Kia Stonic review

The Stonic is agile enough, keen into corners and feels true to its hatchback roots. Kia’s fitted it with quick steering that gives the car a darty feel, and this works well in town. Not that you can feel what’s going on, that light steering wheel is very heavily assisted and doesn’t communicate much. There’s no real pleasure to be had from pushing the Stonic, but it gets on with the job in a businesslike fashion.

It exploits its SUV stance well up front – the squat front end is useful for parking, you can see where the front bumper ends – but the rear succumbs style over substance because you can’t see much out of the back. Oh hello there, standard rear parking sensors and rear camera.

Is it comfortable?

The ride is a touch firm for our liking – you can feel where Kia has had to tighten things up to keep body roll in check. The entry-level ‘Pure’ spec car gets 16in alloys, but the 17in wheels of GT-Line and above have a negative effect on the ride. We also found that the suspension is flummoxed over speed bumps, heaving over them and bouncing you off the other side. Brace! Brace! As with many SUVs and crossovers, it’s your classic style versus comfort trade-off.

Does the Stonic get the balance right? Arguably not. The Ford Puma, Nissan Juke and Peugeot 2008 all ride and steer with relative aplomb.

Pure petrol or mild hybrid?

There’s barely anything to call between the 98bhp and 118bhp versions of the Stonic’s 1.0-litre engine. The lesser powered engine will see off 0-62mph in 11 seconds (manual) or 12.1 seconds (auto) on to a top speed of 111mph; the bigger powertrain manages 10.7s and 10.8s respectively on to 113mph. Small margins.

The reason the more powerful engine isn’t quicker is thanks to Kia’s efforts to minimise fuel consumption. It comes with a 48V mild-hybrid setup that in manual guise means a ‘by wire’ gearchange. You still work away at the clutch, but it’s an electronic rather than a mechanical linkage, and means the engine can shut down earlier when the car is coasting to save fuel. You likely won’t notice it – the clutch pedal still feels very natural – and the whole system is very smooth.

Ultimately, it all means the Stonic should be fairly easy on your wallet when it comes to running costs – well, as easy as forecourt prices will allow. All models are officially rated around 50mpg, which should mean a reasonable return as long as you’re not wearing your heavy shoes.

We saw mid-40s in mixed town/motorway running in the mild hybrid. For a car this size that's merely fine – a Toyota Yaris would look upon those numbers with abject pity.