The 2024 Kia Carnival Is Low-Key The Best Family Car You Can Buy

Carnival Review 3
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When everyone tells me the same thing, my first instinct is not to believe them, it’s to doubt them. So when all my auto writer pals told me that the Kia Carnival was an almost unmatched road-tripping vehicle I wondered how it could meet my heightened expectations. Reader, it didn’t. It surpassed them.

Kia has made a considerable effort to label the Carinval a seven- or eight-passenger MPV and not a minivan, I suppose hoping to avoid the soccer mom stigma or, perhaps, to conjure up images of the beloved and gone Mazda5 [Editor’s note: No mention of Biz Markie? -TH]. I’m not sure it’s worked, but Kia also put considerable effort into making this the perfect family hauler and, frankly, it’s so good they can call it a luxury sports coupe and I’d probably give them a pass.

There are no bad minivans on the market and all of them make great road trip machines. The trick to the Carnival is that everything works so well and so harmoniously in such an attractive package at such a good price that I don’t think anything else can touch it now that the Ford Flex is gone. It’s this or a used Flex, those are your options.

(Full disclosure: I bumped into a buddy at Kia and asked when I could get into a Carnival and he promised one by the end of the year, which timed out nicely with a holiday trip I needed to do. They actually shipped the whole thing from CA to NY so I got it factory-fresh with a tank of gas. I returned the favor by having all the mini M&Ms vacuumed out of it – MH)

What Is The Kia Carnival?

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Here’s an actual conversation that took place in the Carnival:

Wife: I can’t believe I want a minivan, but I want this.

Me: Actually, it’s an MPV.

Wife:…

Kid: More like an MVP, right?

Whatever you want to call it, it’s a large-ish van with a tailgate, sliding doors on each side, and the option of either a seven-seat configuration with second-row captain’s chairs or an eight-passenger layout with two rows of benches. It’s based on the same platform as pretty much every other larger front-wheel drive Kia/Hyundai vehicle and comes only with a V6 and only with an eight-speed automatic transmission. It’s not a perfect vehicle and lacks the efficiency of some of its competitors, which is an issue that’s likely to soon be fixed.

The Basics

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Price: $33,200 base LX, $46,300 SX Prestige, $49,480 as tested (with dual screen rear entertainment and $1,365 destination charge)

Engine: 3.5-liter GDI V6

Transmission: Eight-speed automatic

Drivetrain: Front-wheel-drive

Horsepower: 290 horsepower at 6,400 rpm

Torque: 262 lb.-ft. of torque at 5,000 rpm

Fuel Economy: 19 mpg city, 26 mpg highway, 22 mpg combined

Body Style: Five-door van

Curb Weight: 4,727 pounds

How Does It Look?

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I saw a Kia Sedona out on the street and it’s hard to imagine that the Sedona is somehow the predecessor to the Carnival. There’s no nice way to say this, but the Sedona looks like it plays the sousaphone. IYKYK.

2012 Kia Sedona

We did a whole podcast with one of Kia’s main designers and he explains why the cars look so good. This does not look like a minivan. The new Toyota Sienna looks confusingly bug-like, the Honda Odyssey is needlessly fussy, and the Chrysler Pacifica was handsomer before the refresh.

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Compared to its competition or, really, any car, the Carnival is taut and elegant. I had someone think it was an SUV due, I think, to the short front and rear overhang and muscular door lines. The DLO (daylight opening, aka the windows on the side) also has a proportionality to the doors that feels un-minivan.

[Ed Note: I feel like we’re splitting hairs, here. I mean, if this thing didn’t have sliding doors, wouldn’t it be an SUV? -DT]

The metallic textured C-pillar is the little flourish that really ties the design together and it nicely mimics the effect on the grille. It looks premium and expensive.

How About The Inside?

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I put about 2,000 miles on the Carnival and rarely has 2,000 miles felt so effortless. The heated and ventilated front seats were just firm enough to keep my tuckus from falling asleep on long hauls. The dual 12.3-inch panoramic screens are sensibly placed and make for easy viewing

This is the SX Prestige model with the optional second-row powered VIP “Lounge” seats, which offer an almost full, first-class recline as well as also being heated and ventilated. Here’s my daughter and her buddy about 15 minutes into a trip to a museum if you want to know how comfortable those are:

Kia Carnival Interior

Her seat is mostly reclined and has the footstool up so she can full-on chillax. Her buddy is flat-out asleep. Because I’m picking up some grandparents for the drive, you can see that the foldable third-row seats are also engaged. The second-row seats can actually move both laterally and fore/aft depending on how you want to configure the interior:

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With the seats down, there’s plenty of room for an IKEA run, which I quickly did before having to give the van back (something I was loathe to do):

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Is the interior the best interior I’ve ever seen? Not quite. There are more buttons on this car than can be found in some cars, but a few touch capacitive and piano black bits remain. The Stow ‘n Go seats in the Pacifica are the industry’s gold standard and the Kia’s hideaway third-row seats work, but they don’t have that Chrysler ease.

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I’d also kill the rear seat entertainment package. The screens look nice and I appreciate that no remote control is needed, but the kids just want iPads these days.

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Also, my daughter is now offended when she sees something that seems too “babyish.”

The VIP lounge seats are a sweet touch and everyone loved them, but if I buy one of these (I might) I’m definitely going to try for the eight-passenger setup because I respect the utility. I might get outvoted here.

What’s It Like To Drive

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Should I put the pic of the kid asleep in here again with my daughter giving the old this guy jab?

The way to judge a minivan is not on its ability to hold the road (it holds it just fine), rather, most owners care that it can smoothly transmit partial genetic copies of themselves from one place to the next.

Here is where the Carnival excels. It’s just a MacPherson strut-type suspension ahead of the driver and a multilink setup out back. There’s nothing particularly novel about that. It’s the tuning here that prioritizes a Charmin-soft ride without sacrificing handling on the rare times you find yourself bored enough to try and hoon a minivan.

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With almost 300 horsepower on tap from the same direct-injection V6 that Kia/Hyundai use across their line, the Carnival isn’t slow (Car and Driver managed to get one to 60 mph in seven seconds flat). Even better, it doesn’t feel slow, thanks to an honest-to-Iacocca eight-speed conventional automatic. No CVT nonsense here.

All that power is going to the front wheels, so if you want to beat on it, you can induce a little wheel chirp under hard acceleration. Understeer? Yeah, you can get understeer if that’s your bag, which makes it just like every other minivan.

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One of Kia’s great features is that it offers most of its advanced driver assistance features on all trims, which include lane keep assist and rear cross-traffic collision avoidance. All but the base trims also get Highway Driving Assist. I’m not a huge cruise control person, but I did try the Highway Driving Assist, which is a Level 2 ADAS system that combines radar cruise control and lane keeping assist with GPS data about road speed and curves. I liked it and used it more than I expected.

Gee, This Seems Perfect, What’s The Catch?

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Other than the sliding doors, which are awesome but seem to scare some people, the fuel economy is not great. Kia says it’ll get just 19 MPG in the city and 26 MPG on the highway. I managed a much better 24 MPG around the city and up to 30 MPG for long stretches on the highway, but this doesn’t stack up well against the competition.

On the lower end, the Kia compares favorably with the Honda Odyssey, which is 19/28/22 (city/highway/combined). The Pacifica Hybrid is 30 MPG combined and 82 MPG combined if plugged in first. The best comparison is probably to the Toyota Sienna 2WD Hybrid, which offers 36/36/36.

The good news is that a Kia Carnival Hybrid is almost certainly coming in 2025 and that should fix this one glaring issue. The only other piece that isn’t ideal is the road noise is a little high for this class, which sounded to me like it was caused by the Continental CrossClimate tires.

Does The 2024 Kia Carnival Fulfill Its Purpose?

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Hell yeah it does. I had another dad come up to me after an ultimate frisbee game and he was so excited to see the car. He told me he has almost exactly the same one and it rules. He still feels this way after buying at the height of new car prices and apparently putting down $10,000 over the sticker price.

I’m used to people stopping me to talk about pink Porsches and the like, but not for a minivan. If you need to move people then you can hardly move people more easily or more comfortably than this.

How Would You Build One?

I’m glad you asked. The pricing here is really stellar, starting almost $6,000 less than a base Pacifica and about $4,000 off of the Toyota Sienna. The high level of standard features means that you don’t get that much more for the super lux-o SX Prestige (which itself is $6k off the starting price of the Pinnacle Pacifica, which isn’t as nice).

Kia Carnival Build Sheet

I got the EX because I like the passenger talk system that allows you to talk to the rearmost passenger, I want Highway Driving Assist, and the Flare Red paint looks great. I also added carpeted floor mats. That’s just a hair over $40,000, delivered, for a vehicle that does pretty much everything I’d need a car to do. That’s hard to beat.

What’s The Punctum Of The 2024 Kia Carnival?

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This is a USB port built into the rear of the front passenger seat for use by the rear passenger. This is the ideal place to put one of these. Everything in the Kia Carnival just makes sense. It’s a vehicle that makes sense.

(Photo credits: Matt Hardigree, Kia)

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145 thoughts on “The 2024 Kia Carnival Is Low-Key The Best Family Car You Can Buy”

    1. Yeah I have a hard time accepting another 20 mpg vehicle in 2024. 35 mpg with AWD is pretty amazing for a minivan. Still need to drive a Sienna though, which is hard to do these days.

          1. Ah yes… the supply issue. But I just checked on autotrader for 2024 Siennas… and across the USA, there appear to be 1357 units available.

            And across Canada, there are 45 2024 Siennas listed on autotrader.ca

            Now I’m guessing that there might be some cases of dealers advertising a vehicle they don’t have yet.

            Looking at a Sienna forum, it looks like there is finally a decent amount of supply coming in
            https://www.siennachat.com/threads/2024-toyota-siennas.75198/

            And here is a spreadsheet of Sienna allocations (USA only) in different trims and the exact status of those allocations based on trim and if they are presold or not:
            https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12fx6j51iiA7q1Wm3keDun6jOlMwK5ZOf/edit#gid=780869078

            So if you want a Sienna, if your local dealer is saying the have nothing and you’ll have to wait, check that allocation sheet

            Or call other dealers or check autotrader.ca if you’re in Canada.

              1. Looking at the RAV4 version of that spreadsheet, there appear to be a lot of regular and hybrid RAV4 units… but the Prime versions are still in lower supply… but even prime units are out there.

  3. Hey! I played tuba & sousaphone in high school. Banged out the bass line on Billie Jean better than anyone.
    Yes, skinny people play the tuba too.

  4. I can’t stop thinking you found a Ford Explorer that someone converted the rear doors to sliding ones.

    They should just call it a minivan, won’t Mazda sue for anything referred to as MPV.

    Just like SUV, CUV, SAV, etc anything with sliding doors just needs new names. MVO – Original Minvan, MVN – NOT a Minivan, MVG – Next Gen Minivan….

    1. Nah, MPV is a pretty common term in Europe for any tall box-ish monospace vehicle, including what we know as minivans. Mazda was just using a generic name, like Toyota Van or Nissan Truck.

  5. Is the V6 really arranged longitudinally or is that just a misleading plastic engine cover?

    As someone with spark plugs due on his V6 (transverse) Sienna, this is an actually important question to me.

    3. yes, this bothered me sooo much in that picture… I’m glad somebody pointed this out. First thought seeing that picture was “wait, so the passenger has to sit on the transmission? Good thing they don’t offer a manual”… made me think of Mr. Garrison’s monowheel from south park.

      edit – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK362RLHXGY so DT knows what we’re talking about 🙂

  6. We have an AWD Pinnacle with the tow package and are very happy with it. However, I got it for $10k off in early 2020 so I feel like we stole it. I was quite interested in the Carnival, but was not willing to even consider paying a markup.

    I’m not sure what point I’m trying to make, except that both of these vehicles are worthy of serious consideration.

    Minivans and station wagons rule!

      1. Dammit! You raise the one sore point. 🙂

        About 22. Almost all my driving is city or towing so it’s not great at all. However, that’s about the same as all the battle wagon SUVs out there so I deal with it.

        1. I kinda want a Pacifica to replace my Outback, despite having zero children. I go back and forth between building just a FWD one and AWD one on the builder…

          22 is just ever so slightly worse than what I’ve been getting in my Outback now that it’s cold out. It’s the first gas car I’ve ever had so affected by temperature.

          1. Unless you live in a nasty climate, just go with the FWD. The AWD is part-time and as such only really helps in the worst of the worst.

            Otherwise, I can strongly recommend the Pacifica.

            1. I live in a top 10 snowiest city in the USA. But I’ve had FWD in the past and never had a problem as long as I’ve throw snow tires on it.

  8. What I think really separates minivans from 3-row crossovers is often overlooked – interior height and load height! So many people say this would be an SUV if it had regular doors, or a Highlander is just a minivan without sliding doors. No, no, no. Three-row crossovers often have interior heights between 28 – 33 inches, and minivans are usually 39-45 inches. This is a huge reason minivans have nearly double the cargo space of their crossover counterparts behind every row of seats, and why it is so easy to move between rows, help your kids buckle, load cargo, load dogs, load older relatives who can’t hunch over, move full size 7’ couches, etc. . Minivans are the greatest people *and* cargo movers because they have Suburban functionality in crossover footprints. And still more interior height than a Suburban. Long live the minivan.

  9. I read it but I can’t figure out what makes it better than any other import van. They all have real transmissions. They mostly have V6 power or good fuel economy. They’re all utilitarian.

    2. All the minivans have their strengths, but this is the best value, the best looking, and the most comfortable with the smartest little details.

      1. I see. Thanks for the nutshell.

        Looks like no passenger lumbar which would knock it out for me regardless as a long hauler.

        I also do seriously appreciate the response.

  10. The EX is mostly the sweet spot IMO, and still undercuts other minivans with leather[ette] seats in the classic H/K fashion. There’s the SX too, it doesn’t give you a ton extra over the EX – a few creature comforts like ventilated seats, memory driver’s and power passenger’s seat – but the SX does add roof rails, which most vans look naked without IMO.

    Personally I’ve always liked a 3-across middle row for minivans, this was usually the favored setup in European MPVs too. The lounge seats on vans always seemed like one of those novelties you’ll do a couple times and forget about down the line. A demerit on the lounge seats too is that they aren’t removable or not easily so, from what I understand. That said, it seems like the non-lounge second row isn’t much easier to remove, maybe because of working with the sliding tracks. But I also suspect things like safety regs and standards are just making it more difficult to engineer seats that can be totally removed in minivans. See: Sienna with 2nd row side airbags and its non-removable 2nd row.

    1. The appeal of captains/lounge chairs is it’s easier for kids to get to the 3rd row without assistance. I have lounge seats in my Sienna which I sampled immediately after buying and have been filled with child seats ever since.

      1. My sister has three kids, each with a booster seat or car seat, and the captains seats have been great for her to easily deal with them and for the oldest to easily get back to her booster seat. It is a great setup for kids.

        1. That is exactly the setup and family I have too. It was actually quite difficult to find a van on a lot with the 7 seat setup, but well worth it in the end.

      2. Not knocking captains chairs, just the value of the lounge seat option specifically. I like a 3-across middle row setup, but it’s worth noting that part of the appeal is that most every van now it’s worth noting they are 3 individual seats (Carnival included) with captain’s seats on the outboard positions, not a split bench like say a crossover, so it’s not an either/or on passenger capacity vs. accessibility. Removing the middle seat gives you captain’s chairs all the same. I think only a couple of minivans here that ever had 3-place middle rows, used an actual bench – Astro/Safari and original Mazda MPV – because you’d need a seat to fold in some way for 3rd row access.

        Downside is of course storing the seat although they’ve been trying to solve that too. Toyota dabbled with storing it in a cubby on the 3rd gen Sienna (your gen IIRC?) and the 2nd gen Highlander, but that was more like a jumpseat. Honda has adopted a similar strategy for the new Pilot, and the 8th seat can be tucked under the storage floor in the back, though they offer 7 & 8 seat factory options. Don’t know the exact take rates but anecdotally everyone I know with a larger crossover opted for 2nd row buckets exactly for the 3rd row access.

    2. The previous gen Odyssey handles this well. It has captains chairs (+1 that they make getting into the back sooo much easier) but it also has middle seat that’s easily removable and the seat back folds down into a handy set of cup holders.

      1. Yep, most vans have followed suit here too including the Carnival – the center seat is a separate unit between 2 captains chairs, so you have the option of both. The Odyssey takes it a step further with indexing 2nd row seats that can slide laterally to form a sort-of bench, which had gained some popularity in in the 2000s but I think Honda is the only one that still does it. The more choices the better IMO.

  11. Yes, there actually *is* a bad minivan made today: the Pacfica. It’s loaded with problems 🙁

    The Pacifica *plugin* hybrid’s gas mileage is less than the Sienna (which isn’t a plugin).

    Also, too bad there’s no more Transit Connect.

    Ford used to offer a 7-passenger SWB full-size Transit to retail customers, but now it’s fleet-only 🙁

    1. I always thought the Transit Connect was pretty nifty as a potential passenger vehicle in that it was basically a minivan from the ’90s.

      As in, it was all about function, and had a lot less luxury than most contemporary offerings. But I figured for a utilitarian vehicle, that would be attractive for a fair amount of people.

        1. Interesting. I’ve ridden in them, but not for the long haul like that, and not to mention I don’t have those kinds of needs so my perspective is probably fairly skewed.

          Was it a fit and finish thing or a driving experience thing?

        2. Yeah, it was definitely closer to like a modern-day Astro/Safari than a small minivan. Plus add a few options and it was at the price of a “typical” minivan, that had more space, smoother powertrains, and depending on van a negligible hit to fuel economy. Even the hybrid Sienna now is quicker and much more efficient.

          I miss actual small minivans but it isn’t surprising everyone pursued the Chrysler format.

    2. I’ve heard this about the Pacifica from my mechanic, who services the minivans of many of my Hasidic neighbors. That said, I’ve put 40K miles on mine, that now has 80K miles, and the only issues are some bubbling paint on the hood, and the need to replace both the main and auxiliary batteries. What are some of the problems I should expect to come?

    3. I don’t know why people are shocked that a V6 serial hybrid gets worse gas mileage than a 4-cyl parallel hybrid. One thing the Sienna CAN’T do is take you 30 miles on electric power only. If you’re 15 miles from work, you’ll basically never use gas at all in the Pacifica.

      Having said that, some of the reliability issues of the Pacifica would give me pause. And the fact that ANY Pentastar engine is having head gasket issues, is a travesty. The engine has been around since 2011 and has had a solid reliability record until now. This reeks of component cost-cutting by FCA or Stellantis.

      1. I’m not sure I buy it that “regular” Pacifica’s are huge reliability concerns. I mean, is it less reliable than the Toyota? Sure. But they aren’t that bad. Now, yeah, stay the hell away from the plug-in version unless you don’t mind frequent trips to the dealer.

  12. I am exactly the target audience for this, but the fuel mileage is unacceptable.

    If I’m willing going to get 22, I’d get a used Tahoe and have 4WD and better towing capacity

  13. Looks nice inside…but it ain’t as nice or roomy as a conversion van.
    If you’re already down to mpg in the teens, why not embrace it for even more practicality?

  14. Can the middle row/seats be removed easily?

    My dad’s 2014 Sienna’s middle seats can be removed with some latches and entirely taken out of the vehicle, which is nice when you need to move big inorganic stuff.

    I was disappointed to learn that they took that feature away once the Sienna went hybrid-only. Now if you want to take the middle seats out, you have to disconnect some wires and undo some bolts. And I don’t even know if that causes warning lights or anything up front.

    2. I have the same question, sounds like no. One of the killer features of my Odyssey is taking out the second row and using it as a material hauler. Especially once the kids get older, you can just leave the second row in storage.

    3. The wires that need to be disconnected likely have something to do with the airbags, which means you’d almost certainly get a warning light. And I wonder, is that a light that would go out once you reconnected everything? Or would it reset? Either way, a strange oversight from Toyota. Every other minivan on the market has had removable/stow & go seats for the past…forever? I can’t think of one that doesn’t (and I’ve detailed countless vans over the years). May be wrong though.

      1. If it’s the same types of latching connectors in the steering wheel, behind the stereo, etc., I imagine it’d resolve on being plugged back in. So I’m more concerned about it being difficult to remove at all as opposed to that being the “main” issue.

  15. The fold into the floor stow and go and the AWD sold us the Pacifica over the Carnival. (i know AWD is not necessary but road tripping all over the upper midwest and often cross country in winter is nice.)

  17. These just don’t make any sense right now without hybrid and AWD options when compared to the Sienna. Here’s hoping they bring out those options soon, otherwise it’s not even on my radar

      1. The new Sienna hybrid is a very good vehicle, I’ve recommended that to my parents and they love it. The reason why I’d get a Carnival+Hybrid+AWD is that the 2nd row’s can actually be removed in the Carnival and the interior is larger (I think). The new hybrid Sienna 2nd rows are much more integrated and can’t (practically) be removed because they have side impact airbags mounted in them.

        My reasoning is that I like to turn vans in to weekend campers, and the extra cargo length is pretty important.

        1. That’s a really good point, having spent a substantial amount of time in both a 2008 and 2021 Sienna, the ’21 is certainly smaller on the inside, and the seats are much more permanent. I suspect that the ’21 must do really well in a side impact crash, the pillars and roof structure are substantially beefed up vs previous Siennas. I know it is possible to do what you are talking about in a new Sienna, but like you said, it is just not going to be a quick, easy, or simple process.

  22. I appreciated the note about all minivans being great right now, as it is true. But comparing this to the Sienna, the Toyota wins in some major ways. Namely MPG, and the ability to get it with electric AWD, no drive shaft, just a motor on the back. For that reason I’d probably go Toyota and make up the difference in cost with better fuel economy.

        1. I had a minivan long before I had kids. You can’t go wrong! I loved being able to take friends and bikes on a trip, and everything is inside the car, nice and dry and locked.

      2. Big facts, wonder if they’ll do make a plug in version, or if Toyota will do a Prime Sienna for that matter. Also, Sienna has a 4 pot now, does the Kia stick with the 6 if it goes hybrid?

        1. I haven’t seen any info about a PHEV, but I would love that. But Kia already has the hybrid version elsewhere, so we know that in hybrid form, it is the 1.6L.

  23. Perhaps the stupidest possible question about this review, but I do have to know – is it pronounced “carn-ni-vul” like we usually do in here in the States, or “carn-ni-vaaaaale” like it’s some sort of exotically festive, er, minivan?!

    (this comes on the heels of my disappointment with the Alfa Tonale)

  24. Thank you for this delightful sentence. I will refer to all offspring as partial genetic copies.

    most owners care that it can smoothly transmit partial genetic copies of themselves from one place to the next.

    1. I think of my kids as Theseus Ship versions of me. Originally they were made entirely of my cellular material (I’m the mom), but as time goes by they are replaced cell by cell.
      What were we talking about?

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