Turns Out, the $25,000 Car Was Always a Thing

As I went through the configurator and pored over the specs, I was reminded of my first (and believe it or not only) new car, a 1995 Dodge Neon I called Dr. Brill, after his Brilliant Blue paint scheme and a school chum’s dentist father. Like the K4, the Neon was notable for its interior space, and it also had 2.0-liter 16-valve power (with 132 hp for my single-cam Neon, which was a lot at the time). Dr. Brill (the car, not the dentist) was the best wheeled companion a young man could ask for, and but for the crank-down windows and manual transmission—sadly, the K4 can only be had with an automatic—the Neon seemed like the K4’s spiritual predecessor. As a tribute to the Good Doctor, I ordered my K4 in Deep Sea Blue.

Incidentally, my Neon was a Highline, one up from the base model, and I remember the sticker price being somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000. Adjusted for inflation, that’s pretty close to the K4 LXS. My interest piqued, I did some digging and found that while the average transaction price for cars has gone crazy in the last half-decade, there have always been cars like Dr. Brill and the K4 LXS. Models like the 1984 Ford Tempo GL, 2001 Toyota Corolla S, and even the 1957 Chevrolet 210 Sport were small but not the smallest, basic but not parsimonious. Adjust for inflation, and they all sold for around—you guessed it—$25,000.

The K4 arrived, and although its blue paint was a few shades darker than Dr. Brill’s, it still struck me with the same initial impression as that long-ago Neon: This was quite a nice car considering how little it cost.

The MotorTrend Long-Term Arrival Curse Strikes Again

And then, three days after it arrived and with just 345 miles on the odometer, something struck the K4. As I was driving through an alleyway in Los Angeles, looking for a parking lot, an Infiniti nosed out of a blind driveway and stopped. I considered giving the driver a little warning honk but thought, No, they stopped, they see me. And then the Infiniti driver took their foot off the brake and rolled into the K4’s right-rear door. (Funnily enough, Dr. Brill suffered a near-identical injury. A cop car crashed into a stolen Cadillac it was chasing, and the wreck of the cruiser rolled into Neon’s left-rear door, inflicting similar damage. Funnier still, this is the second time this year an MT long-termer was damaged on arrival.)

Its interior still reeking of glorious new car smell, our new K4 was off to the collision shop, with Kia kindly supplying a gray-green loaner K4 in one-from-the-top GT-Line trim. That means there will be a slight delay until I can start answering all of our burning questions: Will the MotorTrend crew and I be satisfied with our low-line LXS, or will we pine for the nicer things? Will I regret getting a sedan instead of an SUV? Is the $25,000 car still relevant? Will the K4 steal my heart the way my Neon did? Will I start calling it Dr. Deepsea? Should I read anything into the fact that I’m a middle-aged man driving the same kind of car I had when I was in my 20s? Am I having a midlife crisis, and if so, shouldn’t I be driving a Corvette?

Stay tuned, dear readers. We have a year to find out.

2025 Kia K4 LXS Specifications
BASE PRICE	$24,165
PRICE AS TESTED	$24,440
OPTIONS	Carpeted floor mats, $175; cargo mat, $100
VEHICLE LAYOUT	Front-engine, FWD, 5-pass, 4-door internal combustion sedan
POWERTRAIN	2.0L port-injected Atkinson-cycle DOHC 16-valve I-4
POWER	147 hp @ 6,200 rpm
TORQUE	132 lb-ft @ 4,500 rpm
TRANSMISSION	Continuously variable
CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST)	2,963 lb (61/39%)
WHEELBASE	107.1 in
LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT	185.4 x 72.8 x 55.9 in
TIRES	Kumho Solus TA31; 205/55R16 91H M+S
EPA FUEL ECONOMY, CITY / HWY / COMBINED	29/39/33 mpg
EPA RANGE	409 mi
MotorTrend Test Results
0-60 MPH	8.1 sec
QUARTER MILE	16.2 sec @ 88.2 mph
BRAKING, 60-0 MPH	124 ft
LATERAL ACCELERATION	0.83 g
FIGURE-EIGHT LAP	27.3 sec @ 0.63 g (avg)
Ownership Experience
SERVICE LIFE	0 mo/0,000 mi
REAL-WORLD FUEL ECONOMY	00.0 mpg
ENERGY COST PER MILE	$0.00
DAYS OUT OF SERVICE	0
MAINTENANCE AND WEAR	None
DAMAGE	None
RECALLS	None