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IMPRESSIONS

With the arrival of the diesel version of Kia’s stylish all new Sportage the small SUV market has gained its most attractive and challenging vehicle. So says Kia’s publicity and after travelling just on 1000 miles in a week we would heartily agree.

Aimed at car drivers in addition to 4x4 lovers the new Sportage, which was introduced in January 2005, will provide safe and economical on-road characteristics with the ability to handle demanding conditions away from metalled roads.

We have driven the Sportage on an off-road course at Millbrook which it handled as well as any of the big boys.

The four cylinder diesel is refined and although not the most powerful in its class propels the Kia along briskly enough and never felt short of puff. With a maximum trailer weight of 1600kg the Kia is capable of pulling quite large boats and adequate caravans.

During our rather extensive test we never felt uncomfortable or ached, the weather during our time with the Kia was extremely hot but the super efficient air conditioning kept very cool.

We think that Kia’s claim that many car drivers would like to trade up to an SUV but felt that ‘real’ 4x4 motoring was out of their reach may well be near the mark.

Healthy sales of the petrol engined Sportage have shown that these motorists are finding that Sportage is the answer to their aspirations.

As real value for money machines the Kia range is pretty well impossible to beat and whats more they definitely do not feel cheap or badly made.

TECHY BITS
Kia Sportage XE 2.0 CRDi
Price                                           £15695 
Fuel consumption                         40 plus mpg
Kerbweight                                  1756kg
Max noseweight                            75kg
Max trailer weight (braked)            1600kg
Max trailer weight (unbraked)         750kg

Adrian French

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