Hitting the Road with the Kia Forte 5 Door SX

The other day, I shared 5 reasons that Kias make great family cars. While I’m planning on having my next car be a Kia, I don’t currently have one. So how do I get my Kia fix? I test drive them, courtesy of STI, and put them to the test!

The latest car I was able to try out was the Kia Forte 5 Door SX. We took it on our road trip to Disneyland earlier in the year &it was a nice, comfortable drive. I love taking Kias on road trips because they are roomier than my husband’s car & get better gas mileage than my car {by a lot- my car is very inefficient}, and they have lots of little extras that make driving them fun. Here are some of my favorite features of the Forte:

Installing car seats is a breeze: I can not install a car seat for the life of me. I have broken many a nail {which, if you’ve never done it, is a lot more painful than it sounds} trying to attach & unattach car seats into various vehicles. This car makes it easier to connect your car seat securely, leaving little room for error {much appreciated with car seats for safety reasons} & while keeping your nails intact.

Dash design & features: I love how the main dashboard looks & I love that it tells you how many miles you have until your tank is empty! This is especially helpful for road trips, when you may not have another gas station for a few hundred miles.

Fogless: These things at the top of the glass sense fog & will defrost the car, even if the heat is on. Which is SO nice because in most cars, you have to turn the A/C on to get the fog to go away & if it’s so cold out that it’s foggy, who wants the A/C on?!

Seat stitching: Such a small detail, but one that I care about. I love the sporty look of the red stitching in the leather seats!

Media console: The car is bluetooth-ready and comes with 3 months of satellite radio. It also has navigation, which I really wish I had in my car. You can talk on the phone through the speakers, and many things can be voice controlled.

Sunroof: Sunroofs are nice to have anyway, but I especially love them in Vegas in the summer. When it’s 117+ outside, your car gets ridiculously hot in a matter of minutes after turning it off. It helps to crack a window, but I never feel that safe doing that, so I’d rather crack the sunroof.

Retractable mirrors: A feature that I have seen become common in Kias, but one that I can not emphasize enough. I totally hit the side of my garage with my mirrors {in my own car, not a Kia} so I love having the option to retract mirrors in tight spaces.

Trunk space: For a normal sized car, I was surprised at how much trunk space it had! {Well, it’s a hatchback, but it’s still the size of a typical sedan.} Our road trip was only for a weekend so we didn’t bring that much stuff, but we could have easily gone for a week in this car & held everything comfortably.

Parked at our hotel in Anaheim!

Other fun features include Smart Key entry with push button start, dusk sensing headlamps, turn signals in the mirrors & built in auxiliary audio input & USB connection.

Whether you hit the road a lot or just stay home, the Kia Forte 5 Door SX is a great car for a small family!

Buy It: Prices start at just $18,300 brand new & like all Kias, the car includes a 10 year/100,000 mile warranty.

Where would you take a Kia Forte 5 Door SX?

Note: I was provided the vehicle to test drive for a week for review purposes. No compensation was received. All opinions are my own.