Kia Sportage

Refreshed engine line-up and subtle tweaks aim to keep this big-selling family SUV on top On sale Autumn Price from £30,885

- DOUG REVOLTA [e-mail]

THE KIA SPORTAGE is one of the UK’s bestselling cars, and it’s also very good indeed. Good enough to have been our Family SUV of the Year for three consecutive years. This facelift, then, might leave you scratching your head.

You see, whereas the previous entry-level Sportage engine was a mild hybrid, that’s now gone in favour of a regular turbocharged petrol engine with no hybrid technology whatsoever. That seems a strange and rather backward move, because mild hybrid technology has become increasingly commonplace in today’s cars as a means of reducing emissions and improving fuel economy. Still, the ‘new’ entry-level engine happens to be the same 1.6 T-GDi petrol that was previously our pick of the Sportage lineup before it was discontinued.

Meanwhile, the regular hybrid Sportage now has 29bhp more than before, along with an updated six-speed automatic gearbox. A brief test drive told us that the new gearbox has sharper responses, particularly when shifting down through the gears.