Kia cee’d SW Review

Kia ceed Review

Hot on the heels of the cee’d hatchback, comes the cee’d SW. It is Kia’s first ever estate car and one, which the company hopes, will build on the success of the 5-door.

More than 80 per cent of C-segment car sales are to fleet buyers but Kia believes that the cee’d SW will provide a good alternative to private customers, who are looking towards SUV’s.

Designed at the same time as the hatchback and forthcoming 3-dr version, the SW has the same front end and the same wheelbase as the 5-door. The rear doors are also identical but it’s the rear end that is the main feature.

Not surprisingly, people tend to buy estate cars for their carrying capacity so the European-based designers have simply taken the 5-door and added 235mm behind the rear axle. Not content with that, they also increased the height by 10mm before attaching the roof rails. In doing this, the capacity has increased by almost 200-litres over the shorter version, which is good news, but not the whole story.

By moving the tailgate hinges further forward, the tailgate takes up less space when it is opened and that is a distinct advantage in tight spaces. Moreover, the resultant load aperture gapes larger than normal making it easy to load bulky items. In all, there is some 534-litres of luggage space, including 55-litres under the load platform. Taking full advantage of the 60:40-split, rear seats increases the load-lugging to a maximum of 1664-litres. The rear seats fold to form a flat floor, which at 5’6”, I can lie down in. Kia tells us that there is no need to remove the rear headrests before folding but we found that it made life easier to do so and store them in an under-floor, compartment.

On the outside, the cee’d SW is distinguished by the Z-shaped rear pillars and L-shaped rear light clusters that extend towards the roof-line, flanking the tailgate. Depending on the colour choice, the SW looks stylish and a bit more expensive than the price tag, it bears. Silver is good - blue is not so good.