Drive Notes: 2024 Kia Telluride SX-Prestige X-Line

by Tim Healey

Published: April 15th, 2024

drive notes 2024 kia telluride sx prestige x line

Last week I wheeled a 2024 Kia Telluride SX-Prestige X-Line around town. I have thoughts, and here they are, in bullet-point form.

As a reminder, this Kia has a 3.8-liter V6 that makes 291horsepower and 262 lb-ft of torque, plus an eight-speed automatic transmission.

It's also quite big and boxy.

Pros

The steering, while a bit too artificially heavy, feels pretty well dialed-in for a large three-row crossover.
This thing is comfortable. Nice seats, lots of room.
Kia's infotainment system is generally pretty good.
The interior still has plenty of old-school knobs and buttons.
For being such a boring box, the Telluride still manages to look stylish.

Cons

It's ponderous. Not slow, per se, but you feel the size.
Fuel economy is predictably dismal.
That name is a mouthful.
It's easy to lose this thing in a parking lot full of similar-looking large crossovers.

Hyundai's Palisade is the more stylish of the two siblings, but the Telluride is generally a pleasant pal to live with. Just prepare a large enough budget for fuel.

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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Comments

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4 of 39 comments

Chiefmonkey on Apr 16, 2024

Did these have the same security/theft problem that other Kias have? lol

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- Analoggrotto on Apr 17, 2024
  
  These are premium luxury vehicles for the affluent, so no.
  
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- MaintenanceCosts on Apr 17, 2024
  
  No, these have always had immobilizers. But Kia Boyz aren't very smart, so they still break into these more than you would expect with other brands, and insurance premiums will reflect that.
  
  1
Chiefmonkey on Apr 17, 2024

"These are premium luxury vehicles for the affluent"
I wouldn't go that far...

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Recent Comments

Jeff71960 nice car... but a little on the bland side visually... i love my Mopars and would rather have a "high impact" paint color 👍️
Eliyahu Wonderful entry/exit for the driver-I sat in one at the dealer. Not that I would drop $60,000 on a car, but how do I deselect the stupid stuff? Let's start with the grill. I am hoping that the replacement design theme is more pleasing and not worse. 21" wheels? I thought un-sprung weight mattered. Is there no way to get a lower lift-over height for the trunk? Needs to be a hatchback if they can stiffen the body enough. And we need both a Venza and a Crown? Of course the tooling costs are now sunk so I suppose they'll both be around for a few years. Maybe I'll like a used one in 5 or 6 year-priced right. Quibble, quibble...
Ajla Considering this person spent the extra markup on the Mopar accessories it was probably decently taken care of. The Magnaflow is also relatively tasteful as these things go.But $29K for an automatic 2015 Dodge RT with 60k? They made a lot of these things and you can get one newer with lower miles for the same price. Although maybe he's open to taking less.
1995 SC get the manual, install a decent head unit and enjoy reliable basic transportation that doesn't completely stink to drive and has a warranty.
1995 SC You could do a lot worse for the price.