Kia Sportage 2.0 CRDi XS review
by David Finlay (2 April 2008)
This is the second test we've published on the revised-for-2008 Sportage; regular readers will recall the first one, but if you want a refresher, or if you've popped in for the first time, you can read it here.
The version we're looking at on this occasion is very similar to the last one. Both have the two-litre turbo diesel engine and have the mid-range XE trim level. But there are two major differences - for a start, this one has four-wheel drive, whereas the last one had the front-drive only set-up which has just been introduced to the Sportage.
Against all apparent reason, the 4WD is only £200 more expensive, and has superior performance, fuel economy and CO2 emissions. The solution to this conundrum is that the front-wheel drive car is available only with a four-speed automatic gearbox, while this one has a six-speed manual. It still seems strange to me that there isn't a 2WD manual option, but that's how it is, at least for the moment.
Unless you really want the automatic transmission, this car makes a lot more sense, mostly for financial reasons. Mind you, I've been surprised to find that the Sportage can give the impression of being substantially more expensive than it really is.
A friend who saw the test car immediately assumed that it cost about the same as her Land Rover Freelander, which is very far from being the case: the cheapest Freelander costs more than £20,000, significantly more than even the 2.7-litre V6 petrol Sportage (which, whatever its merits, is unlikely to be given a second glance by many potential customers in the UK).
That friend lives on a farm a mile or so up a steep and eyebrow-raisingly rough track. She likes the Freelander, but on that track she would do as well with the Sportage, which can easily cope with that sort of thing and more, if not as much as a Land Rover. When I visit her in most cars it takes me several minutes to get to her front door, but the Sportage zipped up in about half the usual time.
The Sportage's off-road ability is as good as it needs to be for the purposes of most buyers. Its on-road behaviour is even more impressive. Every road test I've written about the current-shape model has included some exclamation about how good the ride is on tarmac, and between Sportages I've occasionally wondered if this can really be true.
But it is. Oh, there's enough body movement to make you aware that this is a tall, short vehicle, and there really isn't any way round that, but Kia's suspension people have done a magnificent job of making the Sportage absorb every kind of surface irregularity as smoothly and unfussily as possible. In this respect the Sportage is an exceptionally fine piece of work.
The handling isn't quite as wonderful. Most of the time the Sportage grips the road fairly well, but if you're pushing on - especially in the wet - the front tyres gradually lose interest and you're liable to find yourself heading for the wrong side of the cat's eyes. The turbo diesel engine has enough power to take the rest of the car into uncomfortable territory, so you'd be well advised to take it easy through the bends if you're in a big hurry. In most driving situations, though, there are no problems at all, since once again the car seems able to ignore the pitfalls of its own shape.
Kia has revised the suspension for 2008, but the combination of excellent ride and okay-but-don't-rush handling seems much the same as before. Similarly, all Sportages sold in Europe are now built in Slovakia rather than Korea, but that's an internal matter of concern to the company and not to the likes of you and me - the build quality is still perfectly acceptable, and not noticeably better or worse than it ever was.
The Sportage is pleasant enough to live with. It must say something about the car (or, if not that, something else) that the thing which caused me most grief over the course of a week was the radio, which struggles more than most to keep hold of stations in areas of dubious reception, and for no obviously intelligent purpose resets itself to an inaudible volume setting every time you switch it on. I uttered several oaths and maledictions about this during the test, but any car whose worst feature is its radio can't be bad.
Most people should be able to find a reasonable driving position, and there's decent enough room for all passengers. The presence of a rear axle means the boot floor is quite high - inevitable in a 4x4 - but that still leaves 667 litres when the rear seat is fully up and 1887 litres when it's fully down.
Loading objects into the luggage compartment is made easier in tight situations by the fact that the rear glass can be opened independently of the tailgate; a good idea, if not a particularly new one, though if you're going to take advantage of it you'd better have light objects to load, since the bottom of the aperture is quite high up.
As mentioned previously, the test car was in the mid-range XS trim level, which means it had protective body mouldings, climate control air-conditioning, cruise control, leather upholstery and some metallic-effect interior trim. None of this is available as standard in the XE, which costs £1500 less.
The Titan, yours for a further £1300, comes with 17" alloy wheels, privacy glass, heated front seats, an electric sunroof, ESP, an underfloor cargo storage tray (good), a space-saver spare wheel (uh-oh), an auto-dimming interior mirror and a compass, among other goodies.
Running costs should be reasonable for a car of this type, though the Sportage 2.0 CRDi can't quite manage 40mpg on the combined fuel economy cycle. That translates into 187g/km, which annoyingly enough puts it into the current VED Band F by just 2g/km and means you'll pay £40 a year more than if Kia had managed a slightly better result. Safety is a bit of a grey areas because Euro NCAP hasn't yet crash tested the Sportage, and I'm happy to say that I haven't either.
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