In this combo TECH REVIEW, FIRST DRIVE REVIEW & round of our famous #OptionsGame, MotoMan checks back in with an old friend: The Kia Stinger 4-Cylinder. He learns the 2.5 Turbo 4 Cylinder from the Hyundai Sonata N Line and Genesis G80 is now the base engine in the 2022 Kia Stinger GT Line and it makes a difference . . . but enough to change the Stinger’s fate?
Back in 2017 when you and i first drove the kia stinger i made a bold prediction no one would buy the six cylinder everyone would buy the four-cylinder why because think back to 2017 who in their right mind would spend 50 large on a kia well apparently i was wrong no one bought the four cylinder everyone bought the six cylinder which has sent kia back to the drawing
Board for 2022 and while there is still a four-cylinder my oh my has it changed okay so just how much different can an inline four cylinder be well if we look at the previous kia stinger as a basis of comparison apparently a lot you see that was a two liter gas direct injected turbocharged engine this one is a two and a half liter gas direct injected turbocharged
Engine that should sound incredibly familiar to you because we’ve driven that same engine in many other cars not all of them had a kia badge on them many genesis and of course that’s stunning hyundai sonata and line but there the same engine went this way and had 275 horsepower here it has 300 horsepower put another way that’s about 50 horsepower more than that 2
Liter had in the previous stinger 311 pound-feet of torque as well and the biggest thing is it still drives the rear wheels now this being a four-cylinder it’s kind of about fuel economy and here it’s respectable 22 32 25 combined then there’s the performance figures in there bit of a mixed bag 0-60 very respectable at 5.2 seconds v-max kind of a ho-hum 130 miles
An hour in every instance when you and i are back behind the wheel of a kia stinger the following thought always dawns on me we never drive these things enough and this one 3 611 pounds or depending on how you express your weights and measures 1 600 kilograms is a hundred and eighty pounds lighter than the last one we drove which was a v6 and that was clearly
Too long ago so with that sport mode oh a little bit of hesitation there it was probably more the auto start start wow um you got to get this thing into about 3 500 4 000 rpm to get this engine to work but god does it work man and i was one of the few people that really liked the four-cylinder kia stinger when it first came out but that was what 250 horsepower
Which was more than enough for a car that weighs under 3 700 pounds but this now it’s a lot of power now it’s a quick car the way it delivers power is very different than the 600 god this thing is fun it’s very different than the six cylinder the six cylinder it’s a faster car than you think but it’s not as fast as it should be this now is faster than you think but
You’ve really got to push that engine to make it work and we’ve learned this in other applications of this engine we’ve driven in a lot of things god we almost lost it back in there this is a fun little car with this engine this i have told you in other episodes especially in that sonata and line episode this is probably now my favorite engine from the hyundai kia
Group and not just the way it delivers power but it delivers power and sounds good doing it now granted it’s not quite as supple as in the v6 cause that’s really what that engine is about it’s a lot of power and it sounds good in that vehicle here you definitely feel the roughness of a larger four-cylinder which this is it does work well in conjunction with the
Eight-speed torque converter automatic there has not been an instance in me driving this thing where i feel like i need to use the paddle shifts the biermann programming here has done a really good job even in canyon roads like this i really i take my hat off to them with this car however i’m thinking that this engine is good enough it probably needs that wet dual
Clutch or a derivation of it that would work in a rear drive application and it would make it even at least power delivery god this thing it would make it even more fun yes it is indeed that time again to play your favorite game on the options game with today’s contestant a heavily revised kia stinger this one the 2022 kia stinger gt line rear wheel drive that’s
Translated meaning four cylinder for thirty six thousand ninety dollars now for those of you that were following along about three years ago that’s about four thousand dollars more expensive in base price for the four cylinder then we have to discuss that color believe it or not that’s green it’s called ascot green when i first saw it i could have sworn it was a
Dark gray granted i did see it in a parking garage at lax at night for the first time but when you see it in the direct sunlight it is a stunning color but the black interior does it no favors what it needs is actually not like a light gray or a tan it needs something like a saddle something that’s got more richness to it to emphasize a contrast and really make the
Green pop in the ascot green they do not charge extra for it which i find surprising the first factory installed option fitted to this four cylinder is the sun and sound package i will let you guess what that is 2 300 then there are some port installed options the first one would be the cargo mat that’s this here it’s a mat for the trunk but this one says stinger
On it for the low low price of 125 then the floor mats yes they do charge you extra for floor mats in a 36 000 vehicle can we fix that at least these are for rear wheel drive models only 155 now before we get to the final price here i do need to point out a couple of things here it’s not just the engine that changes here notice the front of the vehicle the lights
They look a little bit more sharper that’s changed for 2022 the wheels also changed for 2022 and then most importantly on the inside they’ve changed the screen it’s still got a tactile look but instead of it being like square almost four by three aspect ratio it’s 16 by nine aspect ratio works much better with the apple carplay and that brings us to the only other
Thing we add here which is the destination handling from sohari korea 1045 and that brings us to the total retail price if you’re ready for this 39 715 but another way that’s about the base price of a six cylinder okay so before you when i get too far down the weeds of driving dynamics a bit of a recap up front mcpherson struts in the rear a five multi-link
Unit that is no different than any other stinger we have driven since what 2017. uh the brakes that’s really one of the bigger differences between this and say a six cylinder it’s 13.6 inch diameter rotors in the front 13 in the rear and what does that mean in terms of differentiation from the six cylinder well it’d be 13.8 in the front and it would be 13.4 in
The rear in terms of pistons it would be four in the front and one in the back in this one it’s two in the front one in the back so now that we understand that we have to move on to the biggest difference no adjustable dampers and that brings about a theme that kind of smacks you across the face when you drive this thing now this is a downright quick car the way
It delivers power is a bit more fun than other four-cylinders from like mercedes and bmw i would argue this is a quicker car at least the way it feels over say a bmw 530 or an e-class with a four-cylinder and really what’s going on here is you don’t have as much control over all planes of motion because it’s non-adjustable dampers do you need expensive adjustable
Dampers to fix that no i would go so far as to saying that there is a blue sky for a static damper setup but one that is much stiffer maybe make it an option package or a standalone model like this be the gt line and that be like the crazy albert biermann line whatever you want to call it but something that has less of a trade-off between composure and compliance
It’s good here one tune for more around town less for out here but i’m thinking the kind of folks that would say no to a honda accord or say a toyota camry with a lot of options and opt for this want something that feels more german and this it’s kind of halfway there with this static setup i think there’s more that could be done here to control the pitch control
All planes of motion and for the avoidance that the pitch ain’t bad it just could be better and my guess if i’m reading the t leaves correctly it’s the same issue we found with this car meaning the six cylinder when we first drove it in 2000 end of and that is the fact that you’ve got a lot of weight high in the car in the ass end of the car and that’s where you
Feel the pitch not in the front the steering is magnificent it’s very direct great waiting i would argue mercedes could take a page out of the book here of the waiting and put it in their serial production mercedes cars even some of their amgs it’s that good here the only thing i would add maybe to those stiffer static dampers would be a little bit more stopping
Power again you’ve got a lot more go power here this is a better package in terms of power delivery but they didn’t do a lot in terms of beefing up the other bits of it to make it a more well-rounded package now with 300 horsepower okay so you and i kind of need to power through this part this is good it’s very good it’s much better than what it replaces so much
So it’s a better argument against the v6 now that we got that out of the way let’s get to the real issue at hand uh there is a nasty rumor circulating in the car world that kia is going to put a bullet in the back of the head of the stinger uh kumo before we got the vehicle he uh reached out to his folks at kia exchanged a couple emails and in those emails they
Said a whole lot of nothing so this is where we get to the wish list please do not kill the stinger do not become like every other car manufacturer and make nothing but nondescript baby buggies this is what sets you apart yes the telly ride is lovely but this is what sets kia apart don’t kill it that is all i have to say and this is the point of the episode
Where i turn this around to you guys to a point in the comments below or via social media moto man tv on word moto man tv onward facebook twitter and instagram as you can see i am somewhat choked up about losing a vehicle like this so i’m gonna say two things perhaps you should get on kia’s ass or go buy one and then of course i would greatly appreciate your
Help with the algorithm so we can drive more cars like this what does that mean click subscribe notifications definitely hit like and absolutely share all these episodes with your friends on your socials until i see you in the next episode hopefully with more rear wheel drive 300 horsepower sedans not crossovers
Transcribed from video
2022 Kia Stinger GT-Line 4 Cylinder: Too good to die! By MotoManTV