Is the new Kia Sorento too big for your family?
JUNGLE FEVER
There’s a lot to love about the new Kia Sorento seven-seat SUV, from its punchy diesel engine to the increased legroom for row three, but before you buy, you need to decide if it’s too big for you.
If you’re looking at the Sorento’s dimensions - 4.81m long, 1.9m wide, 1.7m high and 2.81m in wheelbase (therefore passenger cabin space) - and you’re getting cold sweats imagining yourself parking against kerbs, negotiating shopping centre carparks and worry you won’t be able to see cars in your blind spots down the freeway, you need to recalibrate.
SUVs have become the mainstream family vehicle. They’re everywhere. Mums and grannies, blokey dads and know-it-all twenty-somethings are all buying SUVs because they’re better than cars for the urban and suburban driving situations normal people find themselves in. Dropping kids at school, lifting flat-pack furniture into, pulling light trailers to the tip, thundering down the gravel driveways of your favourite winery (when not in lockdown, obviously).
Even performing the despised Melbourne hook-turn is easier in an SUV where outward visibility is generally better to spot Deliveroo riders running red lights and aloof, skateboarding teens, or the errant big yellow taxi whose driver couldn’t be more blasé to the safety of his passengers.
Parking is even easier in an SUV, typically (but not always), because you can generally get a better sense where the corners of your vehicle are relative to the vehicle you’re trying not to hit. Plus, touching a kerb is generally done with your tyre, not the rim as it would be in a regular passenger car with lower-profile tyres.
As far as the concrete jungle’s concerned, no, Sorento shouldn’t be a problem for most mums and dads. Although, this is general advice, and your particular circumstance may differ… you might be a particularly poor driver, in which case, you shouldn't be driving or need to improve your skills, and this shouldn't take away from how practical the new Sorento is.
Caveat: I’m due to test drive the new Sorento in two trim levels for a week each, in a couple of months (thanks to Kia Australia), so I’ll have a full review ready for you soon.
UP THE BACK
The section of Kia’s new Sorento that will be of greatest scrutiny to modern families is the boot, row two and crucially, row three - I mean, that’s what you’re paying the big bucks for instead of something more affordable like Mitsubishi Outlander.
As I mentioned earlier, the Sorento’s wheelbase is a fraction over 2.8 metres long, meaning it has about the same cabin space for passengers than the old version (which was already pretty good), a bit more than many competitors (Toyota Kluger, Mitsubishi Pajero Sport), and not quite as much as its biggest rival for your money, the Mazda CX-9 (about 10mm less), but good luck noticing the difference.
You do get the ability to remove the centre rear seat and allow walk-through access to the third row.
This is especially good for installing child restraints and getting kids into and out of them.
You can fold the second row flat with the push of one button, which is excellent when you’re trying to get the kids and shopping into the car before the rain comes down.
In the far back, kids #6 and #7 have a USB port on each side, an air vent and a rotary temperature dial.
And because they have good legroom and some creature comforts, including a driver intercom on GT-Line for ticking off the aft children behaving badly, and heated outboard second-row seats
There’s rear occupant alert, five child restraint anchorage points including five top tether and four ISOFIX hard-attachments, and sash seatbelts on all positions.
But, as great as the front-centre side SRS airbag is for preventing the hideous clash of heads during a side-impact, the curtain SRS airbags only extend to rows one and two. Not row three.
The primary reason people like you want to buy a Sorento is precisely because you want/need to put kids in row three. (Otherwise, you’d better off saving 20 grand buying a normal sedan).
If you’re going to have four or five kids in your next new car frequently, like giving other families’ kids a lift home after sport or whatever, then wait for the new Kia Carnival (it’s gonna be awesome).
Proportion sizes
The way Kia has redesigned the cargo space is very interesting, in a good way.
In five-seat mode - it’s most practical configuration - the overall length of the 1.13m boot cavity is 37mm shorter than the old Sorento, which might lead you to think there’s less space. But that's not necessarily true.
Importantly, Kia has increased the width between the wheel arches from 1.07m to 1.11m, which is the more important dimension for you to be concerned with, because stacking stuff longitudinally is not as ideal as doing it laterally. You don’t want to be lifting things over others in the boot because firstly, it risks you buggering your back, and secondly, you risk breaking or scratching things.
In this same ergonomic pursuit, the actual boot aperture itself is also a massive 55mm wider. In automotive design terms, 55mm is a football field. Also, the widest point has also increased by 6mm, and the second row seat back is 7mm shorter, so visibility out the rearview mirror is better.
The leftover height of the boot lip, as in, the height you need to lift stuff up to in order to get it into the boot, is slightly higher (11mm) so that could be something to watch for.
And externally, Sorento is only 4.81m long; 18cm longer than a Corolla sedan and 16cm longer than the Kia Cerato sedan. So, if 16cm is make or break for you, driving around trams and school zones, negotiating the Westfield carpark around Christmas (you’re insane if you do this in any car, by the way), and if you can’t handle the extra length of a Sherrin football, there’s a driver problem.
I reckon 8 out of 10 drivers won’t have an issue with the Sorento's size. “Shouldn’t” is probably the correct word.
Think carefully
Sorento, on paper, looks like a pretty smart alternative to a premium seven-seat SUV, and makes some current competitors look dusty and dog-eared. The new eight-speed dual-clutch transmission should be great, too.
It's gonna be more practical than the old one and offers a long list of cool features that will not only make car trips a bit more fun for the kids, but will make your life more ergonomically manageable.
Keep row three for occasional use only if worst-case safety is pathalogically your number one priority, because apart from the airbag omission back there, this is a very safe and highly-optioned seven-seat that makes big claims.
I’ll let you know in coming months if it falls short of them.