Kia Sportage Review

The Kia Sportage’s cabin is pretty spacious when compared with other similar-sized SUVs. There’s loads of head and leg room in the front and you get seat-height adjustment as standard to make sure you get a good view out.

The manual adjustment for the front seats isn’t particularly easy to use, but pay extra for a ‘4’ model or above and you get 10-way electric adjustment for the driver’s seat and eight-way electric adjustment for your front-seat passenger.

Thankfully, you don’t have to shell out for a high-spec model if you want adjustable lumbar support – this comes as standard across the range and helps make long journeys more comfortable.

There’s an impressive amount of space in the Kia Sportage’s back seats, too. Six-foot passengers have enough knee room to sit behind an equally tall driver and there’s just enough headroom to stop their heads touching the ceiling – though there’s a bit less space in models with a panoramic glass roof. The back seats even recline slightly – perfect for nodding off on a long drive.

The Kia Sportage’s wide cabin means there’s enough space in the back to carry three adult passengers side-by-side. The Mazda CX-5 has a little more shoulder room, but you’ll hear far fewer complaints from passengers than in the comparatively cramped Nissan Qashqai.

Fitting a large child seat is made easy by the Sportage’s wide rear door openings and the clearly marked Isofix anchor points. They even come with neat folding plastic covers instead of easy-to-lose removable plastic caps, but there isn’t quite enough space left over between two child seats for an extra passenger.

The Kia Sportage doesn’t just cater to passengers well, there are plenty of handy cubby holes dotted about its cabin to hide away an assortment of family bits and bobs. The front door bins and the glovebox are all big enough to hold a one-litre bottle and there’s enough space under the front armrest for a few drinks cans. The two cupholders between the front seats are wide and deep enough to hold scalding hot coffee nice and securely, too.

The rear door bins are just as big as those in the front and folding armrest between the back seats comes with two built-in cupholders. You can’t get the Kia Sportage with aeroplane-style folding picnic tables like the VW Tiguan, however, so your passengers will just have to be extra careful when they’re pigging out in the back. They do get a pair of charging points between the front seats, though.

The Kia Sportage has 503 litres of boot space which is more than you get in a Nissan Qashqai and Renault Kadjar so it’s easily big enough to carry a few large suitcases and some soft bags or a large baby buggy. With the adjustable boot floor raised, there’s no annoying boot lip so it’s a doddle to slide in some heavy items, but the Hyundai Tucson is slightly roomier still and the capacious Skoda Karoq is in a different league when it comes to swallowing bulky luggage.

Unfortunately, there isn’t quite as much space under the movable boot floor in hybrid models – after all, Kia had to put the extra batteries somewhere – but all Sportage models come with some tether points and shopping hooks to hold bags and smaller items securely.

You also get a two-way (60:40) split rear seat as standard, so you can carry some very long luggage and a back-seat passenger at once. With all the back seats folded flat, the Kia Sportage’s load bay grows to 1,492 litres. That’s more than you get in a Renault Kadjar and big enough to carry a bike with its wheels attached, but not quite as much as you get in most other similar-sized SUVs such as the Mazda CX-5.

Still, at least the Kia Sportage’s load bay is flat so it’s easy to push heavy boxes right up behind the back seats, and there’s just enough space under the adjustable boot floor to store the parcel shelf if you need to remove it.

You can have your Kia Sportage with a range of two petrol engines, two diesel units and as a mild-hybrid which pairs a diesel engine with a compact electric motor to improve performance and fuel economy.

If you do lots of driving in town, the most affordable 1.6-litre petrol model with 130hp might be worth a look. It feels pretty sluggish, but Kia claims it’ll return 39.8mpg. You’ll probably see a figure closer to 35mpg in normal driving conditions, though.

A much better option – especially if you do a broader mix of city and motorway driving – is the more powerful 174hp turbocharged 1.6-litre petrol. It accelerates from 0-60mph almost two seconds faster than the 130hp model and feels much less strained when you put your foot down to overtake slow-moving traffic. It won’t cost significantly more to run, either – Kia claims it’ll return 36.2mpg compared with the 130hp version’s 39.8mpg.

If you do lots of long trips, one of the diesel units will be a better bet. The entry-level 114hp 1.6-litre model is pretty sluggish – it takes more than 11 seconds to reach 60mph from rest – but manages decent fuel economy. You can expect it to return close to 55mpg compared with Kia’s claimed 57.8mpg figure.

There’s also a more powerful 134hp 1.6-litre diesel that feels faster and returns identical claimed fuel economy. It costs a little more to buy but feels much quicker than the rather weedy 114hp unit. Both 1.6-litre diesel engines are impressively quiet when you’re cruising long – especially when compared with the outgoing Sportage’s slightly clattery 1.7-litre diesel engines.

Then there’s a mild hybrid model that couples a 2.0-litre diesel engine with a small electric motor. This 182hp Sportage is your best bet if you plan to regularly tow heavy trailers but it can’t run on purely electric mode at slow speeds like other conventional hybrids. Despite this, it’ll still return around 45mpg in normal driving conditions – not too shabby for a relatively powerful, high-riding family SUV.

The standard six-speed manual gearbox you get in all but the top-spec hybrid model is pretty easy to use – even in stop-start traffic – but the optional seven-speed automatic makes even lighter work of long rush-hour commutes.

You can get the more powerful 1.6-litre petrol and diesel models with four-wheel drive, but, unless you’re absolutely certain you’ll take your Kia Sportage off-road, it isn’t worth paying for. Even if you do, you’ll find the likes of the Land Rover Discovery Sport significantly better at dealing with muddy fields and rutted farm tracks than the resolutely urbanite Kia.

The Kia Sportage is reasonably easy to drive in town – despite its fairly large size. You get a decent view out and the light steering and pedals mean you won’t feel tired having just squeezed into a tight parking space.

Speaking of parking, you get a reversing camera as standard across the range while ‘2’ versions come with parking sensors and ‘4’ models and above feature a neat 360-degree surround view camera system. It’s not all good news, however – you can’t get the Kia Sportage with a self-parking system to steer you into parallel and bay spaces like the VW Tiguan and the steering’s a little heavier than in some other family SUVs.

Once you’ve extricated the Kia Sportage from a car park, you’ll find it irons out big bumps reasonably well around town, but it can’t iron out uneven road surfaces as comfortably as the Peugeot 3008.

There isn’t much to complain about when you leave the city and head out onto a twisty back road. Sure, the Sportage doesn’t quite live up to its sporty name – a Mazda CX-5 is more fun to drive and has steering that inspires a little more confidence in corners – but it doesn’t lean too much in tight corners so your passengers won’t be reaching for the sick-bags on meandering country drives.

On the motorway, the Kia Sportage does a reasonable job of muffling annoying wind and tyre noise and all models get cruise control as standard so it’s pretty relaxing to drive for long periods. It’s especially stress-free if you go for a GT-Line S model – these get adaptive cruise control which brakes and accelerates for you to help maintain a safe distance to other cars.

Sadly, you don’t get a lane-keeping assist on entry-level ‘1’ models and automatic emergency braking to help prevent avoidable collisions is reserved for Edition 25, ‘4’ and GT-Line S cars.