Surging Kia Strikes Again

Kia Motors America says its upcoming '03 Sorento — on sale late next month — should make its mark in the U.S. midsize SUV segment just like the still-sold-out Sedona did in the minivan market a year ago.

Expect Sorento to stand the segment on its ear, then.

With the all-new Sorento, Kia plans to follow faithfully the winning Sedona formula: deliver a high-specification vehicle at a jaw-dropping low price.

There's a bit more to it than that, of course. But for the moment, consider the ramifications of a fiendishly refined, body-on-frame midsize SUV roughly the same size as a Jeep Grand Cherokee or Nissan Pathfinder. One that features a 3.5L DOHC V-6, automatic transmission and a host of amenities, all of which are standard even at the base LX trim level.

A no-excuses midsize SUV, by all accounts — but with a starting price of less than $20,000.

Move to the EX trim level, add “on-demand” 4-wheel drive, leather and the few other available niceties and a fully optioned Sorento might top out at $27,000.

Any Sorento will be $6,000 to $7,000 less than its similarly equipped key competitors, says Peter M. Butterfield, KMA executive vice-president and COO.

Following close on the heels of the runaway hit Sedona, Sorento proves “Kia is a car company to be reckoned with,” he says.

After a day driving the Sorento on the roads and over some trails high above Coeur d'Alene, an idyllic northern Idaho resort town, Butterfield's confidence becomes infectious — Sorento is startlingly refined, enjoys a fully competitive drivetrain, is handsomely (if perhaps a bit derivatively) styled and appears assembled to a fine standard.

Sorento unequivocally deserves to cost more than it does.

The same things were said of last year's Sedona, which proved a wakeup call for the industry's established minivan players. In the eight short years since launching its initial U.S. offering, the almost-pitiable '94 Sephia, Kia has made enormous strides in quality and performance while retaining its all-conquering trump card: a price so low it commands your attention.

It's certainly hard to imagine Kia won't easily move the 50,000 Sorentos forecast for the first full model year.

Kia says the 5-passenger Sorento (for now, no 7-seat variant is planned) has more interior passenger volume than Grand Cherokee, Pathfinder or even the Toyota Highlander, which Kia also considers a potential competitor — even though Highlander's unibody construction and basic front-drive layout separates it from the body-on-frame, rear-drive foundations of Sorento, Cherokee and Pathfinder.

In other critical exterior dimensions, Sorento is either larger than or close to its named competitors, all of which form a group slightly smaller and less voluminous than the current standard-bearers in the midsize SUV segment, Ford Explorer and Chevrolet TrailBlazer.

Sorento's 3.5L DOHC V-6, the same engine used in the Sedona, produces 192 hp and 217 lb.-ft. (294 Nm) of torque. The 4-speed electronically controlled automatic is the only available transmission. Rear-wheel drive is the base configuration.

Randy Maurstad, director of product planning, says Kia expects about 70% of sales to go to the EX model and about 60% of all Sorentos to be equipped with 4-wheel drive.

“What we'd like to see Kia stand for, long-term, is quality, value and safety,” says Butterfield.

Critics used to believe Kia couldn't possibly deliver all of those attributes, particularly when Japanese auto makers with well-established reputations for providing high quality at reasonable cost haven't been able to come within shouting distance of Kia's pricing.

But Kia's dizzying sales climb and the one-two punch of Sedona and the new Sorento sends the message that Kia may indeed have forged a new standard.

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