Reviewed: The Kia K4 GT-Line Turbo – Someone has to Draw the Short Straw in the Sibling Rivalry

by Greg Karpinski

For some time now, Kia has endeavored to make more engaging cars, and those have generally been bestowed with the “GT” nomenclature.  The Stinger GT.  The EV6 GT.  These are legitimate performance vehicles based on the feature-packed cars Kia has become known for.  But in recent times, Kia has instead adjusted course and has routinely been badging cars with “GT-Line” designations.  These are mildly-warm versions of their more basic counterparts and a very far cry from the GT cars we’ve come to appreciate.  Think “meh” like the Audi S-Line trim.

We were in New York when the K4 was announced in March 2024 to replace the Forte as a 2025 model at the New York International Auto Show and it was exciting – we had a name change and a complete change in design direction from the forgettable Forte as Kia adapted their Opposites United design language to their smallest sedan.  Gone was the Forte GT but from its ashes has arisen the K4 GT-Line Turbo, our tester this week.  Does it land closer to the GT cars we loved, or closer to its more basic counterparts?

The Fine Print: Kia wanted us to check out the K4 GT-Line Turbo so badly that they dropped one off with a full tank of gas and let us have it for a week.  It was so good at eating up miles, we kinda took it on a bit of a road trip.

Our K4 GT-Line Turbo tester arrived finished in a color Kia calls Morning Haze.  Think of it as an interesting version of “greige,” if there can be such a thing.  It actually does stand out and the light green-grey hue nicely offsets all the glossy black trimming on the exterior of this thing.  The design of the K4 is undeniably sharp, but certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea – Kia calls it a fastback sedan and the sloping roofline does give it a bit of an Audi A5 vibe and is begging to be a hatchback, but it’s still just a traditional sedan, complete with a 14.6 cubic foot trunk.  Kia has released a hatchback version of the K4, but instead of keeping the cool look of the sedan, they essentially lopped off the back of it and made it rather stubby, but way more practical.

The nose is the best angle on the car, bedazzled with multi-cube LED headlights, Kia’s signature DRLs and that tiger nose grille which is one old design element still hanging around after all these years.  The GT-Line cars get 18” wheels which help fill out the big wheel wells and Turbo cars are oddly finished solely in gloss black.  If you opt for the GT-Line non-Turbo, you get much nicer looking black and machined finished wheels, but are missing out on a whole heap of horsepower, but we’ll get to that later.  Around back, the wraparound taillights have Kia’s “Star Map” LED signature and look rather cool when they’re illuminated at night.  Unfortunately, the design mimicking the front end results in a bit of a droopy look that doesn’t quite work.

The profile of the car looks great, but Kia chose to make the rear door handle hidden in the design, which looks awesome by itself in a vacuum, but it makes the front door handle oddly noticeable, floating out in space all by its lonesome.  A better design choice would have been to either hide both door handles, or neither of them.  A few design quirks aside, I genuinely enjoy the design and appreciate Kia for doing something different in the marketplace.

Inside, the K4 GT-Line Turbo feels more upscale than its $28,090 MSRP would indicate and our tester looked rather chic with a hip black and white design.  The interior is also huge – 98.7 cubic feet huge, which places it in-line with the Civic we adored and bigger than the Corolla and even a couple midsizers.  You feel it wherever you’re sitting in the cabin too – front passengers have 42.3 inches of legroom and rear passengers have a massive 38 inches.

The GT-Line Turbo comes with black and white trimmed SynTex seats with contrast stitching, decent bolstering for shenanigans and they’re heated and cooled when you select the Tech Package.  This is impressive for a car in this class and pricepoint, but Kia has developed a bit of a reputation for packing their cars with features and this one is no different.  Ultimately, the interior design is rather clean and materials are solid – soft touch where your hands naturally land and textures that don’t scream “cheap.”

Technology is what plays in the compact sedan segment and Kia has risen to the challenge with the K4.  All K4s get a digital gauge cluster and 12.3-inch infotainment screen, but EX trims and above receive dual 12.3-inch panoramic displays housed in one seamless panel.  The look is very clean and modern and resembles something that should be in a much more expensive car.  It’s running Kia’s new Connected Car Navigation Cockpit and the interface is extremely smooth – fast responses, clean menus and zero ragebait.  Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard across the K4 line and the system can receive over-the-air updates, so it’ll stay updated, just like your phone.

Just below the screens are the climate controls which are rather fiddly.  Kia has given you a redundancy if you don’t like them on the panoramic display, but that section of screen just so happens to be blocked by the steering wheel.  Dual zone automatic climate control is largely “set it and forget it” but still a bit of a questionable choice to make the physical controls fiddly and then hide the screen a bit.  What isn’t fiddly is the rest of the swag this car comes with – Harman Kardon audio, memory driver’s seat, wireless charging, rear AC vents (take that, Civic), Smart Key and Highway Assist 2.

Highway Assist 2 is Kia’s rather good semi-autonomous driving system – it combines adaptive cruise with lane centering and even adds in automated lane changes.  On our road trip, we found it to be easy to use, just as naggy as every other system, but wholly capable of keeping the car comfortably centered in its lane, maintaining its speed or adjusting to traffic.  Changing lanes is probably still best left to the driver and Kia has included an excellent feature to make this even easier – the blindspot camera view pops up directly in your gauge cluster with a clear, crisp view of the space over your shoulder.  It’s such a smart and simple innovation, we think all cars should have it, at least until our autonomous overlords take over.

 Until those overlords come for my car keys, I still like to actually drive my vehicles and performance is probably the biggest conundrum for the K4 GT-Line Turbo.  It looks properly sporty, it’s the only one in the entire K4 lineup with a turbocharged engine, gone is the CVT, replaced by an eight-speed automatic.  Bigger brakes, a multi-link suspension setup.  It should be legit, but it isn’t.  The 1.6L turbo four makes 190hp and 195lbft of torque, spinning the front wheels through the aforementioned eight-speed automatic.  It’s not quick – 60mph comes up in about seven seconds and it trips the lights through the quarter mile just shy of 16 seconds at 90mph.  Boost comes on quick at 1500rpms and it feels rather quick off the line but once you’re into the power band you’re going to want more and it just doesn’t have it to give.  The eight-speed automatic is fine and a massive upgrade over the CVT you’ll find in every other K4 trim, but from a sporting premise, it’s just fine.  Sport mode tightens up throttle response, shifts and steering, but it’s not going to give you the sporty promise you wanted.

Fortunately, handling is rather good – steering is light but responsive.  It’s not as razor sharp as you’d find in a Honda Civic Si, but it’s confident in corners and you feel planted.  The GT-Line cars get the multi-link rear suspension, which results in a lot less bounce hitting bumps mid-corner over lesser K4s with the torsion bar setup.  The ride is also surprisingly smooth – no fancy adaptive dampers, just good old-fashioned engineering and its firm enough to feel connected but soft enough to avoid upsetting your significant other.  Efficiency is superb with an EPA rating of 29 mpg in the city and an impressive 38 mpg on the highway – our roadtrip saw an average of about 35mpg and we were generally caning the poor car and it just kept coming back for more.

The problem is that the K4 GT-Line Turbo has a bit of an identity crisis.  Kia has packed it with a raft of performance improvements over every other K4 but the overall package is still pretty mild when you’re hoping for at least somewhat spicy.  Even over at Hyundai, the K4’s platform mate, the Elantra obviously has the properly hot Elantra N, but it also has the Elantra N-Line, which should be analogous to the GT-Line for the K4.  But it’s not.  The Elantra N-Line starts at the same price, has more power and a proper dual clutch gearbox, which combine to make it quite a bit more rapid both in the seat of the pants meter and the stopwatch, approximately half a second quicker to 60mph.  Also hanging in the ether is Honda’s excellent Civic Si, starting about two grand higher – sure, you might miss out on a couple cool features, but you can actually spec it with a proper manual gearbox, a bit more power, an excellent chassis and a bit more sedate styling, if that’s your thing.  Ultimately, that’s the conundrum with the K4 GT-Line Turbo – it doesn’t offer the dynamics or appeal of the segment leaders, but instead seeks to differentiate itself by offering a uniquely-designed tech-forward approach for a reasonable pricepoint.  If that’s more important to you than the drive, then the K4 GT-Line Turbo is the car for you.