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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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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