The 2023 Kia Sportage is an all-new compact SUV that competes with the Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V, and Ford Escape. In this video, we drive a Kia Sportage Hybrid to review its positives and negatives from a family perspective. #micahdrives
We’re driving a 2023 kia sportage yes a car from the future coming up we’re going to unravel a little further a mystery that popped up in a review a couple of weeks ago but first information explosion for those who don’t know the kia sportage is a compact suv it’s also the longest running name plate in the kia repertoire of vehicles it was introduced in
1995. let us begin with interior interior thoughts i think the sportage is stylish i like the shape of the fence i like this material here that actual texture but it appears that way the door handles have an unusual shape to them everything in here is kind of specific like the vent has that shape and it’s like i don’t know why it’s shaped like that but it does
They’ve made choices it’s like an actor makes choices they have made some choices there is a lot of shiny black plastic which is filled with fingerprints the fingerprints collection abilities of this car uh take that csi and this black plastic here it’s perfectly positioned to um when the sun is at certain angles shoot right into my eye i literally had to put
My hand here just thus adding more thumb and fingerprints because it was so blinding um even with my beautiful flying eyes sunglasses on wow my exclamation was for your integration of the um advertisement not for sympathy for your predictable comment nevermind see commitments not committed and you know that’s the kind of commitment you can only get with flying
Eyes eyewear as well can we talk briefly though about the audio slash climate controls it alternates between being the hvac controls or the audio controls this button switches between them and it’s not even a button it’s just part of the flat panel so you have to aim correctly so i will note that there’s a different beep for which function you’re using audio
Climate audio climate that is helpful but i have a very but not so helpful that you didn’t that you even noticed at this point i kept forgetting which system was active so i’d attempt to turn the volume down i turned the temperature way down and then i’d just be mashing buttons i think it’s cool because they’re using very small amount of space and it creates
An uncluttered design and i think the logic is climate control it’s automatic so you’re probably just going to set your temperature to a comfortable temperature and then leave it on the audio controls that said i did the exact same thing that you did several times where i’m like uh let’s turn that audio down and then the temperature goes down to like the lowest
Possible setting so i don’t know what do you guys think about this as an interface you know i do have a solution to that though what is it get the bass lx trim it doesn’t have it has a steiner climate interface and a different audio setup with knobs let’s talk about space in that there is a lot of it sitting in the second row behind my preferred front seat
Position my knee room is outstanding same thing with headroom i’m very comfortable and i could even sit in that middle position the little hump in the middle there is pretty low and very wide and flat so you can set your feet on top of it without issue i love the recline and a lot of different angles to choose from yeah this is a very comfortable vehicle by
Size and functionality and then behind that we’ve got cargo space 39.6 cubic feet that is with the floor in the lowest position if you move it up to its highest position then you’ve got a little extra underfloor storage there you’ve got releases in the back so the seats just flip down and uh in the under floor area if you pull off the little side covers there’s
A wide enough space to put the cargo cover down there what about getting the car seat in and out the latch points don’t have any sort of cover so it’s very easy to install the door opening was adequate there’s a integrated step that was very handy kiddo any issues getting in and out of this thing whoa you didn’t spot a windowless white van no issues getting in
And out one other detail that i think is really cool is that we live in a mountain community where we’ll have snow and mud during the winter time and that stuff collects on the lower portion of the cars that we drive and what’s great about the sportages design is that the doors cover the sills so the doors get covered in mud and snow and then when you open the
Door the sill is clean so your pants or whatever you’re wearing don’t get covered in mud as for safety neither the iihs or nhtsa have yet to review the 2023 kia sportage but it does have six airbags and a generous suite of active driver assists including lane keeping assist and automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection uh family what do
We think is the kia sportage family friendly family friendly yes very family friendly rear window test all the way down all the way down arm rest test i’m driving at a comfortable eight and four and my elbows are firmly on both the inboard and the outboard armrest they’re not squooshy but they’re also not abrasive they’re like firm and supportive but yielding
I’m gonna go full marks inboard and full marks outboard nicely done sportage hey have you subscribed to our channel yet if you haven’t please do uh if you’d like to see more of these kinds of videos um where we review cars as a family plus the occasional helicopter video more of those might appear in your feed if you’d like to subscribe moving on we’re to style
Let me quickly thank the sponsor for today’s video flying eyes sunglasses these are not like normal sunglasses they’re made out of a special material called resilimide that makes them very durable and bendable you can do things like that and that enables them to be exceptionally light and exceptionally thin here on the temples and that is really helpful because
Then you can put them under a headset when you’re let’s say flying a helicopter or you can put it under a helmet when you’re on a motorcycle or driving a race car and it just makes them extremely comfortable in your day-to-day life eddie wears the ophthalmic line which has her prescription in it and they’ve got a really cool feature as well they have removable
Magnetic tinted lenses so you can either wear them outdoors or inside where you spend most of your time are you ready to live an action-packed lifestyle inside and you need aviation grade eyewear to do so if so click the link in the description below use the promo code mica to save 10 on flying eyes i don’t know if it’s the particular paint color or the design but
I find the sportage very visually striking and appealing i like how these sides have like an organic curvy quality to them but also accentuated by some very crisp lines on the rear view mirror and the hood and along the side and i love the diamond pattern on the three-quarter window let’s not forget the boomerang led elements on the nose i don’t know if there’s
Many parts of the outside that have not been styled yeah that’s a really good way to put it the danger is over styling the vehicle and yet i don’t know how it’s going to age but in the sportage’s case i think right now i really like how it looks you mentioned the shadow matte gray paint and i agree it’s super cool it’s like a little bit sparkly but it’s got that
Matte finish it’s only 600 bucks so that’s pretty cheap for a very distinct paint scheme i’m going to sneeze now but sneezing will not stop me from telling you that it requires special care you are required to wash it by hand with soft mitts you can’t use any wax or anything like that because that’s bad for the paint and you have to use mat specific cleaners to
Clean the car for how we live in such a potentially messy environment and with no time for washing cars we probably wouldn’t go with this but you probably should what do you guys think do you like the styling of the kia sportage if yes if no tell us in the comments section if you’re curious what we’re doing between youtube videos you can give us a follow over
On instagram in motion driving the sportage home on the freeway i noticed that the suspension felt to me a little underdamped which is that you’d hit a bump and it would kind of be bouncy and it didn’t feel like the suspension was necessarily as controlled as i would prefer that said i do find interior noise to be quite manageable and i like driving it around
There’s a light easy quality to the steering it feels not necessarily sporty but casual and agile as noted in the information explosion we’re driving the hybrid version one thing i like about the hybrid it doesn’t feel like a hybrid if you drive like a toyota hybrid it’s got what’s called an ecvt and basically there’s a combination they have an electric motor
And that changes the ratios in relation to the engine so you’ll have this when you accelerate it sounds like the engine is racing whereas this version of a hybrid is teamed with a six-speed automatic transmission so it feels very normal to a traditional car it just happens to be electrified as well and gets great fuel economy and you also get that instantaneous
Electric torque when you accelerate for a hybrid i think the sportage operates very seamlessly i really enjoy driving it that’s what i think but what does sweetie think evie’s driving that was weird uh so what do you feel when you drive the sportage i feel pretty comfortable the brakes feel a little bit touchy when i’m slowing down but i know that’s really
Common in a hybrid yeah sometimes hybrids when they’ve got regenerative brakes and friction brakes and they’re trying to merge those two forces they can be a little bit weird so i found the exact same thing touchy brakes that you would not have in the non-hybrid version as for visibility the pillars are thick but not abnormally so i do wonder if there was a gt40
Over my right shoulder if i’d be able to see it because the windows are a little bit narrow for the most part you can probably see around no worse than most cars last question by size does this feel manageable yes i like a smaller vehicle and this is that isn’t the sweetie sweet spot yes cool i think you’re having a pretty positive experience here enough of that
Overall i think the kia sportage is a very nice driving suv i would happily daily it let me very quickly thank the folks who support us over on patreon thank you patrons we love uh hanging with you guys over there and we love giving you guys early access to our videos you guys are the best onward to emotion factor what’s the emotion factory here it feels very
Futuristic from like the 80s futurism of the infotainment system to the future futurism the exterior i love the new logo they have by the way the kia emblem that they have on the front they’ve taken a category that’s traditionally been defined by pragmatism and then they’ve infused a ton of like visual interest that makes it feel like a much more emotional kind
Of purchase what do you guys think are you feeling the emotions here if you’re feeling emotionally drawn to buy a kia sportage of your very own i’m guessing you’re going to need to sell your car first if you’re curious what your current car is worth or how much you should pay for your next kia sportage click the link in the description below and let kelly blue
Book be your pricing guide continuing forward to remarks remark number one infotainment this is the larger 12.25 inch screen which comes on every trim except the base model the base model is an eight inch screen and as we’ve talked about in many kias the base 8-inch unit for any kia will have wireless apple carplay and android auto and then when you go to the
Larger screen screen screen i sounded like the guy who does manage in the princess bride when you move to the larger screen you’ll notice that you have to have a wire to get your phone connected via smartphone integration apple carplay android auto that is what it is how do you find the interface the interface looks awesome i do find the icons identically styled
But the menus are well laid out yeah a little bit of distinction with colors would make it less visually appealing but more functional exactly in total i think this works well let’s move on to what we teased in the very beginning of the video which is that we’re going to unravel a little bit further in automotive mystery that emerged a few weeks ago we were
Driving the kia k5 and i noticed that on the steering wheel controls every little switch here is textured except for the track switch and i i wonder is this a mistake did they put the wrong switch in here who are you here we are in another kia and it’s the exact same thing so now we know this is intentional so the next question is why why is it like this what
Is it about switching your track forward and back that demands you not have a textured switch i’m going to dig into this but if you know the answer to why this one switch is untextured please tell us in the comments a couple more interesting elements of the sportage it’s got um super fancy cup holders i like that it makes this space usable for something long
That you want to put there or if you’re using it for a couple there you can pop them out do you notice anything odd about the windshield no well that’s because you have bad vision but if you have really excellent vision and you look very very closely you might see that integrated into the windshield is a small network of wires that squiggle back and forth can
You see them maybe it’s kind of a neat thing it heats the windshield which would be really helpful in our wintry climate up here however when i see it i can’t unsee it everywhere i go i just see this like little um lattice work of electric wires i’m sorry you’re cursed with such excellent vision it’s my burden to bear one other element that we really like that
Kia incorporates into many of their vehicles is the lead vehicle alert system where if you’re stopped somewhere it will let you know when the vehicle ahead is departing so you’ll never be the jerk that stops other cars from getting through the light because you were on twitter all right everybody strap in we’re going to talk about the engine choices your basic
Sportage has a 2.5 liter gasoline engine with an 8-speed automatic transmission you can get it in front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive then there’s the 1.6 liter turbocharged hybrid like we’re driving that comes with a six-speed automatic front-wheel drive is available on the lx but if you go up to the higher trims then it’s all all-wheel drive and then there is
A plug-in hybrid with that same 1.6 liter turbocharged engine and six-speed automatic transmission combination which makes a little bit more horsepower and as far as i can tell only comes with all-wheel drive and it has a 34-mile ev range which means for your daily commutes you might use zero gasoline speaking of all-wheel drive if you want to add it it costs
1800 and it adds a snow mode to the many drive modes plus one inch in ride height sweetie yes can i give you a trim recommendation yes here comes i would recommend going with the ex trim that adds smart key access which i won’t live without 18 inch wheels the 12.3 inch infotainment screen dual zone automatic climate control faux leather a power driver’s seat
Rear usb c ports blind spot warning and safe exit assist which warns you not to get out of the car if the car is approaching from behind all of that is only two thousand dollars more than the base lx though i would consider upgrading to the ex hybrid which comes standard with all-wheel drive and if you compare it to the gasoline all-wheel drive version it’s only
Twelve hundred dollars more and yet it’s thirty six percent more efficient which means you’re gonna pay back that twelve hundred dollar premium really quickly especially with fuel prices being so high the one we’re driving is the sx prestige trim and that has all the stuff like ventilated front seats blind spot monitoring in the gauge cluster a 360 degree camera
System a panoramic roof and a smart lift gate that automatically opens after three seconds if you’re standing near it with the key in your pocket the last trim worth considering is the x pro which is all new for 2023 it’s a little bit more off-roady it’s got all-terrain tires they’ve re-tuned the drive modes to accommodate those bfg all-terrain tires as for the
Competitive set it is the names you would expect honda crv which is all new for 2023 toyota rav4 ford escape and subaru forester which we reviewed recently if you’d like to see that video click up here did we miss any remarks if so leave them in the comment section synopsis in thinking about the essence of the kia sportage it makes choices that reminded me of
Brad pitt and how he always eats food in every movie have you noticed that when he’s acting he’s also eating food that’s an interesting choice i don’t know if it’s a good choice or a bad choice but it is specific to me the kia sportage is the brad pitt eating food acting of compact suvs if you’d like to see more of these kinds of videos where we review cars as
A family plus the occasional helicopter video feel free to subscribe if you’d like to see what we’re doing between youtube videos you can give us a follow over on instagram family i think we did a pretty good job reviewing the kia sportage may i have a five that’s a good five a five and you come get your high five you
Transcribed from video
2023 Kia Sportage | Family Review By Micah Muzio