Kia Stinger GTS In-Depth Performance Review | The Full Story on Drift Mode

Sa.

Took you long enough. Nice car though.

Yeah, you like it? 2019 Kia Stinger GTS With a dynamic all wheel drive.

I probably would have got a rear wheel drive and not orange.

Why not? I think it's pretty awesome. Federation Orange. Only one of 800 in the world. Ready to drive it?

Yeah. All right, So this car start is pretty anti climatic, huh?

Listen man, it's not going to be like your Jaguar SVR with that 5 liter V8.

Yeah. But there's a GTS badge on the back of this car, so I'm just expecting a little bit more from it.

You know what, go ahead, get on it a little bit.

Honestly, that's really surprising that that sort of noise comes from this 3.3 liter twin turbo V6 from Kia. The exhaust notes pretty bassy.

You know that's all fake, right? They do this BMW thing where they pipe exhaust note into the cabin with the speakers. The good thing is though that you could turn it off. And that's something I really appreciate. From Kia.

I know there's a few different GT trim levels and from what I remember they all use the same powertrain but just a different differential and all wheel drive system, right?

Yeah. Same 365 brake horsepower engine, 376 foot pounds of torque. The biggest difference with the all wheel drive system is that you can control how much power is going to the rear wheels. With this little selector switch in comfort mode you get about 60%, sport mode's 80%. And then with that legendary drift mode, get 100% to the rear wheels. So tell me, how's it drive?

Well, I got three complaints. One is the gearbox, the throttle response and then the turbo lag. After 2,500 RPMs, this thing picks up.

And just goes though. How them factory Brembo's treating you could.

Use a little bit more bite. But then again, this thing does weigh two tons.

See, if it were me, I'd probably personally get the rear wheel drive version. Just save £200 right off the bat.

Yeah, See, I don't understand why people don't buy that. You, you save money and you save weight and there's your drift mode right there.

Let's see. Think about it. If you start modding this car, then you've got 450 to the wheels with full bolt ons. And I don't think you're gonna be hooking 255s anytime soon if it's just rear wheel drive.

Okay, but if people are already modding it that far, then what are they gonna Forget about the tires. I had this issue in my E92 M3. All I did was widen the tires. You can do the same on this car.

I guess that makes sense. But what about those guys in the Northeast like us here, who, you know, in the wintertime we see a lot of snow.

Yeah, you're probably right. The all wheel drive one is the more sensible option, especially if you live in the Northeast. But nonetheless, this car makes a really good daily driver. It's spacious, it looks nice, and then when you put it in sport mode, it's not that stiff. And this car's just simply quick. Then we get to the interior bits of this car where I start to have a little bit of an issue. The top portion here takes an entire design cue from Jaguar. This screen is from BMW. This air vent area straight from a Mercedes S class or C class, whatever you want. And then an Audi down here. And to end it off, we have a Volkswagen Touareg gear shifter. And I know now I'm just asking for too much. I would like a digital dash, but I can live without one. The seats are pretty comfortable in this car. I'm a small guy, I move around a lot in the seat through turns. But then again, this is not any sort of racing bucket seat. But for a daily, everyday car, it gets the job done. And it's not uncomfortable by any means. I'm loving the steering wheel, though. Flat bottom, alcantara heated steering wheel. So the more you turn in with this car, I realized that the steering is like really progressive. The more you turn in, the more it goes in, which is really nice. I actually like it. The paddles are all right. They're just, you know, they're average paddles, nothing special here. And I know you're a big Stifler on paddles.

You know what, they're actually pretty good for a Kia. I mean, they're better than the Audi paddles, which I know it's not really saying much because Audi makes probably the shittiest shift paddles on the planet. But the other thing I can't get over is this steering wheel. It's not that there's a Kia badge on it, it's just that the materials and the design is kind of doesn't really fit the rest of this car.

Yeah, but once you get over that, I mean, this car is just as bit as good as those Germans and especially at $46,000. I mean, what more could you possibly want? It drives nice, it's fast, it performs very well compared to all of Them and the handling is just great. I think it handles really well.

I can see what you're saying.

Yeah, but we should try it now.

Try what?

Come on, dude. Drift mode.

No, dude, we're not insured for that.

I think we should still try it.

Listen, we should just keep driving.

We should keep driving to an empty parking lot. You're right.

No, that's a bad idea.

It's a great idea.

Let's just go. So after discouraging Sean and dropping him off back home, I thought it was about time I took his advice and make my way to an empty parking lot. There's no actual drift mode button. You set it to sport, turn off traction, stability, and preferably use manual mode, then you're good to go. The biggest problem with the Stinger is that despite having everything off, the car will progressively learn what's going on and start to pull back on the fun. So if you really want to have drift mode, just get a rear wheel drive Stinger. Alright, playtime's over. Let's see how fast it is now. So I guess nothing fancy here. Put into sport mode and we're good to go. But even in full manual mode, the car will upshift for you at Redline. Not bad. Upshifts and downshifts could be better. It's not really as aggressive as its German counterparts, but now that that's over with, let's see how it does on the track. Driving a car on the street and driving a car on the track are two different animals. Something that feels great on the street may not feel the same when pushed to the limits on a track. And that's exactly the case with the Stinger gts. Let's start with the good. There is decent power in the back straight away. Having more power is always welcome, but if I can hit 100 miles per hour back here, I can sleep easy at night. Like I said before, the car automatically ups just for you at Redline, no matter what, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your driving style. For me, I hate it. Around a technical track like this, you really feel that 4,000 pound curve weight in the form of enormous body roll. And despite being in Sport mode with 80% power in the rear, I found the car to have constant understeer and there was just not enough punch from the engine to induce any power oversteer when you wanted it. The suspension fared pretty well against the imperfections on this particular track. Something that would normally unsettle a stiffer riding car didn't really affect the cornering in the Kia. The variable rate steering was great on the street, but on the track it's a different story. While it's helpful for turn in in certain scenarios, most of the time I found it to be unpredictable around the corner and I had to adjust my driving style for the car. The only redeeming factor is the steering feedback in the physical wheel itself. But the worst part is the brakes. They have a really hard time keeping up with the weight. The fate becomes really apparent after a few laps. Even though this is a relatively low speed course. Frankly we had to bring it in after six laps despite not even pushing the car to its mechanical limits. But that's alright because by then we had already had enough. It's definitely not designed to be a track car, I get that, but this channel is called track day, so if I get the opportunity I'll bring it in for some track time. But all in all, it lacks confidence in almost every department and simply wasn't inspiring to drive to the limit. But it looks like I was able to keep up with that Shelby GT350 in the advanced run group. So that makes me kind of curious what kind of lap time we got. Surprisingly, the Kia did pretty well despite feeling like driving a bucket of crabs for what is essentially a 2 ton 4 door family sedan with all wheel drive. Designed by an economy car company, it held its own here and I was impressed that it put down a respectable lap time of 1:27.63 seconds. And that's with a passenger. In my experience a passenger is usually worth around two seconds around the track, which would make it as quick as a track. Purpose to Barth124 in a straight line. It isn't slow either. Real life 060 happened in 4.87 seconds and 0 to 100 in 11.57. Surprisingly, using launch control was slower than just brake boosting. In the quarter mile it did 13.19 at 105.83 miles per hour. And this will also be the start of the half mile test in which The Kia did 20.77 at 129.01 mph. In terms of rolling times, the GTS pulled off a respectable 4100 time of 8.62 seconds. Faster than Alpha 4C but still slower than most of its competitors. Interestingly, this car seems to have some decent top end pull because it was able to outrun the Infiniti from 60 to 130 with a time of 15.39 seconds and for my metric friends, we got a 100 to 200 kilometer per hour time of 12.87 seconds to say the least. I'm impressed that something like this came out of a Kia factory, and I'm sure some aftermarket mods would make this thing a real monster on the street. All things considered, the Stinger GTS is a formidable entry into the sports sedan segment from the Korean automaker. I would argue that it's 80% there in terms of being a rival to the Germans. Then again, it's also 80% of the price of an S5 Sportback. It's a car with great potential though, and I find it rather attractive in the same way you would find a nerdy co worker attractive if they suddenly decided to take some fashion advice. Not a fan of the fake hood vents, but I believe this powertrain has tremendous potential. The interior is acceptable, but not my favorite by any means. I would even spring for the GT2 trim so I wouldn't have to look at this Touareg shifter. But the GT2 trim puts you at over 50 grand, and despite having a unique key fob and an impressive skillset, it's still a Kia. I hate to sound like a brand stomp, but the truth is I wouldn't hesitate to spend an extra ten grand for that C43AMG or M340i. You'll get a more luxurious interior, better exhaust note and better performance, as well as the limited prestige that comes with an entry level luxury sports sedan. Some would argue that it's actually a competitor for the Audi A7, so that might be an idea for a future episode. But if your budget is a limiting factor, I would tell you the spring for the base GT trim. You get the same 3.3 liter twin turbo V6, plus you save five grand over the GTS. On top of that, you can also pick a different color besides Federation orange. If you're like Sean, I think we'll be all right. I don't know. What if we crash into a tree or something?

I know just the spot to take you.

No trees. I think. I think we're gonna.

Well, we gotta do it for the fans.

Hard pass. I got no fans. Hit that subscribe button. First time on the channel. Don't forget to check out some of my other stuff. I produce all sorts of cool content with performance cars and acceleration tests, so if that's your jam, be sure to hit that subscribe button and ring that bell icon for new episodes every Thursday. Thanks for watching.