GAME TIME. It’s you and me,
walking through a new-car parking lot. You want an SUV. Not just any SUV, but
the theoretical maximum amount of SUV you can get for your dollar. You don’t
care about brand. You are one dead-eyed materialist. That’s why we’ve come to
Kia.
Let’s be clearheaded: As
much as car companies would like you to believe the products and brands are all
different and special, they are, functionally, mostly not, at least insofar as
most consumers would exercise them. Really, dude, is a car that goes to 60 mph
in 3.8 seconds better than one that goes in 4.0? You are never going to…I mean,
what kind of soulless monstrosity are you?
The truth is, vast forces
are at work making cars of the same function and same price virtually the same
car.
Some are technical. The
regimes of federal crash-testing and fuel-economy standards tend to flatten
design opportunities, as does the unyielding pressure for lower weight and
drag.
Some causes are merely the
vulgar work of industrial capitalism: supply and demand, supplier costs, labor
and transportation.
The point is, once you see
through the matrix, mass-market cars are revealed as commodities, sourced from
one or another without a big difference in intrinsic value and function.
Now, while other car brands
might flee at such a description, Kia
really has embraced being a commodity, celebrated it even, much the way Pabst
Blue Ribbon became weirdly chic. Kias are the happy widget.
To begin at the beginning:
The thing that comes in new car windows is called a Monroney label, or sticker,
named after Sen. Mike Monroney of Oklahoma, from back when Oklahoma had
Democrats. The Monroney is, in fact, a missive from various federal agencies,
including the Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration.
The 2016 Kia Sorento SXL 2.0T,
says the EPA, gets 22 miles per gallon combined, which pencils out to an
estimated $2,050 a year in fuel costs.
Powertrain: Turbocharged
direct-injection 2.0-liter DOHV in-line four cylinder with variable valve
timing; six-speed automatic transmission with manual shift mode; full-time,
front-biased all-wheel drive with multiple drive modes and electronically
locking center differential.
The label also lists,
helpfully, the fuel cost per 100 miles, which is 4.5 gallons. Like the European
standard of liters per 100 kilometers, gallons per 100 miles is a smarter, more
dispositive way to calculate fuel economy, but I’ll tilt at that windmill
another time.
The EPA has also done a
little comparison-shopping for you, noting that vehicles in the “small SUV”
class range from 17 to 33 mpg.
In both the Greenhouse Gas
Rating and comparative Fuel Economy ratings our Sorento with AWD and the
2.0-liter earned a 5 out of a possible 10. But here it helps to know the
territory.
Compared with more
nose-to-nose competitors—Toyota Highlander, Jeep Grand Cherokee—our Sorento was
near top of class (19/25/22 mpg, city/highway/combined). The Ford Edge
(20/28/23), for example, just nicks by.
My real-world average
hovered around 19 mpg, which is consistent within statistical fuzziness.
The Sorento is also notably
down on power (240 hp at 6,000 rpm) compared with the named competition, and it
feels it. So when the nice lady with the nametag comes around, tell her you
like the Sorento, but ding it on performance and fuel economy. Deal from a
position of strength.
NHTSA has decorated the
Sorento with five stars for front and side crash safety and four for rollover
protection.
That suggests it’s a
resilient structure but, oh dear, only four-star rollover?
The bosses in Seoul are
going to be deeply unhappy about that.
The Monroney also includes
the “Parts Content Information” section notes that our Sorento, built in West Point,
Ga., has 53% U.S./Canadian parts.
I feel confident much of
this red tape and regulation will be swept away in the first days of the Kanye
administration.
So that’s eating your
vegetables. Over on the left of the Monroney is the fun stuff, the enumeration
of standard and optional equipment. Premium Nappa leather trim seating;
panoramic roof with power sunshade; full-time all-wheel drive with locking
center differential. It’s practically Shakespearean.
It’s on the left side of the
Monroney where the blandly inoffensive, soft-focus Kia brand becomes a giant
rampaging reptile. The base price of the top-shelf SXL AWD is $41,700, and that
includes all of the above plus surround-sound Infinity audio; 8-inch touch
screen with navi and telematics; and the dopest of LED fog and taillamps.
Farther down the column, our
test car added the SXL Technology Package, which includes smart cruise control,
forward collision warning, and the dazzling xenon headlamps.
The total for the test
vehicle, delivered, was $45,095.
How does it drive? Have you
heard nothing of what I’ve said? It’s a microwave. But, withal, a thoroughly
able and premium-feeling family SUV with enough beans to tow 3,500 pounds. Car
and Driver clocked one at 8 seconds to 60 mph, with maximum lateral
acceleration of .80 g. I suppose that will get you through the kid’s drop-off
lane OK.
The Kia’s hot-snot turbo comes on with
authority, producing 260 pound-feet of torque while still just turning 1,450
rpm, but the 4,177-pound mass fights back. The engine sounds like a muffled
scream.
There is a lot to like here,
including the Kia’s class-above telematics system. The thick, dulled aluminum
bezels around outlets and instruments are very like a Cayenne.
The power leather front
seats are the business too, with heating/ventilation and some deep bolsters,
for all the aggressive cornering you are going to do in bank parking lots. The
Sorento’s second- or third-row fold-down, mid and rear seats lie flat in an instant,
tickity-boo.
Look, the mission is dreary,
cost-effective shambling back and forth, day after day, between school, and
store, and home, and work or station, until you die. This mission the Sorento
will execute flawlessly.
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