Driving the Kia Sorrento

[canyonwalker]

Maine Week Travelog #13
Ellsworth, ME - Thursday, 17 Jun 2021, 1pm.

I figured I'd take a quick break from writing about our adventure week in Maine to write about the rental car we're driving for this week of adventure. It's a Kia Sorrento. So far we've driven it about 150 miles. Here are my impressions so far.



Why a Kia Sorrento? Simply put, it was the one of four vehicles the rental agency offered me that had all-wheel drive (AWD). I hadn't reserved an AWD or even an SUV. I'd reserved a full-size car. In rental industry parlance that means a Toyota Camry or similar. Upon my arrival all they had were four SUVs, so I picked the one equipped with AWD as we'll be driving gravel and dirt roads later this week. AWD will be more sure-footed, especially if it rains while we're off road.

Space

The first thing I noticed about the Sorrento is its size. Even on paper it seemed big. "CAPACITY: 7 PASSENGERS" the rental app stated. Yikes! We've never owned a vehicle with a third row of seats. And of our current two cars, one barely even has a second row. Of course, the third row in this car is barely there, either. It's mostly a gimmick as anyone small enough to sit back there is also small enough to be required to use a child seat nowadays, and basically none of those would fit.

Once the third row seats are folded down— which is easy to do— the Sorrento becomes a very nice 5-person vehicle. There looks to be plenty of legroom in the second row seats, even with the front seats rolled back fairly far. And the cargo space with the third row folded down is commodious. It swallowed up the four suitcases I angsted about traveling with and laughed as it could've taken 2 more without even breaking a sweat.

Features and Comfort

Aside from having AWD— which may be standard with this model— our Sorrento is fairly bare-bones for a 2021 car. It's got a computer screen in the center console but no nav. Smart phones can connect via USB but there's no Apple CarPlay. And while there's remote lock & unlock on the car's absolutely huge key fobs, there's no keyless ignition.

Watch on YouTube

Fortunately we don't care about most of the features the car is missing. ...Well, except for the keyless ignition. Using those big, dorky switchblade key fobs is annoying. All we really want is a car that doesn't do anything stupid. Aside from the ignition and one other thing the Sorrento thankfully does nothing stupid.

So Smart it's Stupid

There is one other thing the Sorrento does that bugs me for being stupid. Unfortunately it's a biggie. It's the transmission.

There are three selectable modes to the automatic transmission. The car defaults to "Comfort" which has wheezy acceleration. You need to get up to speed quickly because you've pulled into traffic or are on a highway on ramp? Sorry, the transmission's not smart enough for that. You're left with a leisurely 0-60 time that feels, seat-of-the-pants, like it's well over 10 seconds.



Next up there's "Smart" mode. It should be smarter, right? Wrong. It alternates between Comfort and Eco mode with the goal of maximizing fuel economy. That means, in terms of acceleration, it alternates between slow and slower. Pulling into traffic in "Smart" mode is downright dangerous.

Finally there's "Sport" mode. This is the only not-stupid mode for the transmission. In "Sport" mode the Sorrento drives normally... which is to say, normally for an underpowered 7-person SUV. At least acceleration is no longer dangerously slow. But fuel economy suffers because the transmission holds gears too long, assuming that you might suddenly want to start power drifting at any moment. Why can't there be a "smart" mode that biases toward fuel economy under light throttle input and rapidly downshifts and provides acceleration when you step hard on the gas, like when you're pulling into traffic? Alas, nobody at Kia is that smart.

At Least it's Economical

Well, the one upside to all the stupid-slow acceleration is that the Sorrento is frugal with gas. I'm getting about 30mpg so far in mixed driving, keeping the transmission in (not very) "Smart" mode most of the time except switching to "Sport" when I'm about to merge with traffic. For a 7-passenger SUV that's great. And with the 17-gallon tank it has a range of around 500 miles. We've only logged about 150 so far but with longer car trips in the cards for the next few days we'll be filling up before we're done.