Kia Sorento review - Reliability and safety
The level of standard safety equipment is as good as you’ll find in the sector, while Kia’s seven-year warranty is a further draw
Relative to rivals, the prices of the Kia Sorento may have crept up through the generations, but the Mk4 car can still play the value-for-money card by virtue of its fully loaded standard kit list. This is particularly evident in the area of safety, where even the base 2 cars get Kia’s ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) package that includes Forward Collision Avoidance Assist (FCA) which scans the area in front of the car for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles while also waiting for oncoming traffic at junctions.
Also standard are Intelligent Speed Limit Assist and Land Follow Assist, which can control acceleration, braking and steering to keep you in lane and maintain a safe distance to the car in front. It can operate between 0-112mph, so is a great driver aid to take the strain off in stop-start motorway traffic, although the driver must always be poised to take control if needed. Six airbags and Kia’s VSM stability-control system are also standard.
Climb the range, and you add blind-spot assist with rear cross-traffic alert at level two, plus Highway Driving Assist (HDA) which automatically keeps you to the speed limit when the smart cruise control system is engaged. In the 4, there’s Parking Collision-Avoidance Assist, too.
The amount of safety aids is reflected in a five-star score from Euro NCAP when the Sorento was tested in 2020. It also received an 82 per cent rating for adult occupant protection and 85 per cent for child-occupant protection.
The Kia Sorento was too new to feature in our 2021 Driver Power customer satisfaction survey, but Kia has a growing reputation for happy customers that culminated in a second-place finish in the 2021 Driver Power manufacturers’ list. Backed up by an outstanding warranty package, the brand got a 90.14 per cent score overall and only 19.6 per cent of Kia owners experienced any kind of issue with their car.
Warranty
Kia’s seven-year warranty is one of the best in the business and underlines the brand’s faith in its products. The cover is actually seven years or 100,000 miles, and it can be passed on to the next owner when the car is sold for the remaining time and mileage.
Servicing
The service intervals on the Sportage depend on your engine choice. The hybrids need a visit to the dealer every 12 months or 10,000 miles, but the CRDi diesel is 12 months or 20,000 miles.
