Rent Kia Soul 2021 in Dubai

The Kia Soul 2021 is shaped like nothing else in this rental class, and that shape is the reason people book it instead of a conventional hatchback. Most small cars slope their roofline back toward the tailgate to look sporty. The Soul keeps its roof flat and square all the way to the boot, and that stubborn box turns into real headroom, an airy cabin, and a load bay that swallows shapes a sloped hatch would refuse. We deliver it to your door in Dubai within one to two hours. This page looks at whether that taller, squarer cabin is worth the trade against a modest 1.6-litre engine, and what the Soul's own rental terms mean for your week.

What the 1.6 feels like from behind the wheel

The 1.6 makes 124 hp and 151 Nm, which is unremarkable on paper for a car this tall, but Kia paired it with a proper 6-speed torque-converter automatic rather than the CVT most rivals in this class use. That choice does more for the driving feel than the horsepower figure suggests. The gearbox picks a ratio and holds it, so pulling away from a light at Business Bay feels like the car is actually responding, instead of the engine flaring while a CVT hunts for the right band.

The upright shape that gives the cabin its height also costs you a bit at speed. Push the Soul to 120 km/h on Sheikh Zayed Road and it holds there without strain, but a square front pushes more air than a low hatch ever will, so overtaking a slower truck with the car loaded takes a moment of planning rather than a stab of the throttle. None of that matters in city driving. The Soul turns tightly, places easily in traffic, and the extra ride height gives you a clear view over the SUVs stacked at a junction, which a lower hatch simply can't offer.

Boot, back seat and the daily use

At 354 litres with the rear seats up, the Soul's boot already beats most small hatches at this price point, and the shape adds more than the number implies. Because the load bay is tall and square instead of tapered toward the back, a stroller, a stack of flatpack boxes, or a suitcase stood on its end goes straight in rather than forcing the angled packing job a sloped hatchback demands. Two large cases and a soft bag clear a DXB or DWC run comfortably, and folding the rear bench opens a genuinely flat floor if you're moving something bulkier.

The back seat benefits from the same box shape. Headroom is generous enough that a tall adult climbs in without ducking, and there's enough space to fit a rear-facing child seat without wrestling the front seatback out of the way, which matters under Dubai's rule that under-fours need one. Legroom is fair rather than generous, comfortable for two adults or three kids on the school run. Put a fourth adult back there with everyone's luggage loaded for an airport run and it tightens up, the same ceiling most cars this size hit no matter how tall the roof stands.

At 4,195 mm long and 1,800 mm wide, it drops into a tight multi-storey bay or a tower's basement parking without a three-point turn, and 170 mm of ground clearance shrugs off speed bumps and steep mall ramps without scraping. Don't read that clearance as an invitation to try Hatta's dirt tracks. This is a front-wheel-drive road car on road tyres, built for tarmac and nothing rougher.

Fuel bills, Salik and cooling the cabin

Official combined economy sits around 7.9 litres per 100 km. Real Dubai driving, with the AC working against the heat and traffic that rarely flows freely, pushes that closer to 9 or 9.5. Even at that real-world rate, the 54-litre tank carries you roughly 550 to 600 km in city use, so a normal week of commuting and errands means one stop at the pump.

The mileage allowance is 250 km a day, which covers city life without much thought, and anything past that costs AED 0.5 per extra kilometre. A day trip out to Hatta and back, or a stretch of running between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, will eat into that allowance fast, so keep an eye on the odometer if your week includes one. Salik tolls and any RTA fines fall to you as the renter, as with every car on our fleet.

The tall glasshouse that makes the cabin feel open also lets in more sun than a low hatch with small windows, so give it a few extra minutes to cool after it has sat outside at 45 degrees. The front vents pull the heat out fast once you're moving. There's no dedicated rear vent on this trim, just airflow carried back from the front, which is fine for a short hop but slower to properly cool the back row on the worst afternoons. Park in shade where you can and it stops being an issue.

Who should rent it, and who should look elsewhere

Rent the Soul if you want more usable space and headroom than a small hatch gives you, in a footprint that still parks like one, and the shape itself doesn't put you off. One or two people, or a small family handling city errands and the school run, get the full benefit of the tall cabin without ever pushing the modest engine hard.

Size up if you're regularly carrying four adults with a full boot, or you want stronger overtaking punch for long stretches of the E11. A Seltos or a Creta covers that brief with less strain from the engine at a similar running cost. Anything involving Hatta or a desert track rules the Soul out too, since it's front-wheel drive built for the road, not sand.

One thing to flag before you book: the minimum age here is 25, higher than most hatchbacks on our fleet, so this isn't the car for a younger visiting driver even if the shape and the boot suit the trip. We deliver it to your door within one to two hours. For someone who wants a car that looks different from everything else in the car park and still handles the boring parts of a Dubai week well, the Soul is an easy one to recommend.