FAMILY CAR REVIEW: KIA SORENTO

In the front of the Sorento, in the central console, are two cup holders with a slide across lid for when they are not in use. They are really well-sized and would hold most types of vessels. They held a sippy cup with handles, a disposable coffee cup, may large refillable water bottle a Pigeon baby bottle and a 600ml water bottle.

In front of the cup holders is a large rubber-based well with two 12V sockets plus AUX and USB ports inside, and this also has a slide-across lid so you can cover anything you have in there, such as coins or a phone you have charging (it's perfect for that) when you pop in to pay for your petrol for example, without having to take it all with you.

The door pockets in the Sorento will not hold an iPad, but they are able to hold a 600ml water bottle, a Pigeon baby bottle, my large refillable water bottle or my wallet.

The handles in the doors are not little storage wells. A couple of times I have popped things in them when putting Tulsi in and out of the car out of habit and they have dropped straight through.

There is a lined glasses case in the ceiling and there are lit vanity mirrors for both front passengers in the back of the visors. The visors themselves are also extendable for when you are using them on the side windows.

There is a lots of storage space in the Sorento but the glove box is not big; the manual in there is enormous, taking up most of the space, and I could only fit my wallet in there but not an iPad.

The central console storage box is a good size, it is felt lined and it has a removable tray in the top of it and the lid doubles as your armrest.

The second-row passengers get net ½ map pockets on both sides so anything you put in them can be seen.

The door pockets in the back are smaller than the front; they would only hold a 600ml bottle or a Pigeon baby bottle but nothing larger than that.

There are two cup holders in a fold-down armrest in the central seat that are a good size for a disposable or reusable coffee cup.

In the back of the central console box, there is a 12V socket and a USB socket below the second-row air-conditioning vents. The footwell is flat for the second row, which is nicer for central seat passengers.

There is a cup holder for each of the third-row seats, moulded into the wheel arches along with an area good for resting an iPad or book. When I’m only using five seats and the third-row seats are away, I love that the cup holders are then in the boot! They are really handy to put my cup or bottle in when loading and unloading the boot.

When I head out on a journey with Tulsi I usually take a travel cup of tea with me! Mainly because I’m tired and need the caffeine like most new mums! Also in case she falls asleep so I pull over and have a few minutes still time with a cuppa! Or I have water bottles that although they all say they don’t leak inevitably after they have been dropped a few times they all leak so it is a juggle to keep vessels upright and away from bubs or interested toddlers!
So I go to the boot of the car with bub, bags, drinks, snacks and I hope the boot has automatic opening as I don’t have a hand free and basically dump everything in there whilst I strap bub into her seat and organise everything. Having drinks holders in the boot helps so much as you can just pop your drinks hot and cold in there out of the way. Knowing they are not going to spill or fall over or burn anyone!

One of my favourite features of the Sorento was the cargo blind attachment! All other car manufacturers could learn from Kia here!! Instead of there being just one set of indents to put the cargo blind bar into and there be a gap between that and the second-row seat backs, or worse flaps of fabric that attach flimsily to second-row seats, Kia has put two sets of indents! GENIUS! So when the seats are upright it goes in one and when they’re reclined they go in another!! It’s as simple as that but I really am pleased with it!! No flaps of fabric or flimsy clips! I did have to climb up into the boot to fit the cargo blind because I could not reach from standing outside the boot (I’m 162cm).

The cargo blind stores away easily under the boot floor where there is also a little extra plastic lined space you could use to hold wet or dirty items to keep them separated from the boot. The ends of the bar of the cargo blind are felt covered too! This is a fantastic little detail that stops it scratching the interior of the car when you are installing and uninstalling the blind, which I always find is a problem.

Next to the cup holders for the third-row seats is a good-sized rubber lined well. I found this so useful as well when I was loading and unloading the boot. It was great for putting my sunglasses, keys and phone in for example. Essentially, anything I didn’t want to be damaged or mixed in with everything else in the boot

The boot capacity in the Sorento with only five seats in use was surprising! I could get 16 bags of shopping in there with nothing else in the boot, which is an impressive amount of very usable shaped storage.

With the twin stroller in the boot, I could fit eight shopping bags around it.

With the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle pram with seven bags of shopping alongside it, the boot space was big enough to fit the pram either length or widthways across the boot.

Our Steelecraft Holiday 2 umbrella stroller will fit either lengthways or widthways across the boot space. With it out of the way against the backrests, I could also get 13 shopping bags in with it.

Using only five seats, you could fit a large dog in the boot with the basic umbrella stroller, or the Mountain Buggy pram with a medium or small sized dog. When all seven seats are in use there is not enough room for a dog in the boot space.

The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.

Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.

I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres is not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.

Putting the third row of seats up is very simple! There is a woven tape velcroed to the seatback in the boot floor that you pull and the seatback comes up and the base slides out. This is a really simple mechanism and I think the easiest to use that I have tested. To put the seats away again you simply pull the same tape and push the seat back forward and they fold back away.

With the third row of seats up, the boot space is still quite generous I could get five shopping bags in the boot with all seven seats in use.

I could get the Steelecraft Holiday 2 umbrella stroller across the seatbacks with three shopping bags; I was really impressed with this!

The boot of the Sorento is open and easy to load things in and out of. I found it a good height and not too tall or too low. I did find reaching to the very back difficult (I am 162cm).

The boot floor is carpeted, soft and flat and perfect to lie bub down on for a nappy change.

There are wells either side of the boot behind the wheel arches which I found useful for putting things like lunchboxes that you do not want sliding around the boot.

There are also handles on either side of the boot for bringing forward the second row of seats.

The front and rear parking sensors come as standard in the Sorento and can be turned off with a button in the central console.

The reversing camera stays on but the beeping, sensors and visual turns off. The reversing camera has animated guidance lines and its image is very clear, making reverse parking the Sorento easy.

The Sorento has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which means using sat-nav is simple you can use your phone and mute it easily on the screen. Kia’s own sat-nav system is also very easy to use and we found it accurate. It does make all kinds of beeps to alert you if you exceed the speed limit or to various hazards such as speed traps or red-light cameras and rail crossings, which would disturb a sleeping child. It also comes as standard with SUNA traffic alerts that let you know if there's a traffic jam ahead.

I didn’t find anything particularly child-disturbing in the Sorento in terms of noise. The windows, doors and indicators were all fairly quiet and I find if nothing stands out then it is a good thing!

Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!

That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.

If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?

It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?

A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.

Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!

I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.

Engine and road noise was very good. It was actually a very quiet and comfortable ride, cocooned from the outside hustle and bustle in our little world of Sorento luxury!

The Bluetooth hands-free connected easily and when playing nursery rhymes off my phone, they played quickly and stress-free out of the car speakers as soon as I plugged in my phone. The Apple CarPlay made this nice and simple.

The Sorento is a seven-seater family SUV. It had two ISO Fix attachments, one in each of the outer second-row seats and top tether anchor points in all three of the second-row backrests. There are no top tethers or ISO Fix in the third row of seats.

Installing the child seats was relatively simple in the Sorento and I could get my three child seats across the middle row; a Mountain Buggy Protect infant capsule on one side, and Infasecure Foldaway booster seat in the middle and Infasecure Compressor 4 (forward facing) in the other outer seat. The seatbelt buckle for the central booster seat was underneath the base but not as difficult to access as I have experienced in some other cars.

Posting bub in and out of their rear-facing capsule was good in the Sorento as the door openings are nice and wide and tall so you have plenty of room. Equally, from inside the ceiling is nice and high and there is plenty of interior space too so posting bub into their seat from inside the car is also easy.

Australia being a country of weather extremes- blazing sun and torrential rain, mean you may find it easier to put Bub into their seat from inside the car sometimes. If it’s hot you can get the air-con going, cool the car down and not stand out in the sun while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether Bub can be easily installed from either direction!

With only one child seat installed there is plenty of room to feed bub in the back seats.

The seats in the Sorento we drove were leather, making them easier to wipe clean than woven cloth seats. However, they are mostly perforated, making them harder to keep clean as crumbs, sand and child spills get into the perforations and are difficult to get out.

The second-row seat base is quite flat, which helps with fitting three child seats across. The backrests also recline.

The seats in the front of the Sorento we drove were well padded and comfortable. They adjusted with levers rather than electrically, though I easily found a comfortable seating position and the seat bases were not too long as I sometimes find (I am 162cm tall). The more expensive SLi and GT models come with eight-way electric driver’s seat adjustment and two and four-way lumbar support control respectively.

The third-row seats are large, wide and flat but do not recline. They are less padded than those in the rest of the car but still very comfortable.

The second-row seats are split 60:40 for sliding and reclining, and also, 40:20:20 split-fold so you can bring the central seat down on its own too. This gives you lots of different seat combinations and options. A mum friend of mine likes the central seat down so their dog can see through from the boot!!

For mum travelling in the second row with their infant, it is very spacious. The second-row seats slide to adjust for leg room and we found that with the driver’s seat positioned for a 184cm driver, another could comfortably sit behind them with the central row slid forward you could fit another tall passenger in the third-row seats with enough legroom, although their headroom was limited.

The steering wheel in the Sorento is fully adjustable and feels really good quality in your hands too!

The steering wheel is the part of the car you have the most contact with and although it is not an important BabyDrive feature, whether the steering wheel feels nice or cheap and plastic is something I really notice in each car I drive!

Cruise control in the Sorento was excellent! On both fast motorway driving and slow undulating roads, it kept its set speed really well and the radar cruise control meant I was confident in it stopping and starting with the traffic in front of me. The steering wheel controls were really simple to use and it was great that I could trust it to stick to speed limits so it didn’t take as much of my concentration.

Kia even has the air-conditioning in the Sorento just right! It comes with a cabin air purifier! In the front, there are four vents across the dashboard, two in the middle and one at either end.

In the back of the central console storage box are two vents for the second-row passengers and in the third row, there are vents below the windows with their own controls!

I just loved the combination and positions of the vents. Our daughter has always been really disturbed by ceiling vents as they blow down onto passengers' faces and heads, especially when rear-facing, so to have the central console and side vents was really good. And the third row having controls of their own is great! I also found when using it as a five-seater car I could keep my shopping cold in the boot using the air vents and controls!!

The air-conditioning controls in the front were very simple and easy to use; I loved that I could control the rear air-con from the front too. This is a GREAT BabyDrive feature!

The windows in the model we drove were tinted and we didn’t need to add any window shades to keep rear passengers comfortable. The GT-Line model has retractable window blinds for second-row passengers, which is a great BabyDrive feature and something I love in modern cars so you do not need to have window shades rolling around in your footwells for when you need them!

I found the Sorento shrunk around me. Although it is a VERY spacious, seven-seater SUV it didn’t feel like I was driving a big vehicle!

Visibility was excellent, the large, deep windows give a very open feel to the interior and enormous windscreen with the higher riding position meant it had great visibility for the driver and passengers. There are large triangular windows for the third-row seats and these also gave rear facing second-row passengers more visibility and me as the driver. I found with the increased legroom in the back meant driver visibility out of the side windows was better because the child seats were set back a bit further, giving more window to see out of.

There are lit vanity mirrors in the front for both driver and passenger and the visors are extendable to block out the width of your side window. I really like this feature, it makes driving with the strong sun coming from the side much more bearable and you don’t arrive somewhere sunburnt on one side!!

The interior lights press on and the second row light is positioned in the centre of the ceiling back between the over door handles. It was too far back for me to reach whilst driving.

I often will reach back to turn on the interior light if I am driving at night time, I find my little girl gets less distressed traveling at night that way. It helps if I can reach the interior light from the drivers seat so I can turn it on and off whilst driving. I often find my daughter will need it on as we start our journey in the dark but once she falls asleep I can turn it off. It is also useful when there are lights situated above the doors where the handles are usually positioned. These are good for when putting baby into their child seats when visibility is poor, so you do not have to reach across them to a light situated in the ceiling centrally etc.

The Sorento was great to BabyDrive! It was smooth and sturdy on the road, there was no disturbance to bub when driving on bumpy or uneven road surfaces and it gripped the road very well at speed and on bends without having to drive in a way to keep a car filled with little passengers from being tossed around.
Its hugging feel meant it felt compact around town and didn’t feel like I was driving an enormous SUV!

I could not wear a ponytail in the Sorento! The headrests were the wrong angle for it.

I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get this ponytail just right too… said no new mum ever!!!

Apart from the headrest, the brakes were my only negative on the Sorento. They felt spongy and didn’t fill me with confidence as I felt I REALLY had to stamp on them to ensure I was going to stop.

The higher spec versions give you more choices of interior colours and trims. In the model we tested it was various black textures, which would all wipe clean easily. As a whole, the Sorento felt like a very high-quality car with a well-built, well-designed interior and a really pleasant environment to be in.

The second row passengers get another USB port and a 12V socket.

There are carpet floor mats throughout the car that could be removed to shake out and clean.

The Kia Sorento scored an almost perfect five-star ANCAP safety rating, 36.62 out of 37 points! It is one of the highest ANCAP safety rated cars on the market.
It scored 15.62 out of 16 for the frontal offset test, 16/16 for side impact test and 2/2 in the pole test.

The Kia Sorento comes with six airbags as standard, dual frontal and side airbags in the front, and side curtain airbags giving protection to the front and second-row passengers.
The side curtain airbags do not extend far enough past the second row of seats to offer protection for passengers in the third row of seats. Something that always shocks me with seven-seater vehicles as we tend to put our non-child seat protected children in the third row so they have neither protection from airbags nor child seat cushioning in an accident!?

2018 models have extra standard safety and driver assistance equipment; every model comes with autonomous emergency braking, radar-based adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assistance and driver attention alert, anti-lock brakes with brake assist and electronic brake force distribution, stability control and traction control.
Also standard are front and rear parking sensors with obstacle proximity display, a reversing camera with animated guidance lines, a digital speed readout and multi-function trip computer, automatic headlights, an electric park brake with auto hold.

The higher spec GT-Line comes with extra safety equipment; blind-spot detection with rear cross-traffic alert, a 360-degree camera system and adaptive full-LED headlights.

The Sorento also comes with Kia’s a seven-year warranty, seven-year capped servicing, and seven-year roadside assistance.

Some of these safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and forward collision alert or the parking sensor beeping sound.
I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when Tulsi’s asleep!