2019 Kia Sorento Review

SPEAKER: The 2019 Kia Sorento has a few tweaks to its looks, a new transmission, and now standard third row seating. How useful is that third row, and where does the mild redesign place the Kia if you're shopping for a midsize SUV? We're searching the cosmos to find out. Before we start, please hit Subscribe and visit Edmunds for all your SUV shopping needs. If you're looking at the Honda Pilot, Chevy Traverse, or Toyota Highlander, you might be wondering if you should add the Sorento to your test drive list. It's well priced, starting at $25,000, and it manages to fit a large interior in a smaller exterior package. What's new for 2019? Not a whole lot-- the headlights are squintier and, in some of the higher trim levels, all LED. The overall look is basically the same-- traditional midsize SUV, which I would translate as tougher-looking minivan. When you first step into the Sorento, you might be sort of surprised. The materials aren't the highest level, but they are nicer than you would expect, and they are used very nicely through the cabin. There's not any part of the car that looks cheaper or more expensive than any other part. The materials are all soft-ish. There are some nice trim pieces. The steering wheel has a baseball stitch, and it feels pretty good in the hand. I like this piano black that runs along the door panel-- that's pretty snazzy. If I had any complaint about the interior, it would be that there aren't a whole lot of color options. And if you go with this all black, it's really dark. It can be a little claustrophobic. The driving position in the Sorento is very comfortable the seat has a lot of adjustment. I was able to move it up to where I needed to be to drive, and some of the taller folks who drove it were able to move it back. Everybody was set. I like how Kia used physical buttons for everything, and also how all of the controls kind of have their own space in the interior. Like, safety stuff is over here; controls for the center stack are here; controls for the speedometer display are here; radio and nav is here; temperature is here; and the shifter and off-road options, like the locking diff, are down here. However, the placement of those buttons is not always super convenient. I have to stretch to reach the buttons over here, even though I have the seat really far forward. And because I have the seat really far forward, I have to reach back to get the buttons here or to get into the console. So I feel like Kia could spend a little more time thinking about seating position and how it affects your ability to get to the controls in the infotainment. The Sorento starts in a good price range, but you can really add a lot of options. And by the time you've got everything in it, you're almost in luxury SUV range. There are some great standards, like the third row and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. You have an option of a 7 or 8-inch touchscreen, and it's pretty nice. It's not the best visual quality I've seen, but it's totally works. It works. And there are plenty of places to charge a phone-- you've got a USB, two 12 volts, and a charging pad down here. I complain sometimes about these charging pads, and it is applicable here. They take up all of your console storage space, because you can't really put stuff on top of them. Whatever. It is useful. I use it a lot, so maybe I shouldn't be complaining. Plenty of space in the console. Got a little coin tray, and you've also got another 12 volt in there. There's also 12 volts and USBs in the back seat. The second row is the place to be. The seats are comfortable-- there's a ton of leg room. Got a USB port, an AC plug, and a 12 volt. Even the middle seat is comfortable and has leg room. If you're really feeling VIP, you can put up the privacy shade and recline to enjoy the sunroof, which comes all the way across the back seat. It's not just for the front. When you put it up, though-- you might have some complaints, which we'll get into as we talk about the third row. I wasn't expecting a whole lot from the third row, since the Sorento was smaller than most three-row SUVs. But there's actually quite a lot of space back here, and the seats are very comfortable. There's even AC controls, windows, and cup holders. Although you give up armrests for them. The problem with the third row is getting in and out of it. The seats are a 60-40 split, so one goes down with the center and one goes down separately. The way the seats are split means that it's easier to get in on the passenger side than the driver side. Either way you get in, you have to slide the seat forward and fold it down, and there isn't a whole lot of room to squeeze by it. Once you are in the third row, you can't really bring the seats back up into position, and you're stuck here until someone lets you out. If you're a parent trying to wrangle several children getting them in and out of here, you need to have free hands to be able to help them. And if you've got car seats in the front, it's basically no go. You can't fold the seats, and you can't get back here. If you have three or more young children, I don't think this is going to be a useful vehicle for you. The Edmunds test team was expecting great things from the transmission in the Sorento. For 2019, it's an 8-speed, and previously it was a 6-speed. On the positive side, it does get better fuel mileage now with the 8-speed. And it's very smooth-- you will never spill a coffee in the Sorento. Look-- I'm going to floor it. Oh my god, so smooth. The downside is that it's slower-- it's almost a second slower 0 to 60 than it was with the 6-speed, so that means almost a second longer that you'll have to be floored if you're trying to merge in traffic. When you're in the very top trim, you have the very top price. And this Sorento is almost $50,000, which is too much for a Sorento-- don't pay $50,000 for a Sorento. Entry level costs on a Kia Sorento show is about $25,000, but it's only available with the four cylinder, which is underwhelming. What you really want is the V6, which comes with 290 horses, which is pretty high compared to the competition. Only the Toyota Highlander and the top level Explorer have more. We recommend the EX, because it's available with the V6 engine, which has almost 300 horsepower, and you can option it up to almost match the SX, but for a lot less money. Because the V6 is paired with the new 8-speed automatic transmission, MPG is pretty good in the Sorento-- 22 combined. Along with having a price that's about $5,000 less than most of the competition all the way up the trim levels, the Sorento is popular because it's a little bit smaller exterior-wise than most of the other vehicles with a third row. That makes it easier for parking, getting in and out of garages, that kind of stuff. You don't really notice the size difference from the inside, which is great, especially in the second row, where there's a ton of space. The way that Kia made the vehicle smaller is basically in the back-- they cut off all of the space after the third row, so you do give up cargo space if you have that third row up. It does feel a little bit smaller to me in the driver's seat than some of the other SUVs that I've driven recently, but I wouldn't call it cramped. If the last time that you drove a Kia was say, a Rio or something-- rental car, you would be really surprised by Kia's ride quality. It is so quiet, it is so calm. There's no wind noise, there's no tire noise. It's soaking up all the bumps. If anything, you might complain that you feel a little distant from the road that you're driving on, but it is very comfortable. The Sorento has four different driving modes-- Comfort, Eco, Sport, and Smart. Far as I can tell, they don't really do anything. I mean, I'm sure they do-- I think when you put it in Sport Mode, there's a change in the transmission tune and the throttle response is a little bit sharper, but it is barely noticeable. In most of the cars I drive, I find that there's something that I love and something that I hate. Like-- oh man, the brakes are so good in this, but the steering's so dead. Or the throttle response is excellent, but the shifter is awful. That's not the case for this Sorento. I have never felt so neutral about any vehicle in my life. There is nothing to complain about-- the steering feels fine, the gas pedal is a little slow to respond, but you'd sort of expect that in an SUV. The brakes are great-- the test team said that they were fully within parameters for SUV stoppage. But none of it stands out. That's not really a compliment-- it's just not a complaint. I feel like Kia's designers were given instruction to make something that wouldn't offend anyone. So nothing really stands out about the design or the technology. Multiple times, while I've been driving this car, I've parked it somewhere, came out and been like, which one is it? Because it kind of just looks like a general idea of an SUV. Nothing stands out. Kia has been ambitious with its marketing of the Sorento, even making a commercial showing it climbing a steep off road challenge in Moab, Utah. I don't think that Kia really expects you to take the Sorento up Hell's Gate in Utah, and I don't expect you to like camping as much as I do. But it is a really good way to showcase how much cargo space there is-- 73 cubic feet total. And if for some reason you want to do something else, maybe stargazing where there's indoor plumbing, you can pack it full of whatever you might need for that. You know, the longer I drive this car, the more I think that I was unfair to say that there was nothing that stands out about it. Everything is what you'd expect from a top trim level SUV-- I mean, all of the safety suites are pretty normal. It will help you change lanes, and it will help you stay in the lanes, and it's got all of the airbags, and it's got warnings if you're about to crash into something-- so none of that is remarkable. But the way that Kia dealt with a few of those things is pretty cool. The first is adaptive cruise control, which I've complained about before in other cars, because I feel like, a lot of times, you can't tell when it's on and when it's off. In the Kia, first of all, it's really easy to turn it on-- it's just two buttons. And when it is on, it's really obvious-- the speedometer turns yellow. You absolutely know that it's on. You can see how far you have to the car in front of you for the adaptive component. And when it's off, also very obvious. Safe. I don't think they really give out automotive awards for headlights. But if they did, I would nominate the Kia Sorento. They're LED, they're self leveling-- so they're always pointed where you need them to be-- and they actually move, which isn't something that we haven't seen before. I mean, BMW has been doing it for a long time. But to see it on a Kia was sort of unexpected. It's cool. The Sorento is functional, but not inspired. It's not out of place on a city adventure, and it has enough ride height and space to take you on a trip out of your comfort zone. It can carry a lot of people or a lot of gear-- but not both, so choose wisely. If you do need something that can carry both people and stuff, you might want to choose something else. If you liked this video, subscribe and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.