ehhh, I’d still be leaning heavily towards Pacifica because it has Stow N’ Go. I also think the Pacifica is better looking, and it also gets better fuel economy. I haven’t sat in both, but the interior of the Pacifica certainly doesn’t look bad.
I have a Voyager and the interior is fine, and the higher trim Pacificas are genuinely nice inside. I prefer the pre-refresh face of mine, but the current face looks fine I guess. Overall it’s a nice looking van.
The fuel economy of this, the Pacifica and the Odyssey are all awful. The Pacifica PHEV has unfortunately, been hilariously unreliable from what I’m hearing.
Stow N’ Go (as well as stow n’ place, the building in roof rail/crossbar system) is awesome. It’d be hard to abandon that sweet feature for fuel economy alone.
Especially with the lowest possible side impact crash test score from IIHS.
As a van fan, I really want to love the Carnival. It looks good. It seems nice inside. Everyone raves about it. But I have a question/concern…
Are the second row seats removable in some way? The Sienna second row is no longer easily removed because they put airbags in the seats. I want the fuel economy of the Sienna, but that second row problem is just about a deal-breaker for me.
And then there’s the company. I know a few people who are being absolutely freaking boned by Kia and their dealer right now in regards to not honoring their warranty. As an example, imagine owning a Soul, waiting and waiting for Kia to address the Kia Boyz shit (of their own creation by being cheap shits), constantly trying to get your car in for the recall but Kia and their dealer keeps dragging their feet, and then your car gets ransacked when someone tries (but fails somehow) to steal it. Then it goes in for repairs and the other recalls that it’s due. But then the dealer lies and doesn’t actually do the recalls that they said they were addressing, so that when the engine blows up 2 months later, they claim you never brought it in to address the recall and therefore they void the warranty. Weeks of fighting with Kia and various dealers to address the issue have left you without a car. That fight is still ongoing.
Am I allowed to callout shitty Kia dealers by name in this comment section? Destination Kia in Albany, NY. You’d be kooky to buy a Kia from them (ugh).
Anywho, this is (admittedly the worst) of a whole bunch of horrible issues that people I know have been dealing with lately when it comes to Kia (and Hyundai to a lesser extent). I and my family can hold a serious grudge when it comes to cars, despite us being oddly Hyundai loyal for a number of years. I don’t think I can take Kia seriously until they start holding their dealers accountable.
The second row are removable, it’s a bit of a pain but not too bad.
I have the 8 passenger version and generally keep the middle second row seat in the house unless I need it. Better for passenger and cargo pass through.
Good to know that they are actually removable. Anything that isn’t Stow and Go is going to be annoying, but I like to have the option.
The Sienna not allowing the second row to be removed really cuts down on the versatility that you expect from a van.
There are apparently ways to remove the Sienna 2nd row. Agree that it is disappointing they don’t make it easy.
Otherwise, on paper, the Sienna is a slam dunk over the competition in my book. Apparently others think so too, seeing you cannot buy a Sienna anywhere.
I think it requires disconnecting the battery so that you can disconnect the airbag wiring without a whoopsie. And then you get to drive around with warning lights on the dash for the airbag system. It’s theoretically doable, but just enough trouble that I’d imagine very very few people would bother.
And yes, the Sienna, especially in anything other than luxury trim, is basically impossible to find and get at MSRP. If there were a green, LE plus package AWD Sienna just sitting around nearby for MSRP… I would probably be making a semi-poor financial choice right about now.
I would definitely be doing research to find a better work around for the second row if there was one available anyway.
Would have bought one already if it didn’t look like a 5th grader’s doodle of a sci-fi space shuttle he did during math class. It needs a full makeover from the team that did the new Prius.
A buddy of mine had his Sonata’s 2.4L engine fail, and then someone tried to Kia Boyz it while it was at the shop – these two factors combined to total the car, and he now quite likes his Mazda3 he replaced it with
When you really look at all the various powertrain failures and the Kia Boyz debacle, people really have undersold how bad of a streak Hyundai/Kia are on regarding reliability and customer experience.
The game-changing 2009 Sonata that was made through 2014 has become so rare in my area (despite my area dealer selling an absolute freaking ton of them back then) that Torch could do a ghost car segment on it. It’s only been out of production for 10 years and I now do a double take every time I see one. Kia Souls are dropping like flies out there. I see more 00’s Elantras out in the wild than I do early 10’s.
It’s not a good look.
Right, this lack of confidence (and poor experience of the Genesis dealer nearest me, for the dealer group I work for), inspired me to trade in my G70.
Look at that engine cover. This is why engineers hate Stylists.
It’s an NVH top hat to make the engine quieter, but as it’s the first thing you see when you open the hood it’s A-surface will be owned by Styling.
What they’ve done is turn what should have been a simple double curvature panel (like the fuse box cover on the right of that picture, what no dramatic styling of fuses and wires?) on a transverse V6 in to something that looks like one moron was describing a longitudinal V6 to another moron over the phone while they were both driving through different tunnels. But the rest of the under hood area is engineering, and styling that one cover achieves nothing at all. It’s fundamentally dishonest, it’s trying to make it look like something it’s not, which is fine if that’s what you want, but it’s really, really bad at it.
It’s 2024, anyone opening the hood will either be pulling that cover off to go to work, or staring at it in panic before calling a tow truck.
Either leave it blank or mould the fault-finding page from the manual on it.
My first thought when I got to that image was that someone hid a Decepticon under the hood.
That would have been fun, rather than the current joyless misunderstanding of what an engine is.
I bought a 2022 in the summer of ’21 and was able to get it at MSRP.
I still love it! I’ve done a 4,000km+ two week road trip with the family in it and it was the perfect highway cruiser.
I passed on the Odyssey because they didn’t have one for a test drive and I would have to buy it sight unseen.
I passed on the Toyota because I tow a 3,000lb RV and the Sienna felt underpowered.
Sure it’s a bit thirsty, but I still love it!
Your daughter looks like a riot. When can we expect to see her byline here?
I was thinking the mpg savings would give the Sienna the edge over the long term and it does. Saving $24 after owning it for 10 years. With Toyota’s higher price and atrocious apr, the mpg savings are negligible. Fueleconomy.gov is so helpful in doing the math for you.
Edit: The starting prices I used are based on the spec I’d want to buy if I was in the market. ~$52k/9.47 apr for the Sienna and ~$48k/7.25 apr for the Carnival
If you are going that in depth into the costs, the Sinna likely has much better resale, even after 10 years of ownership.
Seems like the APR is a tricky thing to throw in the mix here when there’s a number of other variables that can’t quite be accounted for. Toyota in my area has an advertised rate of 2.9%/36 months on Siennas, Kia has nothing.
Always loved these! We had the 8 seater with the 2.2 Turbodiesel, and man it was FAST. (By Indonesian Standards) and the ADAS system is the best in class, beating out the Toyota Alphard and its “cousin” the Hyundai Staria!
“It looks premium and expensive
…
$49,480 as tested (with dual screen rear entertainment and $1,365 destination charge)”
It IS expensive.
As scary as it is, that’s almost exactly the average new car price.
Which goes to show: New cars are expensive.
Hey Thomas, Biz Markie, the Wu-Tang Clan, Prodigy, Busta Rhymes, Heavy D, Fat Joe, and the ÂNotorious B.I.G. all professed their love for the Mazda MPV, not the Mazda 5. Although the 5 was cool because you could get it with a manual trans.
I REALLY wanted to like these, but other than the footrests in the third row, it really doesnt do anything special other than look really good and have footrests in the backseat.
They all have stuff like USBs in the back seat, hell the chrysler has A/V jacks and a power outlet. You can hook up a switch and play it on the screens. The odyssey and sienna will be more reliable. The chrysler has awd, and a much airier cabin, plus the seats all disappear in seconds.
Theres also the fact that my only experience with them are ones that have come in on trade, with issues. A friend of mine bought one and ended up getting it bought back after 2 engines and months without her vehicle, all in the first year of ownership.
Kia has been on a roll lately, im hoping the next refresh or update they find a way to match the utility of the chrysler, and the reliability of the japanese vans. For now, the only reason I see someone picking this over a sienna is because it looks really, really nice.
But as we all know, thay alone is enough to sell cars.
Having had this carnival availablein Australia for a while, I’ve only heard good things about them
If the upcoming hybrid variant is a PHEV, we’d trade in our Odyssey in a heartbeat. Unfortunately Chrysler has the PHEV van market all to themselves, and based on my one week rental with the Pacifica PHEV, I have serious doubts about the vehicle’s longevity.
It only had 10k miles on it, and the engine already sounded like it was done with life whenever it came on…
I own one and the engine sounds is due to the Atkinson cycle, it sounds like a small tractor sometimes. The sound is pretty bad when its cold outside and the engine is running to get the cabin warmer faster.
Cruising on the highway the car itself is quiet, you get 30mpg easily and doing city errands its all electric if you plugged in before departing. I can drive it a month without refilling the gas tank thanks to the electric range for kids drop-off, grocery store runs, visiting friends and such.
Ah that makes sense now for the engine noise. The fuel savings are real though. For the ~week and a half I had the rental, we used maybe an 8th of a tank of gas, and most of that was due to van not being charged up when I picked it up from the rental place.
We got a ’24 Carnival. I’m seriously impressed thus far.
I went there many months back, to see a Carnival in person. They didn’t have any. The sales gal I talked to was apologetic, asked if there was anything else I was interested in, and I told her that we were down to the Carnival and Sienna because [reasons]. And, at that, we were only interested in the top-level trims of each because the sunroof was a non-negotiable requirement because [reasons].
A few weeks went by, and I got a call from the sales gal. They had a Carnival in that I could test drive. It wasn’t the trim I wanted, but she wanted to let me see one in person anyway. I went in, drove it, got to see the features, etc. Asked what the lead time was if we ordered one, and it was something on the scale of months. We weren’t in a rush, just interested, I left.
Didn’t hear from her again for like 4 months. She had a SXP with all the options we wanted that was a customer order cancellation. Wanted to know if we wanted it. Stayed till way after closing while we did all the paperwork & stuff. Was awesome. Got it for straight MSRP last fall, right around the time when there were still some dealers marking them up.
What I don’t like about the Carnival SXP, considering it’s the top trim and most of these features are available across other models in the brand:
A funny quirk of Carnivals? My base model has the wireless car play! Premium trims do not. I don’t get it either but I’m glad!
Licensing issue with Kia/Hyundai. If you have built-in Navigation, there was some disagreement with either Google or Apple on what should happen if you press the vehicle’s Nav button while in the wireless phone mode. So they disabled it.
https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/27/hyundai-wireless-carplay-all-cars/
It’s coming to some of the newer vehicles with an update, but it sounds like the ’24 Carnival isn’t new enough. Nobody’s getting a straight answer, really.
I desperately want & need a minivan, but a couple of things would keep me from this one.
Yeah I used to be the first person to suggest someone not dismiss Hyundai/Kia as some trash company not worth considering, but there seems to be recent evidence that they are a trash company not worth considering.
All over the internet I read about engine problems and less than helpful warranty support. We know their dealers generally are terrible, so seeing Hyundai/Kia corporate not help either isn’t reassuring.
While a new Carnival might not be subject to the Kia theft problems, the brand is tainted by it and their response has been less than exemplary.
It is too bad. I might not buy the Carnival (my wife wants AWD), but I’ve always had my eye on the PHEVs like the Niro. Think they are off the list now.
I actually love the way these look, the Carnaval is styled like a proper van with nice linear belt line and upright features. Kinda tired of the ‘space egg’ look the other import vans have morphed into, this feels very ‘fit for purpose’ by comparison.
The only issue is the fuel economy. These are full size SUV and pickup truck numbers. This needs to come in hybrid ASAP.