2018 Kia Sorento Facelift Spied, Front Fascia Inspired by Sportage and Niro

When it comes to mid-size crossover SUVs on the cheap, the Kia Sorento is one of the cheapest. It doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, but that doesn’t translate to spartan. It’s well equipped from the get-go and it doesn’t look half bad. The third-generation Sorento may be two years old, but Kia is already working on an ample facelift.

The thing is, the Sorento borrows the upright tiger-nose grille from the Cross GT Concept, a design study which has been left behind by the styling language of the newest Kia products. I’m referring to the Sportage compact crossover SUV and the Niro hybrid subcompact crossover SUV. As you can see in the spy photographs below, the Sorento facelift will try to mirror the design language of those two models.

Other than the laboriously redesigned front end, the 2018 Kia Sorento facelift does not share the same codename (UM) as the pre-facelift. In one of the featured pics, there’s a little card in the windshield that reads “16 Sweden Winter Test; Vehicle: QM 2.0 T-GDI / AT (CHI / 2WD).”

It’s the QM codename that made me raise an eyebrow. From my point of view, the code-name change is a tell-tale sign that the changes will be more than skin deep. What sort of changes should we expect?

I’m sorry to disappoint but I don’t have a clue because nobody except Kia knows much about the facelifted Sorento. With time, the changes will be made public, one by one and little by little. The prototype with the card in the windshield, for example, is a front-wheel-drive Sorento motivated by a 2.0 turbocharged four-cylinder engine fed by gasoline which churns out 240 ponies. Regarding cog-swapping, AT refers to the 6-speed unit, not the 7-speed dual clutch transmission of the Euro-spec Kia Cee’d GT Line model.

In other words, there’s nothing new as far as the oily bits are concerned. Still, I have this sneaking suspicion Kia engineers will focus more on the fine details (such as suspension refinements and better NVH) rather than making more considerable changes. On an ending note, I’m still keeping my fingers crossed Kia will adapt the hybrid underpinnings of the Sorento-based Telluride Concept into the Sorento hybrid.

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