2024 Kia Telluride Reviews, Pricing & Specs

Kia offers the 2024 Telluride in five core trim levels: LX, S, EX, SX, and SX Prestige. You can add the rugged X-Line treatment to all but the LX and S, while Kia reserves the X-Pro package for the top two trims.

With the X-Line package, the Telluride boasts standard all-wheel drive (AWD) with a center locking differential, nearly half an inch more ground clearance (8.4 inches instead of eight even), improved approach and departure angles, unique grille and 20-inch wheel designs, and roof rails.

To the X-Line package, the X-Pro package adds 18-inch matte-black wheels with all-terrain tires and heavy-duty engine cooling to bump the maximum towing capacity by 500 pounds to 5,500.

Prices range from $35,990 for the LX to $53,185 for the SX Prestige with the X-Pro package, not including the destination charge. We drove the SX Prestige with the X-Line package. It had the extra cost Wolf Gray paint and floor mats, which brought the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) to $54,270, including the $1,365 destination charge.

Good looks attract Telluride buyers to Kia like pollen does bees. Last year’s styling updates don’t appeal to everyone, but the SUV’s fundamentally attractive forms and proportions remain intact. The Wolf Gray paint looks terrific with the blacked-out X-Line styling, which now includes the formerly gray grille surround and bumper details.

Our test car had a black interior with premium Nappa leather seats. It’s not the Telluride’s most appealing cabin color. Depending on the trim and exterior hue, you can get a rich Mahogany brown, a festive Terracotta brown, a light gray over black or dark blue, and an unusual Sage Green. They all complement the simulated open-pore wood trim, and several help hide the shiny plastic covering the interior's lower portions.

That plastic is a real bummer, especially in the SX Prestige, which, with its soft leather, artificial suede headliner, 24-inch dual-screen digital display panel, classy metallic accents, and thoughtful details, nearly meets luxury SUV standards.

The Telluride has plenty of power. It uses a 3.8-liter V6 engine producing 291 horsepower and 262 pound-feet of torque, transferred to the front or all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic transmission. Most Tellurides tow 5,000 pounds, but the X-Pro package adds heavy-duty engine cooling to bump that rating to 5,500 lbs.

Get a Telluride with AWD, and it includes a locking center differential to split the power evenly between the front and rear wheels at low speeds. You also get a Snow driving mode with the standard Comfort, Sport, and Smart modes. The Telluride offers a decent 8.0 inches of ground clearance in standard spec. With X-Line and X-Pro packages, that rises to 8.4 inches, and the SUV also gets a self-leveling rear suspension.

Accelerating up to freeway speed is easy, and the Telluride offers good passing power. However, this SUV isn’t very fuel-efficient. The EPA says the AWD versions should get 20 mpg in combined driving, but we averaged just 19 mpg on our mountainous Southern California evaluation loop. During a full week involving lots of city driving, the SUV returned 17.5 mpg.

A hybrid drivetrain is overdue, something with good power and decent fuel economy, like what Acura used to offer in the MDX. Or a sophisticated plug-in hybrid drivetrain similar to the BMW X5 xDrive45e or Volvo XC90 Recharge. It’s not lost on us that we’re comparing a Telluride SX Prestige to luxury SUVs. It comes naturally.

There is nothing to gripe about regarding the Telluride driving experience besides fuel economy. The SUV is quick and refined. It has standard brake-induced Torque Vectoring Cornering Control, and that, in combination with the 20-inch wheels and tires, makes the Telluride feel more athletic in curves and corners than many of its rivals. The steering is agreeably responsive, too, and the brakes resist rumble, pulsing, and fade when working overtime.

Curiously, the Telluride’s ride feels firm at lower speeds on city streets but soft and compliant when traveling at higher velocities. As a result, when traveling on a winding road with pavement undulations, the Kia soaks them up to help prevent head-toss. If you’ve ever used a gimbal for a camera, the Telluride is the gimbal, and you’re the camera.

Over the years, we’ve spent time off-roading in various Tellurides, from dealing with soupy trails in far western Colorado to tackling ruts and ridges in central Texas. It won’t put a Jeep to shame but is more capable than expected.

Get into a Kia Telluride, and you’ll be comfortable, especially if you choose a higher trim level. Our SX Prestige X-Line test vehicle had premium Nappa leather upholstery, heated and ventilated front seats with a range of adjustments (including periodic lumbar massage), heated and ventilated second-row captain’s chairs, and a third-row seat capable of transporting adults. Overhead, a dual sunroof panel added light to the test model’s otherwise dark interior.

Kia orients the controls horizontally, and though the Telluride’s standard 12.3-inch touchscreen infotainment system is easy to use and features a capable voice recognition system (with an active Kia Connect subscription), physical controls are blessedly the rule instead of the exception. However, the metallic finish buttons on the dashboard and steering wheel are hard to read on bright, sunny days.

Kia makes up for that by including numerous thoughtful details in the Telluride. For example, the available 12.3-inch digital instrumentation panel offers a view that superimposes data on a scenic landscape that changes with the time of day. At sunset on a nice day, it matches the sky. At sunset on a cloudy day, it brings some natural beauty into your peripheral view.

Accessible storage space is generous and includes a covered cubby forward of the shifter, flanked by stylish grab handles. Kia also provides a tray perfect for propping up a smartphone, and there is plenty of room in the door panel bins.

Around the back, a hands-free power liftgate with automatic closing is available. Stand near the back of the SUV with the key fob on your person, and it will rise automatically after a few seconds. This is safer than waggling a foot under a bumper while trying to balance on the other foot, especially if snow, ice, or loose gravel is on the ground.

However, this feature is undesirable in other situations, such as when catching up with someone in the parking lot after soccer practice. You can turn the hands-free liftgate function on or off through the infotainment system, but we think Toyota has the right idea with elbow-bump hands-free tailgate and liftgate functions.

Behind the Telluride’s third-row seat, you’ll find 21 cubic feet of cargo space, including the well under the load floor. Fold it down, and this SUV can handle 46 cu-ft of cargo, more than enough for a long family road trip. Maximum volume measures 87 cu-ft, one of the most generous in the segment. But if that’s not enough, look to the roof, where the X-Line and X-Pro offer genuinely useful roof rails.

Kia equips every 2024 Telluride with a 12.3-inch touchscreen infotainment system that is mostly impressive. If you want to use the Apple CarPlay or Android Auto smartphone projection systems, you need a cable connected to one of the USB-C data ports. Inexplicably, it’s not wireless. Also, if you want a conversational voice recognition system, you need an active Kia Connect subscription.

During the testing day, we forgot the cable, but wirelessly pairing an iPhone to the system’s Bluetooth was no problem, and it was easy to stream internet radio via smartphone. Unfortunately, the test vehicle’s Kia Connect subscription was inactive, so we could not perform a voice recognition test. However, in past Kia test vehicles, it has worked well.

Four Kia Connect plans are available. Lite is complimentary for five years and includes 911 Connect, an automatic crash notification service. For nearly everything else, you need to upgrade to the Care, Plus, or Ultimate plan, the latter running $199 annually. Kia Connect Voice Assist is part of the most expensive Ultimate package.

Various highlights of the Kia Connect Care, Plus, and Ultimate plans include a “find my car” function, programmable safe driver settings, panic button and rear occupant notification alerts, remote engine starting and climate pre-conditioning, Amazon Alexa compatibility, and over-the-air update capability.

In addition, the test vehicle had satellite radio, wireless smartphone charging, and a 10-speaker Harman Kardon audio system delivering good sound quality.

One of the many thoughtful features Kia bakes into the Telluride is a blue-light filter for the infotainment display screen to reduce eye strain. There is a Quiet Mode that plays music only through the front speakers when passengers in the back are sleeping. You can also activate a function that delivers the driver’s voice to the second- and third-row seat occupants through the stereo speakers.

Additional tech includes a digital key function that turns your smartphone into the vehicle’s key. Alternatively, you can use a card key the size of a credit card to unlock and start the SUV. Since the Telluride’s key fob is ginormous, you might actually use the digital key functionality.

A camera-based rearview mirror offers a clear view of what’s behind the SUV. The image resolution is remarkably good, so if you find yourself behind a new Telluride in traffic, don’t pick your nose, or you might wind up going viral on TikTok.

A 10-inch head-up display is also available and exceptionally helpful. It even warns when other vehicles are in the SUV’s blind spots. Additionally, you can equip the Telluride with a 360-degree camera system offering top-down, surround, and side views.

Lastly, the Telluride offers a Leading Vehicle Departure Alert system. If you’re stopped in traffic, this tells you when the vehicles ahead are moving again, in case you’re looking elsewhere (like at your phone or the person behind you picking their nose). However, if you’re the leading vehicle, you must pay attention and move ahead when it’s safe.

The 2024 Telluride is equally impressive regarding its standard Kia Drive Wise collection of driver assistance features. Standard equipment includes tech related to collision avoidance, lane-keeping assist, blind-spot monitoring, and rear occupant protection. Highway Driving Assist is also standard, providing a hands-on semi-autonomous driving system with adaptive cruise control and lane-centering assist.

Safety feature upgrades depend on the trim level, and include front parking sensors, cross-traffic alert, evasive steering assist, lane-change assist, and automatic rear braking. In addition, a camera-based Blind-Spot View Monitor system is available. It shows you what’s in the blind spot via a camera display on the digital instrumentation.

The more expensive Tellurides also have Highway Driving Assist 2.0, which adds automatic lane changing to the system’s list of semi-autonomous capabilities. Our test vehicle had it, and it worked best on wide-open freeways, rural two-lane roads, and in stop-and-go traffic. In moderate traffic with motorists shopping lanes, delayed reactions to changing conditions made the technology less trustworthy. It also performed poorly when driving up a mountain grade on a multi-lane freeway, allowing the SUV’s speed to vary by up to 10 mph.

The lane-change assist system works well. You need to be patient as the technology determines if it is safe to steer into the next lane, but this feature works accurately and provides communicative graphics so the driver knows what is happening.

We did not enjoy using the lane-keeping system without Highway Driving Assist. It is too intrusive and introduces on-center steering lightness and dead spots that don’t inspire confidence. Ultimately, we turned this off, making driving the SUV more pleasurable.

If a collision occurs, the Telluride offers optimum protection through a five-star overall crash test rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and a Top Safety Pick+ rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

The 2024 Kia Telluride is a bargain at any price. Choose the base Telluride LX trim, and you’ll get everything you need in a midsize three-row SUV and more. Spend another $15,000 on the Telluride SX Prestige, and the SUV is just a handful of higher-quality interior materials away from legit premium-brand status.

Not only that, Kia covers the 2024 Telluride with one of the longest warranty plans of any automaker, and the SUV provides top-notch safety ratings, comfort for adults in all three rows, plenty of cargo space, and numerous small details that add up to big satisfaction.

If there’s a downside to the Telluride, the V6 engine’s real-world fuel efficiency fails to impress. Accept that, and you’ll probably be pretty happy owning this family SUV.

But, if you’re still seeking alternatives, this segment has no shortage of choices. Rivals include the Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, Dodge Durango, Ford Explorer, GMC Acadia, Honda Pilot, Hyundai Palisade, Jeep Grand Cherokee L, Mazda CX-90, Nissan Pathfinder, Subaru Ascent, Toyota Highlander, and Volkswagen Atlas.