A THIRD-GENERATION Kia Sorento seven-seat SUV wings in,
delivering better quality, superior refinement, a reassuringly stellar ANCAP
score and a tall stack of standard equipment to fight the likes of the Toyota
Kluger and homegrown Ford Territory. There's a 2.2-litre diesel AWD version and
a 3.3-litre petrol front-driver with prices kicking off from $41K.
WHAT IS IT
The Kia Sorento forged its reputation
on offering a lot of metal for the money. As it tiptoes upmarket, is this
seven-seat SUV still the standout bargain it used to be? That's debatable, but
the Koreans have done a great job shoe-horning it full of gear and making it as
safe as possible.
WHY WE'RE TESTING IT
Kia is killing it in the
passenger car market, with its year-to-date sales just 279 units behind Ford in
Australia. The Sorento has always represented a hefty chunk of the overall
product plan, so we've been invited to see whether those who aren't very good
at contraception will continue to form an orderly queue for this seven-seat
SUV.
MAIN RIVALS
Ford
Territory, Holden Captiva 7, Hyundai Santa Fe, Toyota Kluger
THE WHEELS VERDICT
The
third-gen Kia Sorento is
undoubtedly better, but as this car moves upmarket, it's open to question
whether the improvements will result in more sales. The petrol version handles
better, but its fuel figures will see the refined but lumbering AWD diesel mop
up most sales.
PLUS:
Diesel refinement; equipment, build quality, practicality, safety
MINUS:
Diesel's flabby handling; getting expensive, dullard auto 'box
THE WHEELS REVIEW
WAIT.
Rewind. Did Kia man really just say the words 'barbecue credibility' when
extolling the virtues of the third-generation Sorento? Clearly
things have moved on. Golf clubs and school gates are no longer the preferred
venue for delivering a crushing blow to the ego of your peers. Your seven-year
warranty is clearly something designed to reduce your rivals to shrivelled
husks, wearing the inferiority apron at their grill of resentment snags.
Kia also had a
lovely euphemism for describing how the Sorento was a bit of a clunker
off-road. “Maintaining the promise of adventure,” they said. You can maintain
that promise right up until that moment that you realise you have no low range
and a rear overhang so long that your tow ball's going to be filing its own
mining claim. On the plus side there is a locking centre diff.
It's
hard to be too critical here, because a Hyundai Santa Fe or a Toyota Kluger is no
different. These are predominantly road cars that project a marginally less
suburban image than an MPV and that can tow 2000kg. But here's the rub.
You can
buy the Sorento as a
front-wheel drive petrol model or as an all-wheel-drive diesel, and the moment
you get behind the wheel and deviate from straight ahead, you'll realise that
they're chalk and cheese.
Despite
a torque-vectoring AWD system, the diesel’s vague body control is a little
unnerving, whereas the petrol car, with 50kg less burdening the front axle,
feels a wholly sharper and more gratifying experience.
You're
then faced with the prospect of buying a front-wheel-drive SUV which, while
nobly pragmatic, is going to leave you catastrophically short of barbecue
credibility.
Kia's
Australian chassis engineers explain this disparity in handling by admitting
they specified the beefiest spring and damper rates for the petrol car and
wanted even heavier duty items from the Korean factory for the diesel but
couldn't get them, so the spring rates are exactly the same, despite the oiler
lugging 117kg more up the road. So that's the bad bit.
The
good parts? The electrically assisted power steering now has its motor mounted
on the rack rather than the column, which is a big improvement, especially when
you switch the sport mode on. This adds a meaty level of heft to the steering.
Unfortunately it also couples that with a spikier throttle map, which isn't
quite so welcome.
The
diesel is decently refined, even though its performance is blunted by a
half-witted six-speed automatic gearbox. You can take over shifting duties
yourself, but there are no paddles, the lever shifts the wrong way (forward for
upchanges) and it wilfully ignores many shift requests if it doesn't like the
cut of your jib.
It's a
bigger car than before, with an extra 80mm grafted into the wheelbase and
another 15mm tacked onto the rear overhang. You feel it inside, with an extra
25mm of legroom up front and another 15mm in the middle row.
The
boot is bigger, too, with another 62 litres of space in seven-seat
configuration at 320 litres. Fold the rear pair down and there's 1077 litres to
rattle about in. The vast dash moulding imparts an impression of burly build
integrity and, given the Sorento’s price point, materials quality throughout
the cabin impresses.
The
base Si model, with its cloth trim, sat nav and reversing camera, looks to be
the go, and Kia reckons it'll
account for 35 percent of sales, with a paltry 15 percent of buyers set to
choose the leather-bedecked SLi with its LED tail lights, power tailgate and
10-speaker Harman Infinity stereo.
Should
you wish, you can thrill your friends by pointing out that this is the first
Kia to do away with a CD slot. There's no clever Apple CarPlay or Android
MirrorLink available, which seems a bit of a weird omission, as is the lack of
active city braking or an idle-stop system.
Kia
explains the latter away by claiming it didn't make sense from a cost/benefit
perspective, which would suggest that every item inside the Sorento has really
had to work to justify its inclusion.
The
range-topping Platinum is expected to command 50 percent of all Sorento sales and gets a
suite of radar-based safety features and over 40kg of panoramic glass roof
right where you need the weight least.
Make no
mistake; the Kia Sorento still represents punchy value for money. It's never
going to appeal to those who like an SUV that will convincingly carve a corner
but it feels a league ahead of a Toyota Kluger in terms of modernity and design
cohesion.
Drive
both diesel and petrol models and you can't help but come away with the feeling
that the ideal Sorento
is somewhere between the two. A diesel model with beefier suspension might not
be long in coming. Those looking to be top dog at the barbecue may well prefer
to wait until then.
SPECS
Model: Kia Sorento Platinum
Engine: 2199cc inline-4, dohc, 16v turbo-diesel
Max power: 147kW @ 3,800rpm
Max torque: 441Nm @ 1750-2750rpm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Weight: 2036kg
0-100km/h: 9.6 sec
Economy: 7.8L/100km (combined)
Price: $55,990
On sale: Now
No comments:
Post a Comment