For the past year Emma and I have been sharing one car: a 2016 Holden Astra. It was a decent car to drive and had CarPlay so we were by and large very happy with it. We made one car work for us.
About 4 months ago after a trip I took with some mates driving out to Healesville the Astra engine started to have some problems. At idle and low speeds (anything below 60 kilometres an hour) the engine would vibrate violently. We were concerned and took the car to our local mechanic who essentially told us
not sure, try putting some higher quality fuel in it
which was a solution that did not work.
The mechanic was also hinting (without being explicit) for us to take the car to Holden and have them check it under Australian consumer warranty.
We did this and thankfully we were covered for the costs of the fix which turned out to be a cracked engine piston.
The moral of this whole story is that we completely lost trust in the Astra. We decided to sell the Astra and buy a new car that we'd hopefully keep for the next 10 years.
We looked around at a few different options.
These were our thoughts:
- Toyota RAV4: too expensive and the wait time was too long, right size
- Suzuki Vitara: a little too small
- Hyundai Kona: too small as well
- Kia Sportage: top end of price but affordable, right size, could get one in 2 weeks
As you can see from the above the 2022 Kia Sportage was the winner.
We had some excellent service from Sam at Bay City Auto Group and ended up paying $37990 for the car.
We've been driving the car now for about 2 months.
My thoughts so far on the car are largely positive. It drives smooth and feels like it's well built.
We ended up not getting too much of a say on the colour but I think the silver looks good.
We're getting about ~600 kilometres on a full tank of fuel (we just have the standard unleaded engine). I'd say it's comparable fuel economy to the Astra.
It's a heavier car compared to the Astra so it does take that extra split second to go from 0 to 60. It's definitely not slow though; if you have to put your foot down you can get some speed.
Driving the car about 4 hours on a freeway yesterday made me really appreciate the cruise control and front sensors. It's your standard cruise control where you press a button and the car stays at that speed but it can also sense how far the car in front of you is. When you get too close to the car in front it will automatically slow down to maintain a safe distance. I've got it set to about 3 car lengths.
The interior is what excites me the most.
Firstly, it supports CarPlay and the centre screen is much higher resolution and larger than the Astra.
What has been a bit of a disappointment is that the CarPlay connection has often been randomly dropping out. You'll be driving along listening to music and using maps and then the screen will just go black and music will stop playing (or stutter). Hopefully this will get fixed at our first service.
The cup holders are large and everything in the central part of the interior feels nice. It's basic but there's no random shit that's not needed. I like the minimalism.
The wheel has your basic dials for media control which are needed as the reach to the centre screen while driving can feel a bit awkward.
It's almost like the volume knob is on the wrong side of the screen. Reaching with my left arm (whilst driving) to the volume is a stretch.
I really like what Kia did with the speed and RPM widgets where you get the actual numbers.
I'm not sold quite yet on the button as a handbrake. It's something that takes a bit of getting used to.
The weird part about this is that you still have a key for ignition. You'd think if you had the button handbrake you'd also get a button for ignition. Maybe because this is the base model Sportage this is done to cut costs?
Another minor complaint I have is the lane assist sensors. Maybe I'm just a bad driver but I feel like the sensors are a little bit too sensitive. I get a lot of beeps when driving. This can be turned off which I'm considering doing.
The reverse camera is excellent. It's super high quality (I assume at least 720p) and has a nice wide view for you to look at when reversing.
The car has amazing space. In every seat I feel like I have a lot of legroom (I'm 6'1).
The boot is perfect for transporting big items (or furry friends 🐕🦺). We've already squeezed an outdoor table into the boot which whilst it was an extremely tight fit it's amazing we could actually do it.
Another thing we need to get checked by Kia at service is the back seatbelt sensor. For some reason the middle seat thinks that a person is sitting there (even when its empty) so we've had to fasten that belt to stop the sensor from beeping.
Overall I'm extremely happy with the car. I like its basic feature set (there's nothing I don't need) and the way it drives.
Time will tell how reliable it is. I see a lot on the roads right now which is a good sign that all the kinks should be figured out.