LIVING WITH: The All-New Kia Sportage. Part 3: Safety & Handling...

In the first couple of blogs about our time with the all-new Kia Sportage we've covered a lot of aspects of the car that involves being stationary. Now for the good bit- safety and handling!

The All-New Kia Sportage - a real good-looker, superb handling..

The model we tested was the KX3 which is absolutely bristling with safety features. In particular the AWD system is really very clever. The car has a heap of sensors, that are constantly monitoring your driving, the surface of the road, the grip the car has on which wheels etc.

The car will then adjust which wheels the power goes to in accordance with where it's needed- to keep you in control and on the road. For instance- on the motorway in a straight line most of the power will be to the front wheels. This helps fuel efficiency. When cornering, the Sportage is able to deliver more power to the rear wheels as well, to give you increased grip. The power increases and decreases as and when you need it, to the wheels that need it. Clever! The car also has a button to press & use in tricky conditions (in heavy snow for example) at low speeds- delivering equal power to all wheels at once -  Proper 4X4 stuff!

The car is no slouch either, the 2.0 CRDi delivers 134bhp and the AWD system mentioned above gives a great deal of driver confidence when 'getting a wiggle on' as they say. In terms of realistic MPG, we drove it in a mixture of situations, urban, rural, motorways - managing to comfortably get over 43 MPG. Drive it carefully and it'll push up towards 50. 

The display: tells you the most efficient gear to be in and the max. speed of your road

Another feature we liked was the readout on the dash you can see in the picture above. It tells you the most efficient gear to be in for fuel economy and performance. It also tells you the maximum speed limit of the road you're driving on. Helping to keep you safe and you're licence from getting points...

We've probably saved the best safety features though until last. These really did impress us. This model of the Sportage has got quite a few cameras on it-  not just a reversing camera, but cameras that watch the road. They are capable of getting the car to warn you if you drift across the white lines without indicating- the car is making sure you're not nodding off. (This can be turned off if you like...).

What happens if you did nod off, and started to drift, yet didn't hear the warning? The Sportage will actually steer for you, and after a short period of time sound a warning to 'put your hands back on the wheel'. Driving this car really did feel like it's got your back, all the time... 

Naturally we drive sensibly, according to the conditions and not when we're tired. But - it's good to know that you're being watched, just in case....

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