Joined
·
3 Posts
Hi all,
As of about two weeks ago, I'm the proud owner of a new 2018 Kia Niro LX with Tech Package in Deep Cerulean. I'm loving the car, but there's a few small things that bug me. And it's possible that some of these things can be fixed in the settings, but I haven't found a way to do it. So, in no particular order:
1) The buttons under the display. I love that there are physical buttons for many of the display functions. For example, if I'm using Apple CarPlay navigation, and I want to fiddle with the radio, I just press the physical radio button and do what I need to do. Great. But my problem is that there's no physical button to now get back to the CarPlay map. While on the radio screen, I can press the "Phone" button to get back into CarPlay and then press the Map icon on the screen to get back to the map. Or I can press the "Apps" button and then the "CarPlay" button on the screen to get back to the CarPlay map. But it would be nice to have one physical button that takes me right back to the CarPlay navigation screen I was already on.
2) This is the same question as above, but about the steering wheel buttons. It would be nice to do everything I want to do above using only steering wheel buttons, but I don't think this is possible.
3) The Adaptive Cruise Control and LKAS are both really nice. But I wish they were just a little bit smarter. And since this is the only car I've ever driven that has had these features, I don't know if these are problems that exist with these features on all cars, or if these are specific to Niro or to Kia.
3a) First, Adaptive Cruise Control. This works really great, but I wish it was smart enough to just coast sometimes. If I'm slowly coming up on a slower driver ahead of me, my car will apply the brakes to slow down. It would be nice if, instead of doing that, it just let off the gas to slow down. Similarly, if I have the follow distance set to one car length, there have been many times where my car will just stay at the speed i set it at until it gets within that one car length and then it will start braking. But if I'm set for 60mph, and the guy in front of me is stopped, this is a very harrowing situation! Since we know the car has the ability to see at least 4 car-lengths ahead, it would be nice if the ACC could tell that the difference between "me going at 60mph and coming up on a car that's going 55mph" and "me going at 60mph and coming up on a car that's stopped" and begin braking earlier in the second scenario, despite the fact that my follow distance is set to one car length.
3b) Next, LKAS. I've found that this doesn't work as well as I would have liked, and the "please keep hands on steering wheel" warning is so prevalent that the LKAS feature almost might as well not even be there. There have been plenty of times where I was on a relatively straight stretch of highway with my hands lightly resting on the steering wheel, but letting the LKAS do the work of keeping me in the lane. Every 10 seconds or so i would get the "keep hands on the steering wheel beeping" and have to make a (usually unnecessary) move on the steering wheel to tell the system that I was still paying attention. And even when the LKAS is doing the steering, it doesn't really keep me centered in the lane. Rather it just drifts over to the left edge of the lane, then corrects us to be drifting over to the right side of the lane, and repeats the process. So we're just ping-ponging back and forth in the lane. Does Kia ever update the software in these things, or is this basically going to be how the LKAS works for the life of this car?
4) The beeping when I get out of the car while the car is on but they key is in my pocket is annoying. Sometimes I'll leave the car on while I get out to get something out of the trunk or open the garage door, and that incessant beeping seems louder and longer than it should be. Any way to turn this off?
5) Lastly, I had a question about the trim that goes along the windows of the car. After about a day of driving, I got out to inspect the car and was horrified to see that the black trim along the top edge of the windows is peeling off. Upon further inspection, I saw that it wasn't stuck on too great in the first place, and is not aligned great anyway. But after looking at pictures of other Niros online, I saw that on most of them, that piece is silver. So I ask - is this black rubber trim supposed to be peeled off? I feel like it would look nicer with it peeled off, especially since the trim along the rear window is already silver, but I don't want to peel away some bit of insulation or something that's supposed to be there. I've attached a picture to show what I'm talking about.
Thanks for any information you can provide! Those are basically my only questions or complaints with the car, other than that I love it!
EDIT: I don't know why the attached picture uploaded upside-down, but it did. Hope you can still see what I'm talking about!
As of about two weeks ago, I'm the proud owner of a new 2018 Kia Niro LX with Tech Package in Deep Cerulean. I'm loving the car, but there's a few small things that bug me. And it's possible that some of these things can be fixed in the settings, but I haven't found a way to do it. So, in no particular order:
1) The buttons under the display. I love that there are physical buttons for many of the display functions. For example, if I'm using Apple CarPlay navigation, and I want to fiddle with the radio, I just press the physical radio button and do what I need to do. Great. But my problem is that there's no physical button to now get back to the CarPlay map. While on the radio screen, I can press the "Phone" button to get back into CarPlay and then press the Map icon on the screen to get back to the map. Or I can press the "Apps" button and then the "CarPlay" button on the screen to get back to the CarPlay map. But it would be nice to have one physical button that takes me right back to the CarPlay navigation screen I was already on.
2) This is the same question as above, but about the steering wheel buttons. It would be nice to do everything I want to do above using only steering wheel buttons, but I don't think this is possible.
3) The Adaptive Cruise Control and LKAS are both really nice. But I wish they were just a little bit smarter. And since this is the only car I've ever driven that has had these features, I don't know if these are problems that exist with these features on all cars, or if these are specific to Niro or to Kia.
3a) First, Adaptive Cruise Control. This works really great, but I wish it was smart enough to just coast sometimes. If I'm slowly coming up on a slower driver ahead of me, my car will apply the brakes to slow down. It would be nice if, instead of doing that, it just let off the gas to slow down. Similarly, if I have the follow distance set to one car length, there have been many times where my car will just stay at the speed i set it at until it gets within that one car length and then it will start braking. But if I'm set for 60mph, and the guy in front of me is stopped, this is a very harrowing situation! Since we know the car has the ability to see at least 4 car-lengths ahead, it would be nice if the ACC could tell that the difference between "me going at 60mph and coming up on a car that's going 55mph" and "me going at 60mph and coming up on a car that's stopped" and begin braking earlier in the second scenario, despite the fact that my follow distance is set to one car length.
3b) Next, LKAS. I've found that this doesn't work as well as I would have liked, and the "please keep hands on steering wheel" warning is so prevalent that the LKAS feature almost might as well not even be there. There have been plenty of times where I was on a relatively straight stretch of highway with my hands lightly resting on the steering wheel, but letting the LKAS do the work of keeping me in the lane. Every 10 seconds or so i would get the "keep hands on the steering wheel beeping" and have to make a (usually unnecessary) move on the steering wheel to tell the system that I was still paying attention. And even when the LKAS is doing the steering, it doesn't really keep me centered in the lane. Rather it just drifts over to the left edge of the lane, then corrects us to be drifting over to the right side of the lane, and repeats the process. So we're just ping-ponging back and forth in the lane. Does Kia ever update the software in these things, or is this basically going to be how the LKAS works for the life of this car?
4) The beeping when I get out of the car while the car is on but they key is in my pocket is annoying. Sometimes I'll leave the car on while I get out to get something out of the trunk or open the garage door, and that incessant beeping seems louder and longer than it should be. Any way to turn this off?
5) Lastly, I had a question about the trim that goes along the windows of the car. After about a day of driving, I got out to inspect the car and was horrified to see that the black trim along the top edge of the windows is peeling off. Upon further inspection, I saw that it wasn't stuck on too great in the first place, and is not aligned great anyway. But after looking at pictures of other Niros online, I saw that on most of them, that piece is silver. So I ask - is this black rubber trim supposed to be peeled off? I feel like it would look nicer with it peeled off, especially since the trim along the rear window is already silver, but I don't want to peel away some bit of insulation or something that's supposed to be there. I've attached a picture to show what I'm talking about.
Thanks for any information you can provide! Those are basically my only questions or complaints with the car, other than that I love it!
EDIT: I don't know why the attached picture uploaded upside-down, but it did. Hope you can still see what I'm talking about!
Attachments
-
479.7 KB Views: 506