KIA has been under the control of Hyundai since George Soros tanked the East Asian economies. Funny how working with Hyundai bits and pieces, KIA seems to produce a more cohesive and pleasing product than does its big brother. Like Hyundai, KIA’s full product line is not quite there, but Sportage is good enough to bear legitimate comparison with Honda CR-V, Subaru Forester, Toyota RAV4, VW Tiguan and any other compact CUVs. Interestingly, the Koreans offer no compelling price advantage, but if the readily apparent build quality and design integrity are matched by long-term durability, there’s little reason for KIA to sell at a lower MSRP. If it fits your set of compromises, Sportage should prove a perfectly adept commuter or CUV for a starter-kit family.

Prime Numbers

• Price: $24,795. As Tested: $29,990
• Engine: 2.4-liter DOHC inline four
• Horsepower: 170 hp @ 6,000 rpm
• Torque: 163 @ 4,000 rpm
• Drivetrain: Front-engine, all-wheel-drive with six-speed automatic transmission, including semi-auto shift.
• Suspension F/R: MacPherson struts/multi-link independent
• Length: 174.8-in.
• Width: 73.0-in.
• Height: 64.4-in.
• Wheelbase: 103.9-in.
• Weight: 3,355 lb.

Who’s The Buyer

This car is for you if:

• You’re a single woman, a retiree whose achy hips prefer leaning into a tall car, or a couple with young children (meaning munchkins who can fit in the rear seat).
• You appreciate design more than the typical CUV buyer might.
• You want to send panic waves through the smug security of your neighbors who drive Honda CR-Vs.

This car is not for you if:

• You have older children—the rear seat has limited headroom that could lead to teenage insurrection.
• You can’t get on the Korean bandwagon, and embrace a company with an evolving image in the marketplace.
• When chatting with the neighbors, you don’t want to explain or defend any purchase—so stick with Honda, Toyota or Subaru.

Alternatives To Consider

• Honda CR-V. Even folks at competitor companies will tell you this car has been the benchmark the past few years, though CR-V is getting old. Comparably equipped in EX-L form, CR-V is priced roughly equal to the Sportage EX we tested, but it’s a Honda, which means better resale value. Hmmmmm. Also, the rear seat has headroom enough for tall adults. BMW-influenced exterior design is elegant, interior materials are excellent, though with lots of hard surfaces. If the bigger Honda Pilot were this well sorted, sales would be stronger.
• Ford Escape. Man, what a tired old product, based on ancient Ford of Europe components (first Mondeo) that were re-engineered by Mazda, Unless you can get a smoking deal, Escape is a poor choice compared to Sportage, or almost any other CUV. Bear in mind that an all-new Escape is on the way, based on excellent Ford of Europe components. Thanks to One Ford and the need to make new vehicle serve all markets, Europeans will get a next-gen Ford Kuga CUV slightly larger than they’re accustomed to because the next Escape will be sized for American needs.Advice? Wait for the next Escape. It will be dramatically better.
• VW Tiguan. A strong design that stands apart. A variation on the 2.0-liter turbo four, and sold by VW as the GTI of crossovers. But it is supported by a relatively weak dealer body, and VW is only just beginning to produce vehicles tailored to the US market. If Jetta and the next upsized Passat compete well and VW can thus improve and broaden its dealer body, Tiguan will be a more viable competitor. A next-gen Tiguan scaled for the US should be much better.
• Subaru Forester. I love granola. The three brands I recommend to people who don’t love cars, but whose friendship I also hope to keep? Hondas, Toyotas, and Subarus. Hard to go wrong with any of them. Any car beyond those three brands is recommended on a specific case-by-case basis for people seeking a specific driving experience (off-road, high-performance, etc), or design and social status (the right badge for Country Club Lane). Subaru’s all-wheel drive system is  good, a major reason why Subarus are highly recommended to all friends who live in the Rocky Mountains. Subaru’s boxer engine is smooth, with an interesting rhythm and good torque, though the four-speed transmission is definitely behind the curve. Tall roofline provides room and comfort front and rear. Pricing is excellent, too, if you’re mindful not to load up on too many luxury features. Subaru also has nicely sorted cargo accessories for hauling extra granola to the trailhead. If you want more “stuff,” you step up another trim level. It’s also an IIHS Top Safety Pick. See our review in an earlier post.
• Toyota RAV4. An available V6 that makes towing a viable proposition. Roomier rear seat. Available third row for dogs and REALLY small folks. Very conservative styling, but CR-V and RAV4 are the starting point for compact CUV shopping. Like CR-V, RAV4 is an unavoidable comparison for any other CUV. Though picking option packages can get tricky, RAV4 offers excellent value for money. Loaded with a V6 and AWD, RAV4 is only a couple grand more than an equally loaded four-cylinder Sportage. Economies of scale. Plus, Toyota offers generous financing deals, just like the Koreans.

SWEET JESUS, BUT THESE GUYS AT KIA have figured out how to make a real car, working with the same basic sets of components used by their master, Hyundai. Our Sportage was loaded to the gills, an EX with GPS navigation and the Premium Package, which included leather seating, a panoramic moonroof, and even an AC unit in the driver’s seat to chill your loins on a hot day.

The vehicle proved impressive in nearly every respect, with very few problem areas—the second KIA I’ve driven that’s worthy of comparison with similar Japanese vehicles.

We can find only a few points in need of engineering attention during the production life of the vehicle. When I think of the agricultural POS Sportages that first arrived in the US nearly two decades ago, and the POS Sportages I drove a decade ago while at a dot.com, I can’t believe I’m so positive.

Engine, Transmission, Drivetrain

KIA has a mildly tuned version of the ubiquitous Korean 2.4-liter inline four. The engine is a bit rough, but calibration is pretty good. Reviewers always laud Honda for silky engines, but I find that only applies to the smaller-displacement four-cylinders and Honda/Acura V6 engines that do not have cylinder cut-off. In refinement, this Korean engine is within spitting distance of the Honda big-bore four-cylinder found in Accord. I doubt the typical consumer would notice much difference between the two.

The six-speed transmission holds revs nearly to redline, and then delivers well-damped shifts. It has a semi-auto shifter, though this would be of most use in, say, snowy conditions heading to a ski weekend when you want consistent revs and engine braking. Or perhaps a “Storm Watch 2010” weekend like we’re having here in LA as this post in completed

There are shortfalls in the drivetrain, however. Torque steer was immediately evident on my short daily drive to the beach, but it is more a brief and subtle wobble than a lunge to one side or the other (see Sorento comments below under Coda). It’s not a Mazdaseed3 when it comes to torque steer. Around town during a dry week, I had no real sensation of the Magna-developed all-wheel drive kicking in, which sends power to the rear wheels only when slip is detected at the fronts. As best I can figure from the sketchy information KIA offers, it’s built around an electronically controlled clutch system, not unlike the Haldex systems of Volvos, Volvo-based Fords and Lincolns, and Land Rover’s LR2. I didn’t have time for a run to the San Gabriel Mountains or to my Uncle Hot Rod’s place in the boonies where there’s easy access to both mild and wild off-roading. You can lock the system at speeds up to 25 mph, and it will then distribute torque to all four wheels based on measured traction, which means the Sportage will give a reassuring feel when you’re toddling over rutted dirt roads on the way to a favorite trail head for a day of mountain biking. KIA does not provide the same high level of adjustability that one gets with a Land Rover LR2 (see our post on that very well-sorted vehicle some pages back), with numerous software settings to adjust wheel spin and the like, but for the occasional foray to a campsite, KIA’s DynaMax all-wheel drive is a worthwhile expense. I suspect most will opt for DynaMax out of some sense of improved wet-weather safety rather than any real need, but such consumer interest will pay for investment in the system long-term, and Magna and KIA can evolve it to suit several vehicles.

But the name? DynaMax? Sounds like something out of a 1953 Buick with a boffo straight eight. Someone in Magna’s marketing department either has a sense of humor, owns a vintage Buick with a Dynaflow transmission, or is lazy and thought evolving an ancient term was well advised. Whatever. Dyna and “dynamic” might sound good to someone in Austria or at Magna’s remote Canadian HQ, but Real Time at Honda sounds better, as does On-Demand at Toyota, and how can you not love Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive from Subaru? And 4motion and 4matic from the Germans are excellent names. Much more of the 21^st century.

Suspension, Steering, Brakes

A pleasant surprise evident within a very short drive in the Sportage? The difference between Sportage and other Korean vehicles we’ve driven in the past year shows just how steep the learning curve is south of the 38^th Parallel. Sportage EX suspension proved well thought out for the intended audience, though one can always nitpick dynamics if a car is pushed. The ride is not bad at all when cruising at 65-70 mph on a Southern California freeway. Springing is relatively soft and when the car is NOT being pushed hard, it delivers a pleasant, smooth ride. Clearly the Koreans are benchmarking Toyota, using the old Burger King Principle: We’ll compete against you on every corner, and offer a goodly imitation of your product.

There’s limited rear suspension noise, and no big surprises over undulations. Those beefy looking Hankook tires generated some noise, but when they wear out, it’s easy enough to replace them with a US, Japanese or European tire that will give better ride and handling. It’s possible to copy the leaders for the fundamentals of suspension and steering, working a bit on your damping and springing. But the black art of tire engineering? The Koreans have work ahead of them.

Steering is nicely weighted, with a hefty feel that will appeal to males and more aggressive females. One might also call it a bit wooden in feel, but I’m convinced none of these electric systems will ever feel as good as the best hydraulic systems of the past 20 years. Younger buyers will never fully appreciate what has been lost—and sadly, so long as they have Bluetooth or a USB connector, they probably won’t care.

Steering action is predictable, with no “jumps” in the amount of effort needed. And it doesn’t suffer from what you might call “three-stage” steering, common among Korean products: dead and sloppy on-center, somewhat linear gain for the initial turn-in, and then dramatic change in the rate when you get past that. Also, it had none of the wandering we found on the Sonata, which was truly awful, marring an otherwise competent vehicle. Sportage tracked beautifully on the highway.

As mentioned above, Sportage suffered a touch of torque steer, but it has a fairly stout motor with plenty of grunt. Though we’d all prefer NOT to have torque steer in a modern front-drive car, in this case I’ll give KIA a pass. Really, not a significant problem for hauling kidlets to school or picking up the dry cleaning.

Body, Design, Quality

First thing you notice? Hyundai and KIA have adopted double door seals and made a real effort to generate a muffled poooof when the doors shut. Add the smooth action and heft of the door handles and opening or closing the door of a Sportage gives a sense of solidity and high build quality. They’ve invested money in components that reinforce the wisdom of the owner’s choice and bolster conviction about the purchase. The first time I opened and shut the Sportage’s doors I was reminded of my first meeting with a Buick Enclave: that damped sound and precision door pull helped change my mind from the moment I touched the vehicle. Your mind registers and you think this is not a dumpy Buick or POS KIA to be sneered at. Well done.

Body build is beyond Detroit standards, and most buyers won’t notice the difference between a Sportage and a CR-V, though differences can be found under close inspection.

The LED daytime running lights are a fantastic design element, giving Sportage an upscale Audi-esque presence when viewed at a distance. (KIA’s design chief, Peter Schreyer, came from Audi.) Again, development money wisely invested. When I swapped the Sportage for a Sorento in the parking structure of an Internet software development firm, the parking lot security guard was raving about the Sportage, saying repeatedly, “It looks like a damn Cayenne.” He loved the LEDs, and the vehicle’s presence is striking. It took a bit of polite effort to get him out of the passenger seat and back to his job.

From my notebook, these comments: “A crisp design. Cohesive and pleasing silhouette, with nice details like the taillights and the distinctive shape of the grille. Rear bumper almost completely integrated into the body shape, which gives it that space pod look from the rear. Unlike Hyundai, which tends toward derivative design, KIA has its own thing going on. This is a handsome vehicle. You can tell KIA hired a German design chief, as Sportage has a German design trait: curved surfaces pierced by sharp creases. Flanks have nice tension thanks to a bold rocker sill and a deftly sculpted cove across the doors. Call it ‘flame surfacing’ 101 and evidence of a German chief designer.”

Interior, Ergonomics

Hyundai’s new Elantra reviewed by Editor Sawyer last week has a nicely designed “wave break” interior that shows Hyundai may begin developing its own design themes and not just copy the “best practices” of other companies. KIA is already there, and the results are impressive. In editing my own work, I’m cutting out the word “cohesive” because I’m over-using it, yet “cohesive” is the highest compliment I can pay to the Sportage design. Switchgear is clearly influenced by Honda and Toyota “best practices,” but that’s no bad thing, and the overall design is owned by KIA.

The gauges and switches are all logically sited and most of them have a decent feel and action, though the Koreans need to step up their game on the engineering and construction of switches to equal the Japanese. Some of the switchgear along the lower left of the dash kick panels might have been better sited up by the transmission, but it’s probably easier in production to place the AWD lock down here. It also means fewer blanking plates on the center console.

Unlike the Sorento EX we drove the week after the Sportage (see Coda below), the Sportage has well-sorted ergonomics. The front seats are supportive and comfortable, and those compliments came from tall and short people alike, and even a somewhat tubby one. Relationship between the Sportage’s seat, steering wheel and related secondary controls, switches and pedals is excellent. I’m a six foot three inch oaf and I found the Sportage a wonderful place to spend time. Perhaps because of its dimensions and its excellent relationship between man and machine, Sportage is actually “fun” to drive—as fun as any CUV can be.

Seats were a bit hard, though, like in an old Mercedes E-class. KIA should speak with their seat supplier about improving the densities in the various layers of foam.

The rear seats are nice…if you’re short. I put a five foot ten inch person next to me in the rear seat, and neither of us felt comfortable or safe. My friend tends to feel claustrophobic in vehicles with high beltlines and tight greenhouses, so she really didn’t like the rear seat of the Sportage. She said she’d never agree to a ride back there. That aside, she loved the design of the vehicle, inside and out.

Dash design is excellent. Materials? Hard shell and not soft touch, which is less than appealing, but a cost issue and the same compromise Honda and Toyota make on vehicles in this price range. We always complain about hard shell dash and door components and you might wonder why. Simple: soft-touch materials are a component usually reserved for premium vehicles. They can help a bit with sound dampening, too. They’re more expensive to make, so short of true luxury cars their application in “middle-class” cars like the Sportage is mixed.

Major pieces of the dash lined up well, but there seem to be a LOT of pieces. The real proof will be a four-year-old Sportage: do all those bits stay in place or do they start to rattle?

KIA product planners who read our Sonata review wanted to make a point that they use more fasteners to attach their instrument panels—another worthy investment. There was no quivering of the dash when the Sportage went over rough surfaces.

Cargo? Well done. Flat cargo floor, tie downs, decent space. Fold the rear seats and you have room enough to haul the contents of a college apartment back home to momma. You could stash mountain bikes in there, but the roof rails can likely accept a range of aftermarket racks for bikes, kayaks, and skis.

GPS navigation is an option on the Sportage, about $1,500, but it brings with it a backup camera. KIA uses the same view as a VW, with colored bars projected onto the camera image, showing the trajectory of the car’s back end. This is the best approach and if KIA is copying here, I don’t care. It works, and works well. The first time I drove a VW with this type of system—a Touareg—I thought it was the best thing going.

The only major failings? The A-pillars are massive. Combined with equally massive sideview mirrors, Sportage has a blind spot that can literally swallow an SUV at a four-way intersection. I discovered this while driving in my sleepy beach town, when a Ford Explorer was lost in the right-side A-pillar and mirror. From that moment on, I made mental note to move my head forward and back at any intersection. As an aside, this is a problem with many current vehicles, so KIA can’t be whipped too badly for this issue.

The other failing? A large reflection off the dashtop, projected onto the windshield, generated by a piece of hard, slick plastic that sits over the gauges. Not good. KIA needs to adopt a material that’s less reflective. I found this really irritating and retrograde, and the cure would only cost a few pennies per car. Editor Sawyer found a similar problem on the Ford Fiesta, so Kia isn’t alone here.

KIA has an intriguing philosophy for alloy wheel design, applied here and to the Forte Koup. Oddly feminine yet massively proportioned. Germanic daisy, I suppose. Whatever you want to call it, the 18-inch alloys look fantastic on this chunky little vehicle.

Conclusion

Sportage EX is far more than a strong statement of intent from the Koreans. It’s the second KIA I’ve driven that’s a legitimate competitor, worthy of comparison with the best from Japan, Detroit and VW.

If you have little kids, or most of your friends are short, the rear seat is not a liability, and thus the Sportage merits comparison with Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Subaru Forester, Nissan Rogue, and so on.

The design is striking, more dramatic than its fraternal twin, the Hyundai Tucson, thanks to simple changes in design of side glass, and use of sharp creases in the body to create “surface tension.” The extremely short rear overhang and the neatly integrated rear bumper, plus KIA’s polygon grille, create a handsome vehicle.

Like its Hyundai fraternal twin, Sportage is an IIHS Top Safety Pick, which is quite an accomplishment.

Sportage EX is the first Korean I would recommend as a cross-shop to anyone looking at a Honda CR-V or other such compact CUV. It’s really that good.

Coda: KIA Sorento EX AWD

We swapped our Sportage EX AWD for an equally luxed-out KIA Sorento EX AWD. And wow, did Sorento show just how quickly the Koreans are evolving. Sorento is fairly well screwed together, and is a more practical design than the smaller Sportage, but the Sportage is a holistic design that works, whereas Sorento is a deeply compromised vehicle that I would not recommend. Yet little more than a year separates the introduction of the Sorento from the Sportage. These guys are learning quickly.

I knew I wouldn’t like the Sorento before I got it out of the parking structure, after hopping out of the nicely done Sportage. Once I was nearing the freeway entrance, I called Editor Sawyer to share my disgust and first impressions. Having been on the launch of the Sorento, he knew them well. Leaving the groovy Internet firm in LA, I drove Sorento down the 405 to the 110 South, choosing to take the Vincent Thomas Bridge across Long Beach Harbor to avoid a massive traffic jam on the 405.

Sorento’s powertrain? Same engine and six-speed, but the front geometry is not sorted, so under hard throttle application the car will veer, even at highway speeds. Shoddy work. I squeezed hard on the throttle to pass a dawdler on the 110 South just before the entrance to the Vincent Thomas Bridge. The Sorento lurched. How can this be?

Sorento’s seating position? Think 1950s padded barstool. Sportage’s front chairs scoop you up, provide excellent comfort and support (hard foam padding notwithstanding), and the relationship between man and machine is well sorted. The Sorento seat feels like it’s rammed up your backside, and you feel like you’re sitting up way too high, and crowded. You do not feel integrated into the vehicle. The relationship between the seat, steering wheel and pedals is awkward at best, and I wouldn’t tolerate it for any length of time. I had other folks sit in the driver’s chair and the only ones who said it was OK were stringy little women. Go figure. Anyone much over five foot eight or nine really disliked the driving position and the seat.

Steering? Very strange “jumps” in the speed and effort (the “gain”) of the electric power steering. You’re steering into a corner, it gets tighter, you add more lock to the steering and all of a sudden you pass a threshold and the steering action changes. Miserable to drive. This not only makes it very difficult to steer this vehicle in a smooth fashion, but has you wondering what it’s going to do next.

Suspension? Boy, you get a lot of rear suspension noise. And the suspension feels arthritic. Stiff, cranky, unresponsive, combined oddly enough with a bit of slop. Think 53-year-old couch potato trying to make it as a running back. Not a pretty sight, not a reassuring feeling.

Upsides? Pretty good materials that seem well put together, but lots of pieces, just like the Sportage. Thanks to the upright roofline, the rear seat has real headroom, and we put two six footers back there to prove it out. An entirely suitable rear seat with ample foot, leg, knee, and headroom.

What does Sorento need? Short-term, some work on noise damping in the rear of the car, and serious work on the steering software. Realistically, it needs another evolution of the entire vehicle to reach the much higher standards set by the Sportage. So, shop the Sportage if you can live with the rear seat. Sorento? Uh, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. As in, if you ask me about it, I won’t tell you to visit the dealer. Sorento is not on my recommended list.