Commuter Review: 2021 Kia Forte5

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Regardless of whether you’re taking a city break and enjoying the sights in and around Kingston, Ontario, are soaking up the beauty of Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia or enjoying the wonders of Banff National Park in Alberta, the traffic on the drive home is snarled. Rather than clipping along at the posted speed limit you are creeping along at an agonizingly slow pace cursing the early-to-leave, late-home reality so many face after enjoying a brief get-away — the traffic is rapidly returning to its pre-Covid rat race.

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A weekend jaunt to Kingston proved the point. On the way out of town, the 401 was busy across the top of Toronto and it was moving at what felt like a snail’s pace on the two-lane section east of Cobourg — the trucks take forever to pass one another leaving a tailback of cars cursing these speed-limited behemoths. Here, the latest iteration of the Kia Forte5 provided to be a welcome distraction.

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The Canada-only GT hatchback, tested here, arrives with turbocharged power, a six-speed manual gearbox, sport-tuned suspension and exhaust system along with 18-inch wheels wearing grippy P225/40 tires. The combination makes it a decent highway cruiser and a corner carver that seems to relish a series of serpentine turns almost as much as the driver. While it lacks the reputation of the Volkswagen Golf GTI, it is a significantly more affordable alternative.

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The cabin is well appointed with a ton of standard equipment. It ranges from automatic climate control and a power moonroof to a full suite of safety aids including blind spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert. The eight-inch infotainment screen supports Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and a half-decent sound system. What proved irksome was the fact the manual transmission model is not available with satellite radio, which makes little sense. With terrestrial radio stations fading in and out, having it along for the ride would have been much appreciated.

At first blush, the heated front sport buckets look flat and poorly padded — they proved to be  comfortable on the 300-kilometre run to Kingston. Likewise, the rear seats will accommodate two adults without too much whinging and there’s enough space left for luggage. There’s 741-litres with the seats up, and 1,597L when folded. By way of reference, that’s more than rivals like the Honda Civic hatch, Mazda3 Sport, and Toyota Corolla hatch.

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The GT arrives with a 1.6-litre turbo-four that makes 201 horsepower and 195 pound-feet of torque at 1,500 rpm while burning regular gas. It drives the front wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox or optional seven-speed double clutch. The tester arrived with three pedals and a shifter that snicked through the gears smartly. The combination does make the engine busy at highway speeds — at the usual 120-km/h speed it runs at around 3,250 rpm. This does mean the drone gets monotonous on a long run; however, it did not seem to affect fuel economy. My confusion was the fact the GT listed its fuel consumption in kilometres per litre of fuel consumed, which made it seem really thirsty — it was displaying an average of 15.1! Mercifully, it can be switched to the usual litres per 100 kilometres (L/100 km).

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When set correctly, the 300-km 401 run produced an average economy of 6.6 L/100 km, which is better than the officially posted number (7.6 L/100 km). At the end of the 700-km test, the average had risen to 7.2 L/100 km, but that’s still very good. Remarkably, the double-clutch transmission, based on the official numbers, returns better economy than the manual — it’s 1.0 L/100 km better in the city and 0.7 L/100 km on the highway.

If you’re up for a more rewarding return drive and want to avoid part of the monotony that defines the 401, it’s worth taking in Sandbanks Provincial Park. Leave Kingston on Highway 33 and follow it to Adolphustown. A short ferry ride to Glenora and then on to park and its array of beaches. It is difficult to believe this is the same Lake Ontario that fronts Toronto!

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One of the unspoken plusses of going with the GT is it ditches the torsion beam rear suspension in favour of a multi-link design. It does a much better job of keeping the back-end planted. Having lived with a first-generation Soul for an eternity, the torsion beam setup has a tendency to washboard out of line if the pavement gets rough mid-corner, which is disconcerting to say the least. The GT holds its line in a composed and competent manner even when pushed through a bumpy corner. This and the sportier suspension brings rewarding handling.

There is little body roll through a fast corner, the steering feeds back the right information through the flat-bottomed steering wheel and the GT’s 25-mm larger front brakes make them less predisposed to fade when they are leaned on repeatedly. The plus is selecting Sport mode gets a more immediate response from the engine and it puts some needed weight into the steering feel, which is a good thing.

The Kia Forte5 GT is one of the few cars driven lately that actually had a minor bout of torque steer. Taking-off on the hill leading to Fort Henry Hill — reputed to offer the best tobogganing in Kingston — saw the steering wheel pull to the left or right. It wasn’t a big deal, as the tug proved to be benign and easily controlled. In the bad old days, torque steer was enough to pull the car out of its lane if the driver did not have both hands on the wheel! In an ironic twist, what should have been a negative turned out to be one of the Forte5 GT’s fun factors.