How ya doin’ Capitol District? The temperatures sure have been dropping pretty quickly and at this point, there is no doubt that Fall is in the air. Personally, Fall is my absolute FAVORITE SEASON! I love going apple picking and pumpkin picking, and drinking hot apple cider! Going for long car rides and watching the beauty and majesty of the changing leaves, it’s heaven. Also, the mosquitos have returned to whatever evil place they came from, which is a bonus! With all of the beautiful changes this season brings, perhaps it’s time for a change of your own.

Here at Destination Kia, the prices are dropping like the temperature! We have some pretty excellent new vehicle specials that will have you FALLing in love! You’ll find offers for 0% APR for 60 months, $0 due at signing and super low payments for those who qualify! We also have the new Kia Pull ahead program which will WAIVE up to 3 months of payments and the $400 Disposition Fee if you lease and new Kia now! Those are some pretty awesome deals!

So if you’re a big fan of Fall like I am and are looking for a larger vehicle to fit the perfect pumpkins your family picked, check out the 2017 Kia Niro LX with $0 due at signing, and $259 per month with a 36 month lease, the 2017 Kia Sorento LX for $0 due at signing and $248 per month with a 36 month lease, or maybe even the 2017 Kia Sportage LX All Wheel Drive for $) due at signing and $248 per month for a 36 month lease. Any of these options would be perfect and have PLENTY of room to fit a whole family of pumpkins!

Perhaps you’re a fan of leaf peeping. I too am a fan of peeping some leaves! What better way to enjoy nature’s beauty than behind the wheel in the beautifully crafted seats of the 2017 Kia Forte LX which is $0 due at signing, and the CRAZY low price of $148 per month with a 36 month lease! Or perhaps if you’re looking for a more permanent arrangement, you can now buy the 2017 Kia Forte for $13,888, which would save you $3,572 off the MSRP! And if that wasn’t Kooky enough, you will get 3 years of oil changes with the purchase of any new Kia!

So if you’re getting ready for fall and like the leaves, are looking for a change, stop by Destination Kia! We’ll get you hooked up with a Kooky deal that will make the change of season even more beautiful!

*All specials expire on 9/30/17 see specials page for full details.

When I was little I used to love going for long car rides at night. My mother absolutely loathed having to drive at night, and she had to frequently, but I never understood why. The sky was so beautiful, and the roads were often pretty quiet. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I realized her general disdain for driving in the night had less to do with the night time, and more to do with her vision. I came to the conclusion on my way home from college one weekend that it was really freaking hard to see at night!

How could that be! At the time I was barely 20 years old and thought that frankly, my vision was in it’s prime as years of texting, and spending all day behind a computer screen for classes has certainly damaged my sight by now. Even so, with my vision, the picture of health, 20/20 some may even say, that I struggled to see while driving. The simple truth is that when you’re not nocturnal, friend… and it’s night time, it’s hard to see in the dark, even with headlights. So here are some tips to help you survive your next night drive.

You’re driving down the road in the dark, minding your business, and suddenly a pair of headlights crashes into your vision and you momentarily go blind. Now what?! Well, a simple trick to avoid this jarring experience is to focus your attention on the outside lines on the road, rather than looking directly into the headlights of oncoming traffic. Didn’t your mother teach you not to look into the sun?? Well, add headlights to that list!

Your once crisp headlights are now sporting a mysterious and smokey look. While you’d love to support their latest fashion statement, the foggy lens is making it harder for you to see. Stop by your friends at Destination Kia to have your headlights cleaned or the lights replaced if they are just starting to get dim on you. Those headlights are your last stand against the darkness, and I promise you losing those lights at 65mph on the highway is NOT a fun experience.

Finally, keep your eyes out for other little eyes. Glowing eyes perhaps. Where there are eyes, an actual nocturnal creature is very likely to be. If you don’t want to be startled by a deer or perhaps raccoon sprinting with a reckless abandon across the street into the front bumper of your car, watch for eyes.

Driving at night doesn’t have to be a nerve wracking experience. With these tips, your journey into darkness can be a pleasant one! Take the necessary steps to ensure that your car is working at its best for night driving by getting your headlights aligned, and bulbs replaced! Stopping by Destination Kia will be the highLIGHT of your night time driving!

I once believed that I could do anything I set my mind to… apparently, even when my mind is set, there is a line. Consequently, here I sit, covered in oil, dirt, and moderate amounts of self-loathing. This series of unfortunate events starts, as most do, with a visit with my family. Now, you don’t need much context about my family other than the fact that I was there for 1 week in a 3 bedroom home with 9 family members and ONE bathroom. So, you can imagine how frazzled I was after this experience. Honestly, I’m just amazed that we all made it out of there alive.

After a very long and emotionally draining week of family fun, I packed up my sweet little Kia Forte and made my way home. Now, I feel the need to preface this story with the fact that I have made this trip, conservatively, 11 billion times. I know the route from Connecticut to Albany like the back of my hands. Most of the journey is spent on back roads driving next to various bodies of water, which I find VERY soothing. There isn’t usually any traffic so I was foolish enough to actually start to relax on my way home.

I was so relaxed, in fact, that I allowed my mind to wander slightly. I was emotionally on autopilot so I wasn’t as alert and focused on the road ahead as I perhaps should have been. The next series of events happened so fast that I almost don’t know where to begin. A beaver ran, RAN, across the road (DID YOU KNOW THAT BEAVERS COULD RUN? BECAUSE I DIDN’T!). At which point my Forte’s Forward Collision warning system activated the brakes for me, and I turned the wheel to the right slightly to avoid hitting the little dare devil, and ended up driving across the grass, clipping the side of a shrubbery, and back onto the road. At this point, I have experienced several heart attacks, and have seen both my life and the beaver’s flash before my eyes. Nevertheless, I continued driving a good 20 minutes before I registered a dragging sound coming from the underside of my car.

I am not entirely sure at what point in that 20 minutes I decided that I was a certified mechanic, qualified to identify what was wrong with my car post-Beaver Incident of 2017, but, spoiler alert, I’m 100% not a mechanic. I have a degree in words. I can tell you in beautifully descriptive detail what I saw looking at my traumatized little Kia, but past that I have NO idea what I was looking at, which is very likely why things went so wrong.

Based on my “professional” assessment of my vehicle, I determined that the sound was caused by a rather large stick or possibly tree branch wedged under my car. I did NOT want to have to call to get my car towed. It became apparent that I would go to great lengths to avoid calling for a tow as I scooted myself under my car to remove the stick, relinquishing any dignity I may have had left. The branch was REALLY wedged in there so I had to do some shifting to get a better angle. One final forceful pull, and immediate regret. It seems that the branch caught on one of the plugs under my car and now some kind of NASTY brown(?????) liquid was gushing out of my car. I can comfortably say, as I sit under my car, Wicked Witch of the East style, that I have reached rock bottom.

My only real option was to call for a tow truck. At this point, I am sitting on the side of the road looking like I just escaped prison, and friends, I watched horror, concern, and finally, sadness cross this man’s face in rapid succession. I could actually see all of the questions in his eyes, but he seemed to just let it go and we sat in awkward silence for approximately 45 minutes on our way to Destination Kia to have my poor car fixed up the right way.

What did I learn from this experience? Several things: Don’t try to mess with things under your car if you have no idea what you are doing. Seriously, this is why the good people in the service department at Destination Kia are there. They will handle it, PLEASE don’t try to fix it yourself. Also, Destination Kia has a TON of service specials that you can check out so you can save some money, and I don’t know, not end up dumping ALL of your oil all over yourself. Just saying. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a hot shower and print off that Full Synthetic Oil & Filter Change coupon from Destination Kia’s website so I can drive my car again with what little dignity I have left.

I managed to walk into my coffee table twice, tripped over my cat, AND violently underestimated where the wall was and caught my shoulder while walking around the corner in my hallway. I did this ALL BEFORE 8 AM. I was wearing my glasses and everything, but clearly, I need to get a new prescription. When I got to work, one of my coworkers said that there was a rather large smudge on my glasses. Upon further inspection, I realize the smudge went across both lenses. Once I cleaned off my glasses, I swear it was a whole new world out there, friends. I COULD SEE! …Well, better. I still need those glasses.

Now as I think about my terribly smudged lenses, I started to wonder about my headlights. I’ve noticed lately that they are a bit cloudy, maybe even opaque? I can’t really even remember if my headlights were once brighter or if this is how they have always been so I wondered if I cleaned off my headlights if it would make as much of a difference for my vehicle as cleaning off my glasses did for me.

As it turns out cloudy headlights provide significantly less illumination and cause light to scatter rather than being focused on the road, which also creates glare for oncoming drivers. Most modern headlight lenses are made of clear, and nearly unbreakable, polycarbonate plastic or a similar material. The lenses are treated at the factory with a special coating that protects them from the ultraviolet (UV) rays in sunlight, vehicle exhaust fumes and other environmental contaminants.

I’ve seen a number of home remedies to clean off your headlights, but honestly, those will only help for a short while and can even damage your headlights, rather than help them. You can find lens treatments that, when applied regularly, can significantly extend the life of the factory protective coating. You can even find such treatments at Destination Kia! Think of it as sunscreen for your headlights.

Auto parts stores sell inexpensive do-it-yourself headlight refinishing kits, just be sure to select one that includes a final protective coating or the lenses will become cloudy again in a matter of months. You can also have headlight restoration done professionally by your friends at Destination Kia!

You wouldn’t want to walk around with smudged glasses all day. Even if you think that you can see through them just fine, you can’t see nearly as well as with clean glasses and are more likely to run into things, miss details, or in my case…step on the cat. In the same way, you wouldn’t want to drive around with headlights that are cloudy. Driving in the dark is hard enough, let’s not make it harder. Take care of your headlights and visit us at Destination Kia today.

I don’t want to be harsh here, so I thought I’d start off in song. Under pressure, dun dun dun duh nuh nuh nuh. Your tires, specifically. As this season seems to be one in which Mother Nature is experiencing some mood swings, the temperatures are all over the place. Do you know what fluctuating temperatures mean for your tires? Under pressure, dun dun dun duh nuh nuh nuh. You guessed it! With each change in temp of 10 degrees or more, you should 100% check out your tire pressure as driving with low tire pressure is just throwing money away. I don’t know about you, but I have bills to pay and throwing money away is NOT in my budget. You know what is in my budget? Taking the steps to keep my tires in tip top shape. Which for a tire should be round.

How, you might ask, does one check the tire pressure? Well, I am elated that you asked. It is actually a pretty simple process. Go to your local shopping center with an auto department, or even an auto shop, and get yourself a tire pressure gauge. I HIGHLY recommend the air pressured one, mostly because I have a pretty serious distrust of electronic measurements of any kind. The battery gets low and all of a sudden the numbers are all over the place and not even close to correct.

Once you have your handy dandy tire pressure gauge, go to the tire in question and remove the air cap. Check said cap for cracks or busted threads inside the cap, if there are cracks, etc you can very likely locate replacement caps at the same establishment that you got the tire pressure gauge from. In the event the caps pass your casual inspection you can proceed to check the tire pressure. On the frame of your car, typically on the inside of your driver’s side door, you will find the optimum air pressure of your tires. Alternately, you can check your owner’s manual to find your recommended tire pressure. This range is typically between 30 and 35 PSI(pounds per square inch). If your air is low based on the recommended tire pressure, you can fill up your tires at most gas stations for FREE or you can get a little portable air pump so that you can adjust your tire pressure as needed.

Now that you have determined that your tire pressure is where it should be you can carry on with your life as planned! How exciting is that! Look at you out here being an adult and taking care of your car all by yourself! It’s some exciting stuff, friend. Keep up the good work and if you aren’t sure how your tires are doing and want to get them checked out by professionals, stop by Destination Kia today! Our Service Department will be more than happy to check out your tires for you!

Camping is in my blood. I feel it deep in my Soul… Literally. Every summer my friends and I get together for a girls camping weekend in Forestport, NY. The 4 of us went to college together and have remained very close since those college years. While we don’t see each other every day, we still work hard to keep in touch as often as possible. The annual camping trip has become something of a staple in our lives. We look forward to it every year and it gives us a chance to really catch up, put our phones down and really take a break from our lives which have become increasingly busy.

When we started this tradition about 5 years ago everyone shared 2 tents, but I have a bad back so sleeping on the ground wasn’t exactly something that worked for me. After a while, I ended up sleeping in my car, which at the time, wasn’t that much of a step up from the ground, but it worked. From there I have developed a better system to actually set up a mini campsite in my car. When I got my Kia Soul last year from Destination Kia, my camping experience improved drastically! It took a few tries and engineering prowess that I acquired from Youtube, but I finally have a quality setup that works for me.

Here is what I did:

• 1 –  board of plywood cut 51″ Wide X 42″ Long – Then cut in half so you end up with two 25.5″ x 42″ boards. (they do this free at most lumberyards / home depo)

• 1 –  30″ Piano Hinge

• Some foam pipe Insulation

• Coleman Single High Quickbed – Full Size (not twin, queen, or king)

• Air pump

When it was all said and done, it cost $90 for everything, including bed and pump. Not bad for a make shift car bed. What you’re going to want to do is take the hinge and attach it to both halves of the plywood so that you have 51” wide x 42” piece that can fold and be stored easily. I then wrapped pipe insulation around the edges of the board and secured it with duct tape to keep the wood from scratching the interior. Make sure the driver and passenger seats are upright and pushed completely forward. This gives you about 5′ 11″ of room with the rear door shut. The sleeping board rests perfectly on the middle arm rest. No need for additional support, and you have a nice little storage space for your bags and things that you may need under the board. I then cover the sleeping board with a cushy comforter to protect the air mattress from the wood. Add the air mattress and blankets and you have a bed fit for a good night’s sleep!

Now that I have this magical camping Kia, I have to say I actually enjoy sleeping in a car more than a tent. For one thing, it keeps you off the ground, and thus away from creatures and moisture. Another thing, it protects you from the wind, rain, and other elements. For example – even better, this past year when it started to rain and hail outside, I ended up with 4 friends squished in a Kia because my sleeping option was safer! Finally, it’s just easier to pull into a parking lot, or off the road and have everything ready to go for spending the night without drawing attention to yourself. So when I go on long road trips, I have a simple and cheap bed option right there in my car!
So there you have it! Now you can camp in your Kia at your leisure! Enjoy!

Uber has finally made it to the Capitol District and I am PSYCHED! Who is with me!? I am someone who has done a lot of traveling and, particularly when I was in D.C., I was so amazed by Uber. Like, it really changed the game for me. You can request someone to arrive by way of an app. That’s awesome! But do you know what is even better about Uber arriving up here? It has opened up a whole other avenue of employment opportunities for people around here to make a little extra cash, or make a lot of money driving around all day. Just as Uber has opened up opportunities for the community, we at Destination Kia want to provide an awesome opportunity to the Uber drivers out there!

Now, at Destination Kia, Uber drivers can save THOUSANDS on a NEW Kia! It’s a crazy concept, right? Well, it’s true! But hurry, because this offer only extends to September 5th! What does this mean, well if you are an Uber driver and are looking for a new, sleek ride, we have a whole selection of options you can choose from including the Kia K900, Cadenza, Optima, Sorento, and Sedona. That’s a pretty wide variety of options so that you can really find the right match to your personality.

Let’s look at the math here for a second. You will save THOUSANDS on a new car, that you may have already needed or even wanted anyway. The vehicles available in the promotion are pretty awesome vehicles too. These are some vehicles I would be super stoked to be driving. To make things better, with your amazing new Kia you’ll be MAKING money with Uber. So, what’s happening here is you are saving money on something that will be making you money! What? Sounds like a win win to me, friends!

Remember, this promotion on extends to September 5th, so stop by Destination Kia today to start your journey with Uber!

I’ll admit it. I messed up. I was stubborn and ended up making a foolish road trip error. This all happened a few years ago. My family and I went to Boston for the 4th of July. The trip there was absolutely lovely. We weren’t in any kind of rush, so we were able to really take our time getting there, enjoying the ride with the family in our Kia Sorento, which was great for a nice leisurely drive. Lots of space for all of our things and plenty of leg room for the adults and kiddos. Mind you, that was a few years ago! Imagine how awesome the 2018 Sorento must be. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.

We didn’t really hit all that much traffic and everything went smoothly. This is not an easy task when you have a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old. One false move and the perfect homeostasis in the car we had achieved could be COMPLETELY ruined. We almost gave our youngest the wrong snack, but we narrowly avoided an incident because, fortunately, this isn’t our first time at the rodeo and had duplicate snacks for both kids. The weekend was wonderful, only having a few minor incidents that honestly can’t be avoided when small children are involved. The trip home, however, was an entirely different matter.

My husband suggested we leave a bit earlier and perhaps avoid I-90. Being the stubborn woman that I am, thought “no no, we’ll be fine.” We don’t have to leave so early. Taking back roads would take longer than I-90 would. Surely I-90 can’t be that bad. Looking back now, I can laugh, but as I was driving through it I kinda wanted to cry. Because we were starting the trek home after an already long day, by the time we got to the car to head home, the little ones were cranky. The 1st hour was non-stop fighting. The 4-year-old kept poking the 7-year-old. “Mommy he stole my pillow.” “Mommy he got Cheetos all over my leg.” I had perhaps 1 unfrayed nerve left by this point, so you can imagine my emotional state when we happened upon every single traffic incident on I-90.

As we sat for our 2nd consecutive hour in bumper to bumper traffic, having moved about 4 square feet, it happened. “Mommy, I have to go potty.” No. No no. No nooooo. Not 5 minutes later the 4-year-old also needed a potty. Let me break down the situation for you. We were in the left middle lane of 4 lane bumper traffic. Both small children need a bathroom that simply does not exist and I’m just sitting here accepting my fate and trying to figure out how to best limit the pee smell for the remainder of our journey. Even the strawberry field air freshener wasn’t going to make this situation better.

Without missing a beat, my husband simply leaned around into the back seat, held out an empty Gatorade bottle and told them to do what he needed to do. This idea had never even occurred to me. Frankly, it blew my mind a little bit. How could I have missed the most obvious solution?! Well long story short, the kids settled back down and we made it home 5 1/2 HOURS of travel time, but we made it. What we learned from this experience is that 1.) leave early when you need to drive home on a major holiday. 2.) Avoid main roads when traveling home on a major holiday. 3.) Never underestimate the value of an empty Gatorade bottle.

You’re on your way home from work, you’ve rewarded yourself for a hard day with a delicious cupcake from Coccadotts, everything is going swell. Then you see it… the sinister orange-red glow of the check engine light. MISERY! DESPAIR! SUFFERING!!! THE UNADULTERATED HORROR!!!! *Starts ugly crying*

Hold up!

There are NUMEROUS reasons your check engine light may have come on, but the good news is that there’s typically no need to panic. So let’s wipe those tears away and take a few deep, cleansing breaths. Good good. MUCH better. Now that we have all taken a collective chill pill, we can go over why there is no need to panic.

1. It might be your gas cap

DID YOU KNOW that a loose, cracked, or faulty gas cap can cause fuel to evaporate, which could totally result in your check engine light coming on? I feel ya. This would be a silly reason to get all worked up. It feels oddly similar to when you are desperately looking for your glasses, but it turns out that they are on your face. *Face Palm* So as a first order of business before you panic, check the gas cap. If this was indeed the issue, your check engine light should go off within 10 or 20 miles once you’re back on the road.

2. A certified mechanic should be able to diagnose the problem easily

No need to sit and wonder what is wrong with your vehicle. You can stop by Destination Kia, where one of our certified mechanics can help sort out what’s caused the light to go on and what can be done. These folks are the SUPERHEROES of automotives. But like…no capes, because that would be SUUUUCH a hazard.

3. It’s typically not an urgent situation

While you 100% should not just ignore your check engine light, there is no need to freak the second that light comes on. You will have plenty of time to drive yourself safely to Destination Kia where we can get you situated. You can let out that breath you’ve been holding. It’s all good. We’ve got this!

4. There are numerous reasons the light may come on

Other than the quick fix of the gas cap, the other potential issues would be a little bit more challenging to diagnose yourself. Some causes include, but are not limited to damaged vacuum hose or ignition coil(s), a failing catalytic converter, or even worn out spark plugs. I’m gonna be real, I knew maybe 4 of those words. Which is why I trust all of my diagnostics to the certified mechanics at Destination Kia. They’ll tell you what’s up and have you back on the road in no time.

So if your check engine light has been a source of distress in the past now you know that it’s not something to be ignored, it definitely doesn’t mean that the end is near. It’s ok to keep going, just make sure you have it checked out as soon as you can.

Modern technology has made so many advances, especially over the past few years. With so many of these awe-inspiring technologies, it is starting to feel like the future we all imagined. Kia has definitely been stepping up its game so let’s take this time to go over some of the awesome features you’ll find in your new Kia vehicles.

An option that makes life infinitely easier is the UVO eService. It’s a subscription-free information system for your Kia. This service comes with a variety of features including Parking Minder, Maintenance & Diagnostics, Emergency Assistance, and a bunch of convenience features.

Parking Minder – Some of us have a bit of trouble locating where our car is parked in a parking lot. Honestly, I try to remember, find some kind on landmark only to get horribly lost and having to use my car alarm to find my car. With Kia Parking Minder you won’t have to search to find your Kia. The Parking Minder feature saves the location of your Kia and, with the assistance of the GPS guidance on your compatible smartphone, helps guide you back to it.*

Maintenance & Diagnostics – Regular maintenance is just a part of having a car, so being able to stay up to date on what maintenance your car needs is as simple as touching a button. For example, with your compatible smartphone and the eServices mobile app, you can program UVO eServices to run regular diagnostic checks and then schedule a service appointment if necessary.* Keeping your car running smoothly is just that easy.

Emergency Assistance – Things happen, and more often than not those things happen when you are least prepared to handle them. With 911 Connect – Help is on the way when and wherever you need it. “In the event, the airbag deploys, 911 Connect can initiate a call to 911 Emergency Services. It can even transmit your vehicle’s location to 911 Emergency Services in some situations.*”

My POIs – I am the kind of person who LOVES to try new things, so a helpful feature in my Kia is My POIs (points of interest) where you can preset your own places you’d like to visit, find places you’d like to visit on Google Maps™ via the free UVO eServices app, and then send them to your UVO eServices system for future routing.* You use your car to get to the new destinations, but now your car can guide you there!

Voice Commands – When you’re driving, focusing on the road should be your main priority, and on occasion, you’ll want to do something that would ordinarily require you to take your eyes off the road to accomplish. In an effort to minimize the occasions in which your eyes are not on the road you will have the ability to use Voice Commands in you Kia. Hands-free calling, turning on the radio. Press the “talk” button on your steering wheel and a wide range of voice commands are available through UVO.

Rear-Camera Display – When you engage the reverse gear in your Kia, the Rear-Camera Display appears on the UVO screen, displaying a wide field of vision at the rear of your Kia.

Additional safety features that are helpful for all the parents out there include Geo Fence, Curfew Limit, and Speed Alert. Having a new teen driver in the house can be a bit scary for parents, so having these safety features that allows you a bit of control over the situation can be comforting. Geo Fence allows you to set a predetermined area in which your Kia needs to stay. It will alert you when your car goes outside of those parameters. The Curfew Limit and Speed Alert, as their names suggest, will alert you when your Kia is driven past a set time and a set speed. Your teen is gaining their independence, but you’re still their parents and just want them to stay safe, and now keeping your teen safe in a Kia is easier than ever.

Any time you drive, you need to be focused on a multitude of things, in addition to being constantly vigilant of everything happening around you. You are only one person, and can only do so much, so Kia is making life just a little bit easier, and safer too. To see any of these awesome features for yourself, stop by Destination Kia today and take a test drive in any one of our new vehicles!