Kia Sorento Review
Published: 13th October 2003
Sorento
How It Drove - Performance
The capacity of the Sorento's 3.5 litre 24 valve V6 petrol engine might seem a bit excessive for the British market because of our extortionate fuel prices but this vehicle was also developed with the American market in mind and their taste for large vehicles and engines. Having said that the engine wasn't that thirsty and it delivered the power so smoothly. It averaged approximately 25 mpg on our 2000 mile test route which is not bad for a 4x4 of this size.
In fact the Sorento's engine was so quiet that on a couple of occasions I tried to restart the car when it was already running.
Around town the Sorento is relaxing to drive and with 192bhp it has ample power on tap. The automatic gearbox takes the effort out of changing gear but the fuel consumption does drop to around 16 mpg which In my opinion is worth every penny, rather than having to manually select gears.
On 'A' and 'B' roads the Sorento is no slouch and it reaches 0-62mph in 10.2 seconds with plenty of mid range power to eat up the miles on longer cross country journey's.
The Motorway is where you notice what an excellent cruiser the Sorento is and only when you kick down the gearbox to overtake do you notice a satisfying roar from the otherwise silent engine.
