2022 Kia Carnival Review and Test Drive

February 23, 2022

Join Nik Miles as he goes over the ins and outs of the new 2022 Kia Carnival. Nik takes us on a test drive and tells us about all the newest upgrades, how the car feels while driving, and gives us an honest review of the vehicle.

I’m Nik Miles at Dick Hannah Kia, home of the Best Deal Guarantee, and today I’m going to show you something that is a definite mouth drop. This is the brand-new Kia Carnival. Every so often car companies come around with really amazing new vehicles and Kia’s done it twice in the last few years. First is the Telluride and second is this, the Carnival. Now here’s something about the Carnival that’s super interesting. Every time I’ve been driving it, I’ve been getting a lot of thumbs up from people around me, but it’s mostly moms and dads with kids which is kind of interesting. This vehicle, although it looks much like an SUV, has sliding doors on the side and that means it’s probably a minivan. At least you and I would like to call it the minivan. Kia wants you to call it a multi-passenger vehicle. This vehicle is amazingly well-designed on the outside. The driving dynamics are super fun with a V6 engine. And wait till you have a look at the inside because this vehicle has configurations that make passengers excited to ride in it for their next adventure or just for day-to-day trips. So first of all, let’s jump inside and take it for a drive.

Kia decided they wanted to make the driving dynamics of the Carnival absolutely outstanding, so they started off with a V6 engine outputting 290 horsepower. Now I know that talking about oily bits doesn’t impress a lot of people but that’s a lot of horsepower for something this size. The vehicle has all the passing power that you need, and you can put your foot down and you feel it immediately like it’s a get up and go vehicle. It can also tow 3,500 pounds so right out of the gate you get amazing engine power and great driving dynamics. They’ve also improved the steering in this vehicle which means you can place it anywhere and it’s absolutely precision driving. This is one of the best Kia’s that I’ve ever driven. I’m totally impressed with the engine size and power.

Something else that I didn’t expect to see in what Kia is calling a multi-passenger vehicle, but is really a minivan, is the fact it has driving modes; four of them. You have a driving mode button here, which is right below the gear shifter, press it, you have a choice between Smart driving, Normal driving, ECO to save you as much fuel as possible, and Sport driving. Can you guess which one I like to drive in? Yes, you already knew the answer to that.

This vehicle is also well planned out on the inside. The screen is just below the windshield and that’s something that’s a big plus for me. I hate having to take my eyes off the road and look down for a lot of things. So, if you want to look at navigation, if you want to look at what’s on the screen, it’s really easy to see. Two gauges, thin TFT screen in between that is very easy to look at, and you can choose the information which is in that thin TFT screen which gives you a changeable piece of information. I like to have my speed right there and have it flip over as a digital speedometer rather than just read the gauges as well. The comfort of the driver’s seat, which is one of the best minivan driver’s seats I’ve sat in, the fact it has two memory positions so two different members of the family can put the seat where they want and just turn it back to where they want by hitting that memory seat this vehicle is a great drive. And I have no trouble in traversing the country on a road trip, going to grandma’s at Thanksgiving several hundred miles away, making any kind of road trip as well as using this as a daily driver. When it comes to driving it’s got the power, it’s got the comfort, it’s got the maneuverability, it’s definitely a huge plus for me.

Let’s talk about the interior layout of this vehicle. Kia again has done a really good job. It feels more like bridging on a luxury vehicle than it does just a family vehicle. There is a lot of wood-style materials on the inside here, a big piece that goes all the way across the dash from one side to the other. The screens are more than half of the dash with that giant big infotainment screen, and then all of the heating, the HVAC controls, are very simple to operate. They’re actually piano black finish on the outside and Kia have spent a long time, if you own this vehicle making sure that that piano black looks as good on day five as it did on day one to give you a material that doesn’t scratch and doesn’t get damaged easily. Regular style shifter right in the middle below that parking brake, the driving modes on one side, the brake hold on the other side. And then you have a series of buttons here including cameras, and the good thing about this is I can actually use different cameras by just pressing that button and going around the vehicle. Plus, you have a toggle above each seat which allows you to choose three different heating and cooling levels for the front seats. And of course, in the winter this vehicle is going to be your friend.

There are 12 standard safety features on this vehicle and when you go through them and when you’re at the dealership you’ll notice that that is more than any other vehicle in its class. Plus, it has the standard blind spot assist which is a lot better than the competition has. This vehicle is packed with safety and security features to make sure that you and your family are safe and comfortable while taking any trip in the new Carnival. And one of the key signature things up front is the new air vent. In fact, this piece travels all the way across the front and there is a new style air vent with very nicely milled air directional switches in it which looks like Kia spent a lot of time on this. It really contributes to the overall luxurious design of the new Carnival.

All right, let’s talk about tech in the vehicle. It all starts with that infotainment screen and everything that’s up front here. You have a capable Amazon Alexa in this vehicle and that’s great. Now you can unite this with your Alexa at home and do car to Alexa, Alexa to car, there are a lot of features that you can use in that including listening to Amazon music and also books on tape as well. Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, that can be used in the center stack here to make sure you can use your phone and use the tools in it. You also get wireless smartphone charging, which is right down here, in front of the shifter, as well as a three-in-one navigation display that gives you navigation in all directions so you’re easy to be able to change your navigation up and be able to move your navigation around. And also, you have the Bose Premium 7 sound system. You can see both speakers in the doors. This vehicle actually has a great sound system. And let me tell you that saved my backside a few times on a road trip.

I can list off a whole bunch of really cool equipment at the back of this vehicle but let me mention a couple of things that are very very special. First of all, these rear screens, you can use Apple CarPlay on them as well, which means that if the kids have their own cell phones, they can actually use them on the screens. There is a camera up here to be able to look at the kids in the back, but if you’re traveling somewhere and it’s late at night and you want to glance at the kids, make sure they’re doing okay, it actually has night vision in it as well. And there are the rear seat sensors which tell you if you’ve left something in the back of the vehicle it will warn you, and finally one of my favorite pieces of safety technology in this; it won’t allow you to open the rear doors if there is oncoming traffic at the side. It knows if a car is approaching and will not let the door become open so somebody can step out into traffic.

So, there is a seven or eight-seat configuration. We are sitting in an eight-seat configuration, so it has three and three. This center seat actually folds down so you have somewhat of a table used here, and cup holders and two spaces; the perfect shape, let me show you, for your cell phone. That fits in nicely there. So where are your chargers? Well, your chargers are in the back of the front seat. You also have a 115-volt charger here, and the standard 12-volt cigarette lighter style charger.

There is so much room here I could actually walk almost to the front seat. The front seat has hooks on it, it also has map pockets on both sides, there are HVAC controls just on the top of the roof here for the rear seat passengers to have their own heating and cooling as they wish, even adjusting things like the fan speed and temperature. You also have automatic door openers here, the buttons, and you can actually pull the handle as well and the doors will open automatically that way as well. Sunshades in the back to make sure that all the babies or the young ones are kept out of all the sun. If you want the captain’s chairs version, you can get that. This middle seat basically comes away and then you have a pass-through into the third row. Most of these seats are easily movable, they have levers on the side. Get into the upper trim levels and you can actually have an ottoman in this vehicle and relax all the way. You can also use the seats to go side to side. So, you can change the gap between them, so you can really maneuver the seat in multiple different ways.

We can glance into the third row, and you can actually see when you glance into that third row, there is power on each side. There are two cell phone holders, plus two cup holders on each seat, and then you have the same on the other side. So, every row gets power. It’s very convenient for everybody to get what they want to get in the back of this vehicle. Plus of course, you have directable air vents and if you have kids that you know are difficult to deal with in the car, directable air vents are one of the best things you can have in the back of the vehicle.

Let’s talk about design in the brand-new Kia Carnival. Of course, this is a first impression of the vehicle and Kia has done an amazing job. This is what you see for first off. It makes you fall in love with a Carnival MPV for the first time. New Kia badge on the front, that’s the first vehicle to get it, the Carnival. As they change their badge, they’re updating it in all of their vehicles, but the Carnival is the number one, the numero uno, to get it. Up front of the vehicle, famous for Kia, at the front end, the tiger-nose grille. This vehicle has a whole front end that is more tiger-nosed and well adapted. Great LED lights and daytime running lights here at the front, very sleek. They almost look like the eye slits in a helmet of a superheroes costume. Lower fog lights, lower bumper, which is both gray and as well has what looks like a metal skid plate at the front. There’s an awful lot of shape to the hood and looks very masculine. But when you look at the front shoulders, which is what we call the front fenders in a vehicle, they have a little bit of a lip that comes out and then a cut very straight and that makes the vehicle look masculine and very aggressive and very capable as this vehicle is. Then you get down to the wheels, you get a choice between 17s and 19s, depending on what trim level you choose. And they’re blacked out as well, and that’s the hot fashion in vehicles right now blacking them out, and this vehicle comes with blacked-out wheels.

Continuing down the side, mirror caps are both silver and black as well. Then you have a floating roof that means the A, B, C, and D pillars, the pillars going from front to back, are actually black, which makes the roof look like it’s floating above the daylight opening space or the glass here. You come down, there’s a roof rack embedded on this, it has of course the sliding doors on the side just like a minivan. You can open those in multiple ways; key fob, you can also open them from the inside in many different ways. And then this piece at the back, this is getting a huge amount of attention. It’s actually a piece of plastic, but it looks like metal, and it has that diamond-shaped molding in it. The cool thing about this is it gives a whole different experience when you look at the side of the vehicle. Nice piece of silver trim which comes below the heated real windshield and then the lights, the plastic of the lights travels all the way across the back. The lights actually only take up this portion with a reflector here, but it looks like they go all the way across the back.

And a nice smooth, well-shaped, tailgate looks very modern and of course, it has multiple ways to open it. And just like an SUV, I want to show you here, this piece of what looks like a metal skid plate at the very bottom shows that this vehicle has capabilities. They’ve done a lot of design language to make the vehicle look very capable as well as it actually being very capable.

Let’s find out what secrets the Kia Carnival has on the inside of the vehicle. So once you open it up, you’ll notice there is huge amounts of space. In fact, the space on the inside of this vehicle is similar to a medium-size or a mid-size truck. It has so much interior space like the bed. You can fold the third row down, which actually goes into the floor of the vehicle. Now before it’s folded down, I think you get about 45 cubic feet of cargo space because there’s that big drop in the floor. If you put all the seats down and you flatten out everything except for the front two seats, there’s about 145 cubic feet of cargo space. That is absolutely massive for something this size of the vehicle. I bet after watching this review you’re as much in love with this vehicle as I am. The new Kia Carnival or the MPV from Kia has so many pros I couldn’t list them off just in this video. The one con it does have is they’re so popular it’s hard to lay your hands on one. But if you want to test drive one just come down to Dick Hannah Kia in Vancouver and they’ll be happy to try and get you into a test drive. And don’t forget it’s home of the Best Deal Guarantee. To find out more about that just visit the dealership.