Kia Sportage review and buying guide
The Kia Sportage is a great example of what happens when a good SUV goes bad - in a good way.
The new Kia Sportage is the ideal SUV for average size families who need a wide boot, a grunty diesel engine with all-wheel drive, and the latest features in a reliable, practical and smart-looking package.
The best part is, Sportage is reasonably priced. It’s a fraction bigger, still offers powertrain options to suit two distinct buyer types and its has a long list of features to make it ideal for the majority of modern family transportation requirements.
But, there is a key problem you’ll want to be aware of before dropping a deposit and signing a contract. We’ll get to that.
BestFamilyCars was loaned two Sportages (full of fuel) by Kia Australia, for a week each: the 2.0-litre diesel and 1.6 turbo-petrol, in that order.
Other SUVs you might consider with a Sportage include Hyundai Tucson, Subaru Forester, Mitsubishi Outlander (review to be updated), Mazda CX-5 and Toyota RAV4. But keep in mind, you don’t necessarily need an SUV when a perfectly good sedan might suffice - there’s an easy way to save yourself thousands on a new car. Just buy a smaller one. Sedans and hatches often have just as much boot space as an SUV, you just sit a couple of inches lower.
And one last thing - SUVs, as in sport utility vehicles - are not sporty. They’re bigger, heavier and taller than actually sporty cars. So let’s manage expectations here.
THE GOOD
Sportage with the two-litre turbo-diesel engine and all-wheel drive is such a delight to drive in mundane traffic and windy back roads. If you want AWD, you have to get the diesel or the turbo-petrol. The entry-level 2.0-litre petrol is front-wheel drive only, but to be honest, it works perfectly fine in literally every driving scenario I’ve driven ours in over the last three-four years. Ours has been to plenty of sketchy driveways and sloped hills and done fine.
The diesel’s low- and mid-range power delivery is very responsive and there’s plenty of punch without feeling highly strung. Ditto the transmission, an eight-speed epicyclic auto, knows what it’s doing, doesn’t get confused and just behaves itself.
See that little ‘D’ on the engine cover? That means diesel. All you need to do is keep it serviced on time, and top us the windscreen washer fluid. Modern cars, eh?
Last point on the diesel/AWD - it’s the heaviest version of the Sportage at 1800kg full of fuel. If you want the best performance get the middle or lower spec 2.0-litre petrol version which is 1578kg compared with the GT-Line turbo-petrol at 1683kg - that’s a 105kg difference. Although, that’s because GT-Line has the most equipment.
The turbo-petrol has a better power-to-weight ratio (80kW/t) than the diesel (77kW/t), but that doesn’t translate into a better drive performance, which I’ll come back to near the end.
Not that styling is anywhere near as important as the practical stuff, it does need to be said the new design, externally, looks rather pleasing to the eyes. Particularly at the rear.
The boot strikes a great balance between width and length, being neither too much or too little in either dimension.
Having said that, as always, you’ll want to consider how much or how little stuff you’re going to carry - and how frequently - in order to determine if Sportage has the right cargo space for your needs.
Happily, the bootlip is slightly closer to the ground than the old model, meaning your extremely independent three-year-old is less likely to scratch the bumper to hell lifting their bike or scooter, or the shopping, in and out. They can also quite easily reach the latch/button to open the boot, all by themselves. I don’t know if this is a design flaw or a stroke of genius.
Open the rear doors and you’ll notice they swing out nice and wide, giving you shoulder room for lifting kids into their seats and reaching through to grab stuff. The large aperture also means you can get those shopping bags onto their dedicate hangers on the back of the headrests. Although, I wouldn’t be hanging the heavy bag with the canned dogfood and dense foods on there. It's a handy hook, but it’s not heavy-duty.
The ISOFIX points are straightforward to locate and click onto, nor do they stick into your arse when you sit on the seat normally.
Here’s Your Ultimate Child Seat Installation Guide: Common mistakes and getting it right_ if you need it.
Row two access is good despite having a child restraint installed, meaning there’s ample room for grown adults when restraints aren’t fitted.
The cargo blind has been moved further toward the front (closer to the top of the row two seatbacks) meaning that yes, it does offer more room for getting things in before getting in the way. However, it means feeding the top tether strap and latch over the seatback which is a bit of a pain because you have to pull the lever to fold it forward and feed the buckle through. Then you have to reposition the seatback correctly.
Fortunately, the top tether points are mid-way up the row two seatbacks, so they are easy enough to reach - provided the cargo blind isn’t in the way. See why I hate cargo blinds? You can fold the blind back over, toward you when fitting a restraint, but it gets in your face as you’re trying to reach over and land the top tether latch.
On balance, the cargo blind, however much I hate it, is useful when you need to dry clothes or towels on the way back from the beach, the pool or the river. It can be a handy makeshift drying rack, as well as a horizontal support for tall plants which might tip over.
The full-size spare wheel is mounted under a fairly solid boot floor which is itself entirely removable if you have a massive, bulky item to transport home.
Oh, and the boot floor is quite solid, too. It’ll happily take the weight of an average sized knee as you load everybody's gear for that long-overdue trip away.
Sportage vs Outback
This is where the range of medium SUVs gets interesting. If the main road leading to your regional, rural or outer mero suburb is unsealed gravel, then you’re going to be better off with all-wheel drive, especially when it rains.
The Subaru Outback deserves your consideration here because to have one costs you $45,000 for a petrol boxer four-cylinder, versus Kia’s two-litre diesel - but both with all-wheel drive. The Sportage happily gives you the brilliant diesel engine with AWD, but without the dual-clutch transmission, which is going to be ideal for towing.
And with the slightly longer body and wheelbase in Sportage (than its predecessor), it now has very similar - not the same - level of stowage potential as the Outback. Subaru should be very concerned here, and it’s been happening for a while now. Other brands are starting to catch up to Subaru’s lauded strong points.
Hyundai/Kia can do a clever, active AWD system, they’ve nailed diesel, the value is en pointe, the build quality is on par now, and you can almost get as much stuff in the boot. Both the new Outback and Sportage feel tightly built, well made and with their prospective owners in mind.
But the Outback has better legroom, arguably a better AWD system, built-in roof racks and a longer boot. But the Sportage is so much more polished - it feels completely fresh, not just matured. It’s as if Kia started again from the ground up, not just a continuation of the previous model.
Ultimately, it’s going to come down to your personal usage case. If you’re often carrying weird, awkward, long, big things like appliances, timber from hardware stores, moving house, or perhaps you have kids who regularly play cricket or hockey (long sports bags), and maybe you do a lot of roadtrips, touring around the place, where roof racks and a luggage pod are required - you’ll probably appreciate the Outback better. But that diesel Sportage is something again.
Sportage Vs RAV4
Now, you might also consider the Toyota RAV4 which is also a decent mid-size SUV in its own right. Obviously Toyota has dealers everywhere, but generally there’s one in every major town and plenty in the cities, especially east of Adelaide.
Thing is, as good as the RAV4 is, with good build quality, a tidy, practical cabin, good legroom, acceptable boot size and so on - you’re going to struggle getting stock, especially in the hybrid. Toyota is in a bind trying to get stock to Australia and has been for a couple of years.
The RAV4 is not available in a diesel, which means the Sportage has a wider usage case than the Toyota when it comes to holiday touring, and the Kia, it must be said, has a much more upmarket, sophisticated design and layout inside. It’s just as practical, but you get a more premium experience for the same money, and the Sportage’s AWD is functioning all the time, constantly directing drive to the rear in some ratio, whereas the system in the RAV4 is on-demand, so it waits for a loss of traction before engaging. You might even call it lazy.
Toyota RAV4, particularly in 2WD GXL is a good, affordable SUV which will last you a long time, but a Sportage is objectively better at everything.
Sportage Vs Outlander
The new Mitsubishi Outlander is an interesting beast. It’s bulky, but packs a lot in. It’s compromised by some really strange faults, but gives you two emergency row-three jump seats for unannounced child transport. Children includes dogs. Sportage (nor Tucson) can do this.
Thing is, Outlander in order to get those row three seats in, has a proportion and practicality issue. In order to have that big imposing masculine bonnet, everything else is kinda squashed backwards. I don’t have the design terminology, but the first row seats are a good-enough size, row two is okay, but row three is seriously cramped.
Outlander is 4.7 metres long, Sportage is 4.6, but they have effectively the same size wheelbase - meaning the same virtual cabin space. In order to get three rows of seating into 4.7 metres, Mitsubishi has had to kinda bring everything forward in order to not have some square boxy rear window shape that would mean row three heads aren’t kinda touching the roof. But they do. It’s barely practical, but the rest of the vehicle suffers as a result.
Sportage’s rows two and three don’t have this issue because it’s only a five-seater - and it’s all the better for it.
And the Outlander only gets a petrol engine barely capable of the task required of it, with no diesel option.
Sportage wins, without looking like a try-hard Range Rover.
THE BOOT & PRACTICALITY
Sportage gives you noticeably more boot space than the previous model did. I know this because there’s one sitting in my driveway (the old one) and it has been a highly versatile multi-purpose family transport device. Almost entirely fault free, mind you.
Depth of the boot is 990mm from the back of row two's seats to the edge of the boot opening.
From the boot floor to the ceiling's lowest section at the opening is, 750mm but it goes about 40-50mm higher in the middle of the boot floor where the ceiling curves upward.
From the boot foor to the top of the row two seatbacks is 470mm.
Width between the wheel arches is 1040mm, and at its widest section, toward the rear including the side-wings is 1350mm.
Use these dimensions to measure against your biggest stroller, eski, travel bags etc.
The size, shape and functionality of the boot remains from the previous Sportage, but is made incrementally better.
You’ll be hard pressed to spot the measurable differences from old to the new model, and there’s very little visual cue externally that would tell you this is a bigger, longer taller and wider.
The overhangs front and rear are basically the same, so it fits in all the same garages and parking spaces. And you’ll get just as much stuff in the big boot, only with a greater margin between getting the boot closed and scuffing plastics or leather trims.
In the Base model ‘S’ you’ll appreciate the glossy piano black in the higher-spec versions is replaced by matte-finish plastic trim which is emphatically better to live with in terms of glare and cleanliness. Little or no fingerprints to be found after my test, but plenty of blanking for absent buttons to features you don’t get in the poverty pack.
In the ‘S’, you’ll find the fabric seats feel quite comfy and the cloth trim itself feels durable and will be easy to vacuum. Floor mats are firmly clipped into place.
Front and rear doors open sufficiently wide which is a particularly good thing in row 2 when you end to get kids, their bags and whatever else in without scuffing things like the doors.
You’re less likely to smack your head on the door sill as you buckle the kids into their restraints, thanks to the slightly higher roof line and taller door aperture.
When it comes to manoeuvres around carparks, the camera on this car is damn-near crystal clear. The graphics are good without being great, either the usual 360-degree camera imaging stiching issue from other models.
The wide angle view on the rearview camera doesn’t overly distort the image which is great for keeping depth perception and proximity to fellow Bunnings shoppers.
The parking sensors are helpful without being intrusive and panic inducing. You get multiple feeds of information telling you how close you are: the grid lines that move with the steering angle, the rear arc displayed in the 360-degree camera, and the graphic display on the driver’s dash directly in front.
And the various displays provide enough clarity without trying to shove showy graphics, tones, colours and warnings in your face. You get the hint, without the false alarms.
Sportage gets a USB-C port - hooray! - and the transmission shifter is a flashback to the T-bar automatics of the 80s. Rotary dial is nicely finished with angled knurls at your fingertips.
In the centre console you get two clever fore-aft cupholders with collapsible sides which means if you don’t have a long black going cold, you can use the cubby to store various moisturisers, bracelets, foodstuffs and other random, sticky, flimsy crap your other half or kids want you to stash in the vehicle indefinitely.
The transmission works perfectly free of any cups you stow in the holders or any phones or gizmo’s you put in the forward tray at your left hand. There are plenty of transmission shifters which, when shoved forward into ‘P’ or pulled downward into ‘D’, smash into phones, cups or whatever precious thing someone has stowed in its path.
You can see the buttons and their respective icons on the centre console despite them all being carved from the shiniest piano black mankind could possibly forge.
Oh, and the rotary dial to change drive modes is robust, slick to use and efficient. It’s got very sexy knurling around the outside of the bezel which is an attention to detail nobody will ever care about but you. This is much better than plastic flanges which fade or rubber which wears away.
WHICH SPORTAGE SHOULD YOU BUY?
Don’t buy the ‘Sporty’ one. That’s the 1.6 turbocharged petrol engine with the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. You want the base 2.0-litre petrol or the 2.0-litre diesel.
The turbo-petrol 1.6 is not nearly as good to drive as either the diesel, or any other Hyundai with that same engine and transmission. The problem is this is a 1.6 tonne vehicle with vastly different driving characteristics than the 400kg lighter hatch and sedan the 1.6T was designed for. But it hasn’t been tuned right for this vehicle, at least according to the press vehicle I drove in early 2022.
The throttle is constantly trying to give you higher revs when you just want to cruise at a set speed, it's often not sure which gear to be in and because of the turbo, when you do put your foot down, it often lags - by which stage you’re done with requesting more power and you’ve started backing off again.
I spent a week with the turbo-petrol GT-Line and could not wait to give it back. My wife hated driving it, I struggled to get used to it, and together with the irritating aspects of the safety-assistance features which require turning off every. single. time. you start. the car. I was done.
It’s tolerable to accept and adapt to turning stuff off every restart. But that drivetrain needs work. I much, much preferred the base diesel.
See what you think. Don’t go looking for the fault necessarily, but see if you can slip into the driving behaviour the turbo-petrol demands of you. I couldn’t.
I’ve lived with the previous generation’s base model ‘S’ Sportage with the 2.0-litre petrol engine and it’s perfectly suited to everyday driving. But truly, the diesel is sublime to use, and emits less carbon dioxide than either petrols.
I’d encourage you to see if there’s anything in the ‘S’ diesel you desperately need before going up in price, because all the basic essentials are there.
Pricing
Here's rough pricing for Sportage based in Melbourne.
It’s not a complete revolution, but new Sportage does improve significantly enough to make it one of the best options for mid-size SUVs.
Everything feels durable, well screwed together, and solid. You’ll struggle to find anything flimsy, loose or poorly designed.
You would be just as happy with the base model ‘S’ as you would be impressed by the ‘GT-Line’ - and that doesn’t happen very often.