2013 Kia Sorento

2013 Kia Sorento

18 - 22 city / 24 - 32 highway <- MSN auto

So I like Kia cars, but Kia SUVs?  Not as much.  The Kia Sorento is considered a midsize SUV along the lines of a Ford Edge but looks more a Nissan Pathfinder.  The good thing about the Sorento is that it has a third row of seating that you can pull up, which I’m sure is a big selling point, I know it is for rental car customers.  But aside from that, there isn’t anything that special about it.  I feel that Kia cars are cute and can give you a lot of the same features as other cars in their particular class, but the SUVs come up short in my book.  As always, the model(s) I am familiar with are intended for the use of rental car companies so they will not have all the flashiness and cool gadgets you could potentially get in one that you buy.  Moving on…

The outside of the Sorento isn’t very striking, looks pretty standard.  It’s not as sleek as a Ford Edge but it also doesn’t have any weird external features to try and snazz it up like a Jeep Compass.  Although it does have a rear windshield wiper, not an odd feature on a SUV, but still nice to have and deserves an honorable mention.

 

 

Moving on inside we are starting at the trunk.  One major player in this car is the third row or seats.  With the third row down you get a spacious trunk space, and even more spacious if you put the second row of seats down (which you can do, obvs), but if you need the third row up the trunk space gets very small.  Bit I wonder what is the point of being able to transport that many people but you can’t fit very much luggage in the back?  My sagely advice is to just go with a minivan, you might not look cool (or maybe you will look like the coolest?) but you will have ample space for everyone and more space for everything.  Another funny thing about putting up the third row is that on the left side the passenger gets not only a cup holder but also a little cubby for their phone, mp3 player, or books (yeah right, kids don’t read books. Damn kids!), but the person on the right side gets none of these amazing features!  Why, Kia, would you deprive the other passenger of some place to hold their drinks and/or knick knacks?  It is a puzzle.

*In this picture you can see in red how little trunk space you will have when the third row of seats are up.  What is the point?  It's almost as small as the back of a Jeep Wrangler.  In pink is the one cup holder and small cubby for the luck SOB on the right side.

 

The second row of seats have three seat belts but there is also one of those nifty armrest/cup holder piece that comes down in the middle between the right and left side, making it oh so convenient to spill milkshakes all over the rental car.  There is also an AC jack on the back of the middle console, but only one, so the passenger can fight over who can charger their electronic crap.  Inside the doors of both the front and the back are cup holders that are only good for bottles.  People, do not let anyone put an actual cup from home or Starbucks-like cup in these side cup holders!  You have been warned…  One last thing to mention is that these seats also go down, but for some reason Kia (and other car makers because I have seen this before) have not tried to disguise the “joints” that allow the seats to move forward.  Think of it like your elbow that allows your forearm to move up and down, but imagine it with no skin or muscles or any grossness, just the bone.  I’m thinking it must be part of the design, because many and more car makers disguise this joint, most (if not all) of the cars in our rental fleet enable you to put down the back seats, even the teeny tiny Toyota Yaris, and they are able to cover up this joint.  The reason I point this out is because it is very ugly and probably uncomfortable to sit on if you are large and in charge.

*You can't really grasp the ugliness of the joints in this pictures but trust me on this one.
 

 

The front seats seem pretty comfy, nothing too special, but something to mention is that the button to release the gas cover is on the side of the door, beneath the door controls and close to where your left knee will rest.  It’s an odd placement and might take some awhile to find it if they are not trying too hard.  The parking brake is by the pedals, which I don’t like because customers are always dumb about it and come back to me saying they can’t the parking brake.  The steering wheel is rather large, larger than other wheels in this car class and it includes the standard Kia steering wheel features; it has cruise control settings, Bluetooth activation (which comes standard with Kias), and radio mode/volume control but not radio tuning.  I wish they would put radio tuning in the steering wheels because I know my back and arms get sore whenever I’m in a new place and I have to scan through all the radio channels (woe is me!).  The radio on all of the model I have seen is pretty basic and not a touch screen although when I was looking up sweet pics I saw plenty of pictures of a much fancier, touch screen radio that you can probably upgrade into (for a fee, I’m sure), but there are other midsize SUVs where the fancy radio is standard like the Ford Edge and Dodge Journey although I’m sure they come with a corresponding price tag.

Underneath the radio you have the temperature controls which are very straight forward – I swear, sometimes you have to be genius to figure out the temp controls in other cars.  And below that you have what seems to be the standard layout of features in a Kia, 2 AC jacks on either side of an AUX and USB port.  What also seems to be standard in the Kia design is that underneath those ports is small space and in the Sorentos case, a platform where I guess they thought you could put your mp3 player or charging phone.  What isn’t standard is what is beneath this platform in the Sorento, it’s another little space, but it looks almost hidden and seemingly useless.  I have no idea why this is here but I suppose it would be a good hiding place for candy you don’t want anyone else to know you have.  I know that’s what I would use it for.

 

*The arrow is pointing in the direction of the secret space that may or may not be useless.
 

There is a very small glove compartment which doesn’t make sense to me, why do smaller cars like the Kia Soul and Nissan Versa have such huge glove compartments but SUVs have such tiny ones?  It seems to be an unwritten rule.  There is a sunglasses holder on the front near the rearview mirror which doesn’t seem like something important to mention, but I am finding that many of the cars I am in do not actually have a place for sunglasses.  The middle is very Spartan with a very large middle cubby that has a smaller tray on top for change and what not and just two somewhat adjustable cup holders that can be taken out.  What I mean by somewhat adjustable is that there are small pieces of plastic that move in and out which line the inside of the cup holders allowing them to fit different sized cups.  And what I mean by you can “take out” the cup holders is that there is a plastic liner that can be removed which is a god send if you are cleaning the car.  Cup holders are difficult to really clean and they get inexplicably filthy even in a car that stays clean and doesn’t get eaten in like mine.  There really is not much going on with the middle console of this vehicle, but it doesn’t make you feel like it’s trying too hard to fill in those gaps, like a Jeep Compass does.  One thing to mention though is that there is an ugly plastic liner that runs around the sides of the interior which does feel like it’s trying too hard to be a more “sophisticated” SUV.  I don’t know what Kia was thinking about with this design, it feels out of place and makes you feel embarrassed for the car, which is definitely on odd feeling considering a car has no feelings (yet?).

 

*Pointless plastic paneling (say that 10 times fast).
 

The car does not maneuver as well as some of its counterparts even though the steering wheel does move easily.  The steering is not as fluid as the Ford Flex (which is actually larger than the Sorento) and the turning radius is also not as good as the Flex, but it does do better than even some smaller cars like the awful Nissan Altima.  The ride is smoother than any Jeep but not as smooth as a newer Ford, meaning that you can still feel the road in the pedals but it doesn’t travel up through the steering wheel.  It does not feel cumbersome to drive which I feel like is a definite plus in a SUV.  Some SUVs of comparable size like the Mitsubishi Endeavor or the Nissan Pathfinder feel like such a chore to drive and even accelerate.

All in all, if you are looking at a larger vehicle that won’t cost as much as some of its counterparts then his is a good bet.  It is sturdy and straight forward, which I value in a vehicle, but if you are looking for something that can haul a lot of people and stuff at the same time, this might not be the right choice.