Kia Sportage (2025 – ) review

Whether you buy, finance or lease value for money is a key consideration for the Sportage, given how stiff the competition is. One important consideration is which side of the £40,000 threshold your preferred model sits, given anything beyond that figure is walloped with a hefty tax premium for the first few years of ownership . Given this adds several hundred pounds to your annual motoring costs and Sportage pricing straddles this line you need to choose carefully, and weigh up whether any fuel savings for a higher-spec full hybrid (HEV in Kia’s lingo) might be wiped out in extra tax. That might limit appeal for the (likely) more expensive plug-in to company drivers, who get a bit back from the taxman through lower CO2 and cheaper Benefit In Kind. And if all that sounds confusing … it is. Sorry!

Kia’s seven-year warranty remains a selling point for the fact it outlasts most finance terms and carries over for any future owners. It’s something Chinese brands like MG, Omoda and Changan are matching, while others like Toyota are going even further if you commit to main dealer servicing. Fair play to Kia for forcing other carmakers to up their game, the fact this Sportage is an update on a proven model only adding to the confidence levels.

It’s been a while since we drove the last Sportage but we’d swear the lane-keeping interventions we moaned about previously are a now a little smoother and less irritating. Which is progress of sorts. The false alarms we reported from the automatic emergency braking also seemed less prevalent which, again, suggests Kia has refined its safety tech. Standard front and rear parking sensors with a reversing camera are helpful real-world benefits, the top trim getting a fancier 360-view. A shame the genuinely helpful stuff like the nifty blind spot cameras and alerts are also restricted to this trim level. Bringing us full circle to that £40,000 price threshold and fact going for the extra safety tech might see you hit with extra tax. Which is doubly annoying.

SUVs and crossovers remain enduringly popular with family buyers but the Sportage, like many of its type, rattles your teeth on lumpy urban roads and at lower town speeds. It’s better on the smaller wheel options but – trust us – a conventional estate is just as practical and a lot more comfortable. If less fashionable. Pays your money and all that. There are benefits, of course, including the perceived security of sitting up higher, the fact you don’t have to bend down to strap little ones into their child seats and all the rest. And the Sportage nails it on all these scores, with a decent boot with a variable height floor, a tilting backrest on the rear bench and various other family-friendly features to help you configure the space to your needs.

The previously bewildering array of engine and trim options is now … slightly less bewildering. Which is a relief, there now being a simple three-step progression through Pure, GT-Line and GT-Line S. All but the first get Kia’s latest – and very slick – twin-screen driver display, the base model at least getting the bigger 12.3-inch central one as standard now and all with built-in connected navigation. The Kia system’s sharp graphics, logical menus and easy interface are a big selling point over the fiddly alternatives seen in many of the Chinese brands, and something we’d happily pay a little extra for. ChatGPT-powered voice control, wireless phone connection and additional driver information projected onto the windscreen on the top model are among the welcome tech upgrades, other improvements including the replacement of easily scratched gloss plastic trim with a tougher brushed finish. Details, but exactly the kind of thing you appreciate in a hard-working family car. Without getting too bogged down in spec crunching if you can stretch to it we’d say the GT-Line has enough extra kit to make it worth the money, GT-Line S really going to town with the extra luxuries.

The previous diesel option has now gone, leaving a single 1.6-litre petrol with or without hybrid assistance. This is now an either/or choice, the previous ‘mild’ hybrid now dropped in the name of cost and base models available with a manual or automatic gearbox. In this base, non-hybrid T-GDi form the engine has its work cut out, and if you’re travelling with a full load it feels overworked if you need full acceleration to join a motorway or similar. The HEV-branded full hybrids are much nicer to drive, given the added electric boost means the petrol engine doesn’t have to work as hard and the gearbox used on this version is a lot smoother. Fuel economy isn’t dazzling in any of them, the new and improved version of the Nissan Qashqai e-Power probably a little better on this score. All-wheel drive is an option on the top trim level if you need it. We’ll wager you probably don’t, unless you live somewhere snow days are a fact of life rather than a novelty. We haven’t driven the plug-in version yet, meanwhile, and will report back on that when we have!