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

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

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.

[Images © 2024 Tim Healey/TTAC.com]

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Tim Healey
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.

More by Tim Healey

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4 of 40 comments
  • Chiefmonkey Chiefmonkey on Apr 16, 2024

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

    • See 1 previous
    • MaintenanceCosts 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.



  • Chiefmonkey Chiefmonkey on Apr 17, 2024

    "These are premium luxury vehicles for the affluent"

    I wouldn't go that far...

  • Ras815 Tesla is going to make for one of those fantastic corporate case studies someday. They had it all, and all it took was an increasingly erratic CEO empowered to make a few terrible, unchallenged ideas to wreck it.
  • Dave Holzman Golden2husky remember you from well over decade ago in these comments. If I wanted to have a screen name that reflected my canine companionship, I'd be BorderCollie as of about five years go. Life is definitely better with dogs.
  • Dave Holzman You're right about that!
  • EBFlex It will have exactly zero effect
  • THX1136 What happened to the other companies that were going to build charging stations? Maybe I'm not remembering clearly OR maybe the money the government gave them hasn't been applied to building some at this point. Sincere question/no snark.
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