2025 Kia K4 GT-Line Turbo: Small Sedan Metamorphosis

We all knew that one kid in high school who tried to reinvent themselves. Maybe they started dressing differently, or maybe they tried to get a new nickname to stick. At some point during senior year, my friend Zeb decided he was going to wear a vest and tie every day to class. We went to a public school with virtually no dress code, so there wasn’t an institutional reason for his switch away from athletic wear. I don’t remember the exact reason Zeb gave for the wardrobe change, but I would bet money that it was more about attracting girls than it was about personal expression.

For 2025, Kia took a page from Zeb’s playbook and dressed up its small sedan and gave it a new name. Gone is the Kia Forte, and in its place is the K4—the moniker keeping with the brand’s current sedan naming convention. Competition in the small sedan space is tough; the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla have been known quantities for 50-odd years, and the Mazda 3 and Hyundai Elantra are no slouches either. Last year, Kia moved 117,961 Fortes. In the same period, the Civic and Corolla almost exactly doubled that sales figure. Each.

As such, it takes a lot to move the sales needle, and Kia leveraged its styling department to differentiate the K4 from the competition. Unlike the largely anonymous Forte, the K4’s styling is distinct—chiseled and upright with nods to brutalist architecture and peak Giorgetto Giugiaro. Kia is swinging for the fences, at least as much as you can with a commodity small sedan. “It almost reads like something from a French automaker decades ago,” gushed managing editor David Zenlea. “The design alone would be a major consideration if I were in the market for a compact.” Our loaded GT-Line Turbo test car has more aggressive front and rear facias and flourishes like 18-inch wheels and blacked-out trim. The only miss to my eyes was the upright C-pillar and how it intersects with the rear window.

2025 Kia GT-Line Turbo

• Price: $29,245/$31,445(base/as-tested)
• Powertrain: 1.6-liter four-cylinder turbo, eight-speed automatic
• Output: 190 hp; 195 lb-ft
• Layout: Front-engine, front-wheel drive, four-door sedan
• EPA-Rated Fuel Economy: 26/36/29 (city/highway/combined)
• Competitors:  Honda Civic, Hyundai Elantra, Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla

The K4’s beauty isn’t only skin deep—the interior continues the themes of the exterior, which is to say cool and funky. The 10-way power adjustable front seats (standard on the GT-Line), with their sculpted backs and headrests, wouldn’t look out of place on the bridge of the Enterprise. Similarly, the large, command-center-style screens span most of the dashboard. The main, 12.3-inch touchscreen display is responsive, and the user interface is intuitive and highly customizable. A smaller, 5-inch touch screen is responsible for the HVAC controls. Luckily, there are physical buttons for fan speed and temperature. Wireless Android Auto worked intermittently for me, but my ailing, four-year-old Motorola might have been the issue. However, Apple CarPlay worked fine without a cord. The K4 is larger and wider than the outgoing Forte, and most of that space can be felt in the interior. In the back, there is plenty of room for most adults, and the trunk is extra deep.

The interior is not without its faults, however. The climate control display is partially obscured by the steering wheel, and with the physical controls, it’s largely unnecessary. Also annoying is the positioning of the volume wheel, which was a bit of a reach for me, and I am built like Lanky Kong. The eight-speaker Harman Kardon sound system was really good in the midrange, but didn’t do well with high and low frequencies. Every time you power the car on or off, the infotainment screen flashes the Kia logo and plays a chime. My girlfriend quipped, “It’s like a flash mob in Times Square,” which is to say, loud, bright, and entirely unnecessary. I dove deep into the car’s menus, but I could not for the life of me find a way to turn it off. Some of the materials feel cheap—it’s evident that this is Kia’s entry-level sedan—and I can’t see the Syntex faux-leather used on the seats holding up well over time. And finally, the rear pass-through opening is a nice addition, but it could be more squared off to accommodate larger items.

Despite my quibbles with the interior, I found the K4 to be a pleasant place to be for hour-long commutes to work. The 190-horsepower 1.6-liter turbocharged four provided sufficient propulsion to authoritatively merge onto Metro Detroit’s chaotic byways and highways. It’s not Civic Si fast, but it doesn’t feel that far off the pace. I didn’t find the bevy of standard safety features, like lane departure assistance, to be intrusive, and I was happy that it could be easily defeated with a button on the lower dashboard. I was thankful for the optional blind spot cameras (part of the $2200 Technology Package). They made spotting fast-approaching highway traffic a breeze.

If you’re looking for a corner-carver, the K4 is not for you. After a blast on some curvy roads, Zenlea came back unimpressed. “The [Mazda] 3 and Civic have a certain special driving sauce that Kia hasn’t quite mastered.” Indeed, the K4 doesn’t have a lot going on in the steering-feel department. Even in sport mode, where the steering firms up quite a bit, there is a disconnect not unlike what you would experience playing a 1990s arcade racer like Cruis’n USA—weight doesn’t equal communication. Also, the rack is absolutely not quick enough to justify the square-ish steering wheel. The delays in the eight-speed automatic transmission’s response, even in sport mode using the paddle shifters, similarly evoke old-tech video game rather than modern-car tech responsiveness.

However, I’d wager that the average Kia buyer doesn’t care about steering feel or transmission response. The Kia K4 shares the fundamentals of what has always drawn buyers to Korean cars: a great warranty, lots of standard equipment, and an attractive price. But unlike Kias from a few years ago, the design can be added to the list of selling points. Sometimes, looks are all that matter. Zeb had some success with his style change, and hopefully the K4 will, too.

2025 Kia K4 GT-Line Turbo

Highs: Exterior design, plenty of standard features, price, 10-year powertrain warranty

Lows: Cheap interior materials, disconnected steering, sluggish transmission.

Takeaway: A good-looking, affordable small sedan that isn’t quite up to par with its Japanese rivals.