2026 Kia K4 S Hatch with Safety Pack review

Hatchbacks are almost out of vogue in the 2020s with the explosion of SUVs, especially when it comes to the popularity of the small-SUV segment.

So when Kia announced it would be bringing the hatch variant of the K4 to Australia at the end of 2025, it was a strange choice. But, it makes more sense than the sedan that has been on sale here since late 2024.

If you don’t believe me on the hatchbacks-being-out-of-fashion front, take a look at the VFACTS data – Micro, light, and small cars (sedan and hatch combined) saw 7694 sales in 2025, small SUVs alone exploded to 15,612.

While our personal preferences may change, I still love it when manufacturers give us the option of a hatch, and the K4 is a perfect example of that.

Sharing the majority of its equipment with the existing sedan while offering sleek new styling means that this car could be a real player in the slowing small-car race.

What better way to see what this car has to offer than putting the base variant through the wringer of my demanding daily life?

The Kia K4 range starts with the S, which I’m in for my test, with a retail price of $32,090 plus on-road costs for the hatch or the sedan.

Standard equipment sees the updated 110kW/180Nm 2.0-litre non-turbo four-cylinder engine matched with a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) to replace the outgoing six-speed automatic transmission.

Moving to the inside, you’ll find a 12.3-inch infotainment screen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a 4.2-inch instrument cluster, a six-speaker audio system, four USB-C ports, manually adjustable cloth seats, LED ambient lighting, a rear-view camera, front and rear parking sensors, and a full suite of safety assists.

External features include 16-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights with DRLs, part-LED tail-lights, and, of course, that rear section chopped and pushed up into a hatch for 2026.

An option pack is available for the base variant, which was applied to the car we had on test, called the Safety Pack. For an additional $2100 it adds a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, a 5.0-inch dedicated climate-control display, dual-zone climate control, auto window defog, and, keeping with the name of the pack, an enhanced autonomous emergency braking system with junction-crossing detection and direct/oncoming lane-change detection.

The base variant Kia K4 S has some stiff competition. A base-variant Toyota Corolla Ascent Hybrid starts from $32,110, the Mazda 3 G20 starts from $33,410, and the Volkswagen Golf 110TSI Life starts from $39,290, all prices plus on-roads.

Given the state of electric cars becoming ever cheaper, it also has some competition from battery-powered rivals, including the smaller BYD Dolphin from $36,990 plus on-roads, and the MG 4 Essence from $39,990 drive-away.

The Kia K4 S has a WLTP-rated fuel consumption of 6.1 litres 100 kilometres, which is a big claim for a car with no hybrid power. It’s an improvement over when this car utilised a torque-converter six-speed automatic gearbox, where the claim was 7.4L/100km.

Spending a fair chunk of time driving within city limits saw the economy rocket up to 10.3L/100km, later dropping down to 9.3L/100km when spending some time within 60–80km/h zones. Driving my economy testing route with a mixture of city, back roads and highway driving, I saw 8.8L/100km.

I have no idea how the WLTP claim was so low, as even after resetting the consumption for a freeway-only drive at 100km/h, I saw consumption around the 5.9L/100km mark – relatively close to the 5.3L/100km highway-driving WLTP claim.

My reading was likely because the naturally aspirated engine with the CVT seems to need to work quite hard to get up to speeds, but more on that later.

You can reach for the 91-octane handle at the petrol station, currently sitting around 23 cents cheaper than 98-octane.

Every Kia K4 comes with a seven-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, which covers the majority of components and buyer types. Some clauses mean if the K4 is used for commercial purposes (e.g., ride share and taxis), your warranty will be capped at 150,000km/seven years.

Similarly, the infotainment is only covered by a three-year warranty.

Still, Kia has a capped-priced servicing scheme for the entire seven years of warranty, which sees the K4 cost $1293 for three visits and $2322 for five visits when serviced to the 12-month/15,000km intervals.

It’s not the most affordable when considering other options, such as the Mazda 3 at $2284 for five years, the Toyota Corolla at $1250 for five years, and the MG 4 at $1320 for four years.

The 2026 Kia K4 S with the Safety Pack will cost $1435 per year to comprehensively insure based on a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male living in Chatswood, NSW. Quotes may change based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

All variants besides the S without the Safety Pack scored a five-star rating when the K4 was tested by the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) in 2025.

Individual scores saw the Kia receive 85 per cent for adult occupant protection, 80 per cent for child occupant protection, 77 per cent for vulnerable road user protection, and 77 per cent for safety assist.

Living with the systems listed below has always tried my patience when it comes to the Kia products, and I’m happy to say that the brand is learning, seemingly making attempts to calibrate the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) to be more natural.

The speed-limit warning system is a sore point for me. I would be fine if I could turn it off, and it would stay off each time I got in the car. Better yet, I‘d even be fine if it were more accurate, but it gets confused with signs on the back of buses and school zones, leading to that torturous beeping.

Similarly, the driver monitoring camera is still a little bit annoying, letting off the occasional beep when you do normal driving things like checking your blind spots or mirrors.

Now, I’m not the smartest person when it comes to technology, but I believe that a team full of programmers could surely figure out a way to use data from map systems to pick up when school zones are enforced.

The lane keep and lane following need some work in terms of their tendency to cut in a little too late, along with the fact that the steering wheel needs to be given a wiggle too frequently to let the car know you’re still in control.

I don’t have any other complaints about the system. The adaptive cruise control works well, it is a nice addition for a base-variant car, the reversing camera is super high-resolution, which is beyond useful once you realise how good a clear one can be, and the rest of the safety assists didn’t cut in when they didn’t need to.

The K4 is longer and wider than a Volkswagen Golf, and around the same length and width as the Toyota Corolla Hatch.

The styling of the K4 is certainly strange. I’m not sure if it's because we were exposed to the sedan beforehand, but the rear seems to come to an abrupt end, which makes the front portion of the car look disproportionately long.

The addition of 16-inch alloy wheels from the base variant is a neat addition, along with LED headlights matched with the Kia family-face daytime running lights, the rear section utilises a mixture of halogen lights and LEDs to clean up the rear.

I didn't expect much when jumping into an entry-level small car. Yet, the K4 S with its Safety Package has glimpses of 21st-century luxuries.

There's quite a bit of hard plastic around the front row, which is the cost-saving choice, but it’s not just a big blob of nothing. There are some design considerations that would look premium next to a base variant from 20 years ago.

Still, Kia has put thought into the fact you don’t want hard plastic up against your elbows and arms while driving, trimming parts of the door cards and your touchpoints with a soft rubberised material.

It's admirable to have keyless entry, two USB-C ports, and a plethora of useful buttons within reach in a car of this trim, furthering the nice appeal of the car.

Everything from the steering column to the seats is manually adjustable. Still, the seats are upholstered in cloth, and even though it’s a bland grey, there’s some homely feel to it. It almost reminds me of weekends at my grandma’s place and her conservative choice of furniture with her very frugal living style.

At 184cm tall, I was able to find a comfortable position fairly easily without my head touching the roof or my legs hitting the column surround.

The use of manual climate-control functions is nice with mode, temperature and fan speed all via manual switches. Any further adjustments will need to be made via the small touchscreen between the infotainment and the cluster, which can be difficult while driving.

A big old-school-style gear selector, two cupholders, a storage bin, and a well-sized centre console complete the front row.

The rear passengers may be a little stumped for space. Driving my 180cm-tall housemate around saw complaints of being cramped with my driving position, along with knees hitting the hard plastic on the back of the front row.

The choice to use a non-flexible material on the backs of the front row seating has always been a bit of a sore point with modern cars. It subjectively looks bad and makes the rear passengers feel more cramped than similar-sized cars without it.

If you can handle smashing your knees against the chopping-board material, you can enjoy a few features like two USB-C ports, two air-conditioning vents, and a fold-down armrest with two cupholders.

The boot is surprisingly deep, measuring up to 438 litres, which is smaller than the K4 Sedan with its 508L, though the boot trumps a fair amount of its competition, like the Corolla hatch at 217L and the Mazda 3 at 395L, and actually sits closer to offerings found in medium SUVs.

Seats down opens up to 1217L of space, which is more than enough to do some bigger hardware store shops.

As I said, if you showed this base variant to an engineer around 15 to 20 years ago working on a similarly sized base variant of the era, they’d probably have a heart attack. The majority of that comes from the infotainment and instrument clusters found in this car.

The K4 keeps the 12.3-inch infotainment screen across all trims, but the Safety Pack adds a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, not to mention the 5.0-inch climate screen in between the two.

The infotainment screen is on the faster side for this price range, and supports wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. CarPlay did not experience drop-outs during my time with the car, though it took a minute to connect each time I started the car.

A reliable phone system is a positive considering you’ll need to upgrade to the Sport if you want your screen fitted with satellite navigation. Still, the screen has FM/AM/DAB capabilities.

Similarly, the big colourful instrument cluster looks fantastic. It adds a big portion of luxury to the car, and is almost worth it if you’re tossing up paying extra for the Safety Pack. It can be customised to suit a number of different screens, though it follows the Kia trend of not allowing too much customisation.

You can download the Kia Connect app if you’re keen to have a remote view of your vehicle status and some remote-control features.

Given the long-standing history of the Toyota Corolla, Mazda 3, and Volkswagen Golf in Australia, there’s a lot for the Kia K4 to catch up on in terms of development and refinement, and it's almost there but has work to do.

Having spent some time in the K4 Sedan in 2025 with its GT-Line guise, I felt the car was heavily on the firm side, not handling Australian roads as well as it should, but still there were positives in the way it composed itself through turns.

Surprisingly, there are suspension changes across the trim levels: every car besides the GT-Line sees the use of a torsion beam rear suspension, while the top spec gets multi-link. In layman's terms, the top spec has more independent movement in the rear compared to other trim levels, which can help with comfort but mostly assists with handling.

You won’t notice a massive difference between the two unless you’re pushing the car beyond the way it should be driven through turns, though the S remains composed and darty like a hatchback should.

Whether or not other changes have been made to the suspension is not mentioned, just that the GT-Line is “sportier”. Still, the base variant feels a lot more comfortable around town than its top-spec brother, likely due to its bigger-sidewall tyres helping soak up some of the harsh potholes around town.

With that being said, the car sits on the firmer side of the spectrum when compared to other cars in the class. You can certainly feel the road underneath you. It’s only further accelerated by a clunk in the front driver's side shock absorber when encountering speed humps or potholes.

The steering is heavier compared to other hatchbacks, but it also allows for a lot of nice and more natural feel around town, while not being unbearable when navigating tight streets. It has a really quick return to centre.

The engine isn’t overly sluggish at 110kW/180Nm, but the CVT makes it work quite hard to get up to speed; a reason why I think the fuel consumption was so high with me at the helm. Still, as far as CVTs go, it’s certainly a lot better optimised for the engine compared to others.

Small annoyances saw me note that the low beam on the headlights sits too low at night, to the point where I found myself reaching for the high beams whenever I could.

I was a bit disappointed to feel the harshness of the suspension mixed with the front shock clunk, because the K4 reminded me of why I love a hatch after weeks of driving SUVs. They feel so much more planted and agile to drive, but then you trade off on suspension travel, and it seems that others like Mazda and Toyota are simply doing it better than Kia in this segment.

The Kia K4 Hatch has only been on the market for less than a year, so jumping into a used one might be a tough ask. However, sedan and demo hatch variants are available at affordable prices through Drive Marketplace.

If you want to check out the new range in person, you can find your nearest Kia dealership here.

If you're looking for more pricing, specifications, and the latest offers on the Kia K4, head here.

The Kia K4 S Hatch is an interesting value-for-money proposition. It sits in the more affordable category while being larger than its competitors.

But to be priced similarly to a historically higher-than-average price, such as Toyota, means there’s a lot to answer for, and it falls short in drive comfort and suspension tuning.

There’s a lot to like about this car, but it is not there yet for me to clearly say to buy it over a Mazda 3 or Toyota Corolla.

Still, it’s not a bad car by any stretch, plus Kia support is fantastic with that seven years of capped-price servicing, yet Toyota beats it on that too.

I suggest looking at any of the competitors mentioned earlier before jumping into a K4, though your decision wouldn’t be a bad one if you ended up with the Kia.