Can a
SUV ever be a truly exciting drive? Now in its third generation, the Kia Sorento has had more than just
a facelift to bring it up to date, and while its new body and wheelbase is
never going to feel like a Ferrari on the road, for carting around the whole
family it's an appealing prospect.
Sat in
among the likes of the Nissan X-Trail and Volvo XC90, the Sorento is Kia's top-of-the-line car, and
like a cat among the pigeons it's ready to pounce on its near rivals in 2015.
There's bundles of tech and appealing trim on board - if you're willing the pay
the extra for it.
Does
the Kia Sorento get the
balance of functional and fun right, or is it just yet another 7-seater tank to
be seen on the British roads come its mid-March launch?
Lupine looks?
The Sorento's
face has supposedly been fashioned on a wolf's appearance (albeit minus the fur
coat); we don't quite see the lupine snarl, but it's a less bulbous than the
X-Trail's rounded front, and there's more natural motion to the headlamp lines
than something like the tech-faced, more rigid CR-V.
Kia's choice of front grille -
if it can be called exactly that - is an unusual series of triangles, which
look and feel somewhat plasticky. We're not so keen on it, but the chrome
details in the windows, handles and side seals make for a more premium finish.
To the
rear, the sizeable rump features LED lamps, a sharkfin spoiler up top, and a
broader shouldered look than the gentler front. The wolf's gone out the window
from this angle, it's a little more hippo - but the form has definite function,
as boot space definitely doesn't lack.
House from home
Compared
to the Nissan and Honda the Sorento
is the slightly larger of model: at 4.68-metres there's a lot of car to squeeze
the family into. We drove two 5-seat configurations on the roads in Europe, but
the right-hand-drive UK model will come 7-seat as standard, knowing its target
market.
If
7-seats is going to be too much then the two rear-most seats will fold down -
we weren't able to test this in our 5-seat configuration test unit - to expand
the 142-litre boot space into a more significant 605-litre capacity. The boot
spans a 1.37m width, meaning you can fit stacks in without sacrificing on
comfort for anyone. The Sorento
certainly serves its SUV purpose.
Inside
there's ample space to feel immediately comfortable, whether driving or being
carted about as a passenger - there's enough room both front and back. With a
metre of headroom up front and exactly a metre of legroom in the second row -
the far back row is a bit of a squeeze, as to be expected - it's all very light
and breezy.
The
optional leather seats (yep, more cash to scribe on the purchase sheet) were
particularly cushy, with more electronic adjustment controls available than
offered by first class airline seat. It puts our office chair to shame - we so
need 8-way power-adjustable positioning with lumbar support in our lives.
However
comfortable, the car's long nose does place the A-pillar in that typically
irksome position relative to driver, which isn't ideal for ambling around curvy
mountainous roads. A bit of head-bobbing and you'll see through the large
windscreen no problem though.
Tech-tastic
On the
tech front we were daubed with stacks of quality in our top-trim KX4 automatic
model. Finished in light grey and black the interior looks good, complete with
flourishes such as a wrap-around dashboard with stitching. If that interior
colour scheme is too boring then how about beige or brown? No, still too
boring? Well, it's that or simple plain black - the Sorento doesn't cater for
the colour splashes of company's the more youthful
Soul Mixx.
But the
tech on board adds a lick of colour to proceedings, including glowing Sorento logos in
the footwells when the doors are open (good for not tripping up in the dark),
digital dials and 7- or 8-inch touchscreen centrepiece.
The
digital speedometer was particularly fun; the luminescent orange digital hand
smoothly moving along that as we scooted down the motorway, looking very
elegant indeed. There's also sign-detection which was particularly useful in
foreign lands to recognise the speed limits and have them display directly within
peripheral vision. All non-standard stuff, of course, but a show-your-mates
feature should you fork out the extra cash.
As
standard there's a 7-inch screen to the centre console, complete with satnav.
After going all the way around a roundabout the satnav decided we were on the
final leg of our tour route, but a few touches and taps to find the saved route
and we were back on route again.
Using
the touchscreen everything felt responsive, but there are plenty of traditional
buttons and dials for control too. Perhaps too traditional: the air
conditioning controls, which offer independent driver and passenger side
controls, look a bit retro.
Elsewhere
there's advanced smart cruise control (a first for Kia in the UK), plus options
for lane-departure alert, reverse camera, 360-degree cameras, self-parking, and
all such mod cons. None of which were in the standard manual drive model that
we also took to the road, which made a huge difference to interior comfort and
appearance - we missed those cushy seats in particular.
In the
driving seat
Cushy
seats and electric dials are all well and good, but what's the Sorento like to
drive? Well, the 2.2-litre CRDi engine (149g/km being the all important
emissions) is the only one that will make it to the UK, and with that pulling
the steel chassis - which is 30-40kgs heavier than the second-gen Sorento due to increased size,
so over the 2.5 tonne mark - lacks a huge amount of grunt.
Saying
that, it's smooth as butter down the motorways, with little cabin noise or
rattling to speak of, making for a very comfortable cruise along. And there's
enough pep to overtake those cautious European drivers too.
Around
winding bends, though, you'll need to take it slower, as expected. Kia made a fuss
about the rack mounted motor driven power steering (R-MDPS; the positioning
supposedly making for a "turning at the hips, not the shoulders" more
deft motion), but we found it a little heavy, with a limited turning circle.
No
surprises though, this is a SUV after all, it's not going to dance around like
a ballerina at this scale. All told, we were very content with the way the 2015
Sorento glided along the roads, the comfort of the ride and the all-wheel drive
(AWD) system being there to kick into 4x4 mode when the on-board computer feels
its necessary (manual differential lock is possible for a traditional 50/50 4x4
split).
The one to beat?
The
2015 SUV race is on and the Kia Sorento is ripe
for the picking. No official price or final UK spec is available just yet, but
we anticipate the entry-level asking point to be around £26,000, rising into
the mid-£30k levels.
That
positions the Sorento higher up the ladder than its recent Nissan competitor,
but below the premium Volvo XC90 and pricier BMW X5 and Range Rover
competitors. It seems the Korean company is showing confidence in its product.
And that's before we've even mentioned the lure of the 7-year warranty or that
Pierce Brosnan advert...
