Kia adds Nightfall Edition package to its Telluride large SUV for 2021
On the Road,
The Kia Telluride family-size crossover moves into its second year for 2021 with a starting price of $32,190 (plus $1,225 freight) and a new Nightfall Edition package with stealthblack design elements.
With its three rows of seating and room for up to eight passengers, the Telluride is the largest Kia model ever offered in the U.S. It’s essentially a Kia version of the Hyundai Palisade, with both vehicles sharing the same basic architecture.
Besides getting the Nightfall package, the Telluride essentially carries over unchanged.
The $32,190 price is for the base LX front-wheel-drive model. Adding all-wheel drive raises the LX price to $34,190.
For 2021, the top model is the SX, which is $42,490 with front drive, and $44,390 with all-wheel drive (the model we tested).
Other trim levels are the S ($34,590, front drive; $36,590, AWD), and the EX ($37,590, front drive; $39,590, AWD).
The Nightfall Edition package is $1,495 extra on EX models, but requires the EX Premium Package ($1,895) and all-wheel drive.
On our SX all-wheel-drive tester, the Nightfall Package was $1,595 extra. It brought Nightfall-exclusive 20-inch alloy wheels with a black finish, dark chrome lug nuts and black wheel caps; black Nightfall radiator grille; Nightfall-exclusive “KIA”
The 2021 Kia Telluride is a family-size crossover utility vehicle designed specifically for the U.S. market.
logos (front and rear); headlights and fog lights with black bezels; gloss-black exterior trim on the roof rails, skid plates (front and rear), front bumper air ducts, lower door garnish and all emblems; and body-color outside door handles.
The Nightfall trim is available with a new exterior color, Wolf Gray, which is exclusive with the package, along with the other colors: Snow White Pearl, Everlasting Silver, Gravity Gray (our tester), Ebony Black, Sangria, Black Copper and Dark Moss.
Telluride is the first Kia model specifically designed for the U.S. market, and comes with a long list of standard and available comfort, convenience, safety and
utility features.
All versions are equipped with a 3.8-liter V-6 engine, rated at 291 horsepower and 262 footpounds of torque. It’s connected to an eight-speed automatic transmission with four drive modes: Comfort, Eco, Sport, and Smart.
We found this drivetrain to be adequate with three people on board, but we never loaded the vehicle all the way to give it more of a challenge. Acceleration was about average for an SUV this size, and uphill freeway ramps were no challenge. Shifting was smooth and predictable.
EPA ratings are 20 mpg city/26 highway/23 combined for frontdrive models, and 19/24/21 for
the all-wheel-drive versions.
Kia’s Active On-demand
All Wheel Drive monitors road conditions and distributes power to the wheels as needed. The driver can manually activate Snow Mode or lock the vehicle into AWD. Front-wheel drive is the default; Sport, Smart and Snow modes can deliver up to 50 percent of the power to the rear wheels.
The well-designed and executed cabin has a luxurious feel, and can seat up to eight passengers. But that can be reduced to seven with the substitution of two captain’s chairs in the middle row in place of the three-person bench seat. Seven-passenger seating was
DEAR CAR TALK:
Two years ago, I purchased a brand-new 2018 Subaru Forester. I got the basic, no-frills model because I am cheap (and, really, who needs a moonroof?).
I don’t care that it doesn’t have a navigation system. But I do wish it had a compass. No problem. I went to the auto parts store and bought a compass to stick on the dashboard.
The only problem is, no matter which direction I am driving, the compass always points east!
I take it outside the car, and it works fine, but no matter where I put the compass inside the car, whether the engine is on or off, the compass always tells me that I’m driving toward the land of the rising sun.
I asked the Subaru mechanic about this, and he had never heard of anything like it. Why does my car have a magnetic field stronger than the planet Earth and is there any way to degauss it??
–Mike
A: I don’t know, Mike. But I have two guesses.
No. 1 is that there is something magnetic in the car that’s affecting the compass. And my first guess would be the car’s speakers.
If you bought the bare bones Forester, you probably have four speakers. The front speakers are larger than the rear speakers, and they’re either in the front doors or up on the dashboard, right near -- what? -- your compass.
It’s possible that the magnets in those speakers are screwing up the compass readings. Particularly if my second guess is correct.
My second guess is that you bought the cheapest compass money could buy. Why do I suspect that? Because you also bought the cheapest Forester money could buy. And when you combine a cheap, poorly shielded compass with a nearby magnet, you can only go east.
So what’s the solution? Well, if you hadn’t been so cheap and skipped the sunroof, you’d be able to mount your cheap compass on a stick now and fly it out the sunroof, away from the magnets.
Alternatively, you can go to your Subaru dealer and buy the