New Kia Sorento interior has more premium feel

Interior - New Kia Sorento

The New Kia Sorento, which goes on sale today, comes with a more refined design giving it a premium look and feel, and more space as well as numerous new features, writes Trish Whelan.

The car's designers named their new car 'Streetwolf' during the design process. It has certainly been given a stronger on-the-road presence. But the car's sleeker look is emphasised by its increased length (+95mm to 4,780mm), reduced height (down 15mm to 1,685mm) and extra width (+5mm to 1,890mm).

However, the inside is where some of the most significant improvements have been made. It's now more stylish and more luxurious with significantly higher quality materials.

The wide cabin emphasises the interior space. This width is echoed in the wider instrument cluster, and the wrap-around shape of the dashboard. There are now more soft-touch materials for a modern luxury feel.

On a short test drive at yesterday's launch, we liked the whole interior, from the mushroom/black colour scheme to the design of the dash (quite American like). There seemed to be ample headroom for all three rows of seats (the very back two are adult sized). Legroom seemed fine, also.

Cargo space increases also with a longer cargo bay floor. Capacity is up 17.5 percent with the third row seats folded, from 515 to 605.

The car's bodyshell has also been strengthened and NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) improved with new soundproofing.

Designers also focused on improving ride comfort, high-speed stability and handling response to match the leaps forward in interior quality and NVH.

This, with a wide array of passive and active safety equipment, has led to the all-new Sorento being awarded a maximum five-star crash safety rating by Euro NCAP.