Kia Sorento 2017 Video Review

A Review of the Kia Sorento 2017

Welcome to another OSV car review. This week we’re looking at this, the Kia Sorento. Once upon a time, the Kia Sorento was a bit of an ugly duckling, with a face only a mother could love. The budget SUV had a seriously undesirable image and drove about as good as it looked. Fast forward to 2017 though and Kia is a respected brand, and the new third generation of Kia Sorento looks the business and is simply no longer the budget SUV it once was.

All this, the Kia Sorento is the vehicle that changed the way the world saw Kia. Suddenly, people saw Kia, not as a budget Korean brand, but as a rather sexy design-led brand. This is a proper SUV, a sports utility vehicle with permanent all-wheel drive, and it’s driven by a 2.2 turbo diesel engine. So it’s got grunts, it’s got a bit of muscle, it’s great for off-road, it’s wonderful for on-road, and guess what? It’ll take a family of five, plus two more in the back if you want.

Kia has taken choice out of the equation completely when it comes to engines. You’ll have what they give you, and that happens to be a 2.2 liter turbo diesel unit with 200 PS. The only choice you’ll get is which gearbox you want mated to it, a six-speed manual or a six-speed automatic.

So this being a very large seven-seat SUV, it’s pretty cool when it comes to not leaning. Going around the roundabout now, and there’s no excessive body roll whatsoever. So that’s impressive. Another very impressive fact is that this Sorento will do 60 miles an hour from a standstill in 9 seconds. That’s fast considering how weighty this car is. Perhaps less impressive is the fact this’ll only do around 46 to the gallon on the combined average. I’ve been getting 37, and I’ve not been driving particularly fast.

Feast your eyes, not on me, on this, the rather large Kia Sorento. Great big chunky tires, 18-inch rims, there’s a reason for that. This is a comfortable car in the most way because of things like this. It’s also good for off-roading as well. It isn’t by any means as good as, say, a Land Rover Discovery, but this will take a caravan onto a sort of horrible, muddy, grassy caravan site, or if you’re towing a trailer onto a campsite, or even a horse box, for instance, then this is the kind of car that will handle that kind of thing no problem at all.

Let’s go inside. It’s a fairly dull interior, but turn the engine on, things brighten up. Look, don’t know if you can see. Some very, very clear dials in there. You got a entertainment screen here equipped with sat nav, radio, media. You can plug your iPhone in if you want, to [SP] USB sockets down there. This has also got…you probably can’t see from there, but you’ve got a heated seat for me and also for the passenger.

Let’s pop around. Inside the car, we have child seat. You get three child seats across the back. No worries whatsoever. Loads and loads and loads of room. I’m six-foot tall and I have literally got…I could just sit here all day. Lots of headroom [inaudible 00:03:50]. So you’re gonna get the driver, the passenger, three kids across the rear, okay? Five. You might get three adults across the rear as well actually, but they’ll be a little bit more cramped, so two adults in the back, acres of space. If you want another two kids in the car with you, you can either do this, look, can see down here, look. See this lever? Do this. Whoa, lo and behold, the car does that, or you can do this, you do it that way. Look at that. Suddenly, you got access to two extra seats. [inaudible 00:04:25 sure, you haven’t got a lotta space though with those extra two seats up, but look at these handy little things, basic, but functional. Do that. Do you know what? Yes, it works. Look at that, more space. See that? I’ll put that one forward a bit and you’ll get a flat, low floor. There we are. And suddenly, you have a rather large boot. Look at that. In fact, it’s so large even I could probably fit in here. Yep, I reckon so. What you think? Yeah, I think so.

The Kia Sorento is a solid if unspectacular choice if you’re looking for an SUV that can seat seven. It looks smart, drives well, and has enough space for most needs. There you go, another OSV car review. This was a Kia Sorento, a car that’s almost as good off-road as it is on.