Kia has taken the wraps off its all-new Sorento – the landmark vehicle that took the Korean brand onto the world stage – at the Seoul Motor Show.
Longer and lower, the new Sorento brings sleek styling and a futuristic touch to the world of the urban CUV. With its longer front overhang, wedge profile, crisply defined greenhouse and accentuated wheelarch volumes, Kia’s new CUV looks thoroughly modern and sporty. The 4.7-metre long new Sorento moves vehicle design in this segment up to a new level of sophistication.
Driving Impressions
Even without the monkey suit, the Kia Sorento EX has a 3.5L V6 that pumps out 276 horses and 248 lb-ft of torque which was actually very decent for this 3,896-lb. SUV. Get-up was good and I felt like a champ merging into traffic on the 280 in the morning. High-end acceleration was also good as I passed up those suckers on my way to the carpool lane. Life is good. Steering feel is solid and the SUV handled well at highway speeds as well as at 35 MPH down Main Street in Los Altos. The ride was smooth for the most part with an occasional creak from the rear of the vehicle. The view out of the side of the vehicle was less than ideal, since the C pillar is pretty darn thick.
Build
The Sorento EX feels very solid. Kia has come a long way since the early days in America. The fit of the panels and doors is top notch and the interior feels expensive. If you just taped over the Kia badge it’d be hard to tell that this is a Kia. The tester did not lack options and basically checks off every single box on the latest technologies like real-time traffic navigation to back-up camera and an iPod/iPhone jack.
Performance
As I mentioned above, the Kia Sorento EX with the 3.5L V6 was plenty powerful and will get you out of tough spots on the road. The SUV weighs under 3,900 lbs. and acceleration was great. Off the line acceleration was surprising, I shocked a few drivers in their X5s around town. Going on the freeway was also a breeze as I squeezed between semi trucks on the way to work. EPA fuel economy is rated at 19/25 for the AWD version, and I measured a decent average 18 MPG the few days I had it commuting to work and running to Home Depot.
I purchased my Sorento SX AWD a month ago. I enjoyed driving it for the first three weeks. Then the beginning of the third week I noticed it was starting a little rough. I thought ok; it is December and is very cold outside; no big deal. Then Thursday morning the day before Christmas Eve I notice a ticking sound coming from the engine. So I call the dealership to see if I could bring it by to see if it is safe to drive. They basically told me NO its the day before Christmas Eve its probably your breaks you will be fine. Bring it in after the holidays. Ok sensing no help from the dealer I went out to finish my Christmas shopping with my wife. As we pull up to a major intersection I hear a nasty loud squeal then the sound of metal screeching and my car ceased and came to a dead stop in the middle of the intersection! I put it into neutral and I could not even get it to roll out of the middle. Everything under the hood had completely ceased up and locked up. Long story short we were able to have the car towed to the dealer but had no vehicle over the holidays so we had to cancel plans with our families. The next week they drained the oil and found metal fragments inside the engine. Now you tell me how a vehicle with less than 1000 miles on it has catastrophic engine failure like this? I will never purchase another Kia and I STRONGLY advise anybody thinking about the Sorento model reconsider until they get the kinks worked out.
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