Kia Sorento review

This is the fourth generation of the venerable Kia Sorento, though to spoil the ending somewhat, by far the best. The basics are that it’s a seven-seat, all-wheel drive SUV that's been recently facelifted and comes with a choice of powertrains. You can have a basic diesel, a hybrid or plug-in hybrid (both petrols), walking up the expense as you go.

Emissions can be as low as 37g/km for the PHEV, all engines meet Euro 6 emissions standards and they’re all powerful enough. The EV9 is now Kia's flagship car, but that's a real whopper and electric only – the Sorento is Kia's meat and two veg family giant, and a nip and tuck has kept it looking sharp.

A proper seven-seater you say?

Yes, a seven-seater that seven reasonably sized people can fit into. This is a properly spacious SUV: the boot is huge and a useful shape in five-person mode, the rear two seats fold neatly into the floor and pop up with a couple of pulls and pushes, while the middle bench slides about when you need to prioritise knee room.

There are cupholders, aircon and USBs for the third row as well, which means if you’ve got a dog in the back on a hot day, you can keep them comfortable as well. With the aircon, that is, dogs don’t tend to have much use for the USBs.

It actually looks pretty good. Confusion.  

Yep. Long gone are the days when Kias looked like they were styled with modelling clay and a too-close heatlamp. The Sorento might have an old and slightly fusty name, but it looks keen, with a sharp design and some nice details. The latest front end stylings might be a little too aggressive for some, but this is a big car so why not lean into it a little bit?

The same goes for the inside: the layout has been overhauled for the mid-life facelift, the infotainment touchscreen is a pin sharp 12.3in number, accompanied on better specs by a 12.3in digital instrument panel for the driver; a sweep of screens across the dashboard.

It's all sensibly laid out, and the touch panel of buttons for aircon and entertainment is confusing at first but quickly becomes second nature (pressing the middle of the panel alternates between the HVAC and entertainment controls).

Does it drive like a school bus though?

Absolutely not. This is still a big SUV, so don’t expect miracles, but it’s long-legged and deals with big bumps really nicely. It won't enjoy being flung through a corner, but then neither will your passengers. The Sorento has a mature feel to its drive that speaks of a carmaker on top form, investing in the right spots.

The steering is plenty quick enough, the brakes decent and the general feeling one of calm getting-on-with-the-job. Which is exactly what you want. Even the various gearboxes work well (eight-speed DCT in the diesel, six-speed auto in the others), in that you don’t really notice them. One thing to note is that they all get Kia’s ‘Terrain Mode’ system to go with the standard all-wheel drive, so there are Mud, Snow and Sand settings.

Not sure how many people are really going to venture too far off-road in a Sorento, but it’s a nice little addition that adds some psychological comfort if the weather/surface has turned interesting.

If you can see your way past the (still) slightly less sexy badge, then this has to be on the shopping list for a family hauler: much more so than a Discovery Sport, Mazda CX-80 or Merc GLB. In that context it's a value (ish) proposition, without being cheap feeling. Worth looking at the Skoda Kodiaq (which now comes with a longer range PHEV option) and VW Tiguan AllSpace, too. And the Hyundai Santa Fe.

The Kia Sorento is a bit of a dark horse in this segment, and it’s not until you spend some time with one that you realise the joy of pure functionality, with some clever details that show someone's put the thought into it. The fact that it’s wrapped up in a stylish package is the icing on the cake.

The prices are tough to swallow for anyone who remembers Kias of old, but again... it doesn't take long to appreciate how far the company has come on. And everything's getting expensive these days, isn't it? Next to the EV9, the Sorento looks positively cheap.