2020 Kia Sorento vs Volkswagen Tiguan

What's the difference?

The new Kia Sorento is expected to arrive before the end of 2020. If you can wait (and I would) you’ll be buying an all-new SUV which will look modern and have the latest tech and come with even better advanced safety equipment.

That said, Kia will be doing some very tempting deals on the current Sorento in ‘run-out’ as dealers clear the way for the new version. And that’s where you could pick up this seven-seater SUV, which set the benchmark in the segment, at a bargain price.

The Tiguan Allspace is a slick, refined package that justifies its higher-than-rivals entry price with a great list of inclusions.

It’s a bit odd that its hero feature, the extra seating, is one of its least compelling attributes, but the extra internal space makes it one of the most practical mid-sizers you can get your hands on.

I remember when this current Sorento was unveiled in 2014 . It was the latest Kia, in a range-wide overhaul, to be reshaped by former Audi designer Peter Schreyer, and stunned pretty much everybody with its high-end looks.

That the Sorento still look gorgeous six years later is testament to his styling guidance. Sure, the rounded front-end is beginning to date as the faces of many SUVs move to a more chiseled and aggressive look, but the tailgate, with its angular tail-light treatment, is very much ‘on trend’ now.

The red brake calipers are a dead giveaway that the Sorento you’re looking at is a GT-Line.

Where the Sorento is showing its age the most is inside. The screen is getting small by today’s standards, and the digital instrument cluster isn’t as sophisticated others in the segment.

There's also the climate control with its orange LCD display, there’s no head-up display, and the dash styling and its use of dark spongy materials looks old now.

Yet, the interior is stylish, plush and premium, with a superb fit and finish. Another reason why the Sorento has been a standout all these years.

If the GT-Line was a Christmas tree you’d barely be able to see its branches for the decorations. There’s gloss black trim around the console and the front and rear doors, alloy pedal covers, LED interior lights, GT-Line embossed seats and illuminated alloy door sills.

The GT-Line comes with a perforated leather steering wheel with paddle shifters, too.   

How big is the Sorento? Let’s look at the dimensions. The Sorento is 4800mm end-to-end, 1890mm wide and 1690mm tall. That’s not as huge as a Mazda CX-9, but still large.

The more I spent time with it, the more I appreciated the Tiguan's slick, understated styling. Volkswagen’s design is pleasingly consistent across its range right now, and the Tiguan just looks like a big Golf – in a really good way.

The blending of curves around the edges and strong angles down the sides and roofline is masterful, and the silver highlights delicately sprinkled across the exterior trim add just enough shine to stop it looking too simplistic.

Overall it will be less controversial than the majority of its competition, while also looking decidedly further upmarket.

Perhaps the Allspace's best trick is the way it hides its dimensions. It doesn’t look huge, and you have to look really closely to spot the difference between the Allspace and the regular length car.

Inside it’s mostly great, too. The indistinguishable-from-a-Golf theme continues, but that means decent plastics, leather-trimmed touch points and well-built switchgear.

It’s inoffensive, but also hardly flashy. The fake aluminium trim and odd mix of gloss plastics is nicely put together, but overall a bit plain. The further back you go (seat-wise) the more basic the trim gets. More on that in the practicality section.

The Sorento is a proper seven-seat SUV in that even adults my (191cm) size can sit in the third row comfortably. And that’s with the second row adjusted so I can sit behind my driving position without my knees touching the back of the front seat.

That said, nothing beats a people mover such as the Kia Carnival for a third row with easy access, and without that claustrophobic feeling that creeps in when I sit in the third-row of any seven-seat SUV.

On board the Sorento are  three 12-volt outlets (two up front and one second row), and two USB ports (in the first and second rows). Both are Type-A, rather than the newer, and increasingly common Type-C version.

Many SUVs now have more USB ports, and some all the way back to the third row, such as in the Holden Acadia.

Climate control is dual-zone for the front but the second and third rows have directional air vents with fan speed adjusters.  

Cabin storage is good with a large centre console bin, cupholders everywhere including the third row, and big door pockets

Those rear doors are large and tall, and open wide making for an easy entry and exit, although I haven’t met a seven-seat SUV which is easy for me to climb into the third row, and the Sorento is no exception.

If you have all rows of seating in place the boot area has a cargo capacity of 142 litres, but if you fold the third row flat that increases to 605 litres.

The cabin might be overwhelmingly grey, but it’s a practical place to be. And while the Allspace has its letdowns, it almost makes up for them with some surprises.

Starting with the front seats, there’s plenty of room in the deep foot well as well for arms, and head clearance is excellent.

Storage comes in the form of massive bottle holders in the doors, some trick cupholders in the centre console (which can be folded away to make a big storage trench) and a bay under the climate controls which hosts USB, aux, and 12-volt ports.

Bonus storage comes in the form of big roof-mounted boxes, a decent centre console box and a big glove box, too. Ergonomics are great and there a dials for everything! Full marks in the front, then.

In the second-row things are great, too. Again, there are big pockets in the doors, pockets on the back of the seats, a drop-down armrest and in a rare addition, in-flight service trays on the back of the seats. I’m not sure what good they are for eating or typing on… but a cool addition nonetheless.

The second row seats are as comfortable as the first row, and they are also on rails, allowing you to max out legroom, or make fitting child seats easier. Or, if the third row is in use, you can minimize it to help third row dwellers out.

The second row also gets its own climate control zone with controls, adjustable vents, as well as a USB and 12-volt outlet. Great marks for the second row, too!

Sadly, things are less good over in the third row. Despite the clear efforts VW has gone to imake the Tiguan chassis accommodate an extra row, it just hasn’t panned out for passengers.

Thanks to the second row on rails, and the large door aperture, clambering in isn’t too hard, but once you’re there the space is not sufficient for an adult.

Even with the second row moved forward significantly, there seems to be nowhere for my feet to go, seat comfort is best described as ‘basic’ and headroom was not sufficient for my 182cm height.

Children under the age of 15 are perhaps best suited to this scenario. There are no air vents, and the trim around the edges is a bit hard.

The upswing of the Allspace’s extended cabin though, is the gratuitous amount of storage. Even with the third row up, you’ll get a hatchback-sized 230L.

The boot is a whopping 700L with the third row stowed, and rows three and two stowed you’ll get 1775L – or enough for an entire set of six dining chairs, as I discovered on my test.

We had the Tiguan Allspace in 110 TSI Comfortline trim, which is toward the entry-level. At $40,150 it competes with high-end offerings from Honda (CR-V VTi-L - $38,990) and Nissan (X-Trail ST-L $39,300). It will soon also face competition from Mercedes-Benz when its new GLB-Class lands in mid-2020.

Although not the highest-spec Allspace you can get, the Comfortline still punches above its mid-spec weight when it comes to equipment.

Things like an electric tailgate, LED headlights and tri-zone climate control are well and truly premium bits of kit.

Those match well with 18-inch alloy wheels, an 8.0-inch multimedia touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support as well as built-in nav, auto folding wing mirrors, keyless entry and push start, and a rechargeable torch in the luggage area.

You can even option the front-drive base car we had here with things like leather seats and a panoramic sunroof, although frustratingly, adaptive cruise control is part of a $1600 ‘Assistance Package.'

More on the safety inclusions later in this review.

Regardless, the Tiguan looks and feels like the semi-premium package it should be considering its price premium over rivals. Just be aware it gets expensive quickly when you start ticking option boxes or going after all-wheel drive, for example.

If you want an all-wheel drive Sorento GT-Line then you’ll need the version with the diesel engine, as tested. There is a petrol version but it’s a front-wheel drive SUV.

The 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine makes 147kW and 441Nm, which is plenty of grunt and you’ll have a braked towing capacity of 2000kg at your disposal. An eight-speed auto does a seamless job of shifting gears.

I found the engine quiet and smooth for a diesel, and while the power output may look low compared to the V6 petrol’s 336kW the torque is more than enough to pull this large SUV.

The entry-level Allspace 110TSI comes with a 1.4-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine.

It produces 110kW/250Nm which probably sounds a little light-on for such a big SUV (driving section spoiler: it is) although, isn’t too bad considering Honda’s similarly sized CR-V gets by with a very similar powertrain.

This is the only Allspace with a six-speed dual-clutch auto. Higher-spec 2.0-litre all-wheel drive models get a seven-speed instead.

Kia says the 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine in the Sorento GT-Line AWD we tested uses 7.2L/100km over a combination of open and urban driving.

My testing took in 152km of mainly suburban and city driving, and the trip computer was telling me it was using an average of 9.3L/100km. That’s not bad at all considering there weren’t many motorway kays in there.

Those frustrated that they can’t have the GT-Line with all-wheel drive and a petrol engine can take some comfort knowing the V6 uses about 3.0L/100km more fuel than the diesel engine.

The Allspace 110TSI drinks a minimum of 95RON petrol, with a claimed/combined ] of 6.6L/100km.

Our real-life test produced a much higher 9.1L/100km. I expected it to be higher than the claimed figure given the extra weight of the Allspace, but perhaps not that much higher.

The 110TSI also has a slightly smaller fuel tank than the 2.0L versions at 58L.

For a large seven-seat SUV the Sorento is easy and enjoyable to drive compared to many of its rivals.

The Holden Acadia feels like an enormous truck, the Nissan Pathfinder is so floaty it can be like a boat bobbing about at sea sometimes, while the Mazda CX-9 is excellent to drive but the visibility isn’t great.

The Sorento has none of these problems . It’s easy to see out of, has Australian-tuned suspension, which is comfortable but offers impressive handling, and feels a lot smaller to drive than it looks.

If there are any negatives it’s that the diesel isn’t as smooth as the petrol engine and has a small amount of lag in its response, but those aren’t deal breakers.   

The Allspace offers up a very VW drive experience – and it’s mostly good.

Many of the main characteristics are just like a Golf or Polo. Accurate steering which is pleasantly light for city-slicking, an overall comfort suspension tune which is great for soaking up potholes, and an impressively quiet cabin.\

What’s not so great is the dollops of turbo lag served up by this engine. It’s more annoying than the same engine in a Golf, because the simple physics of moving such a large object lends itself to a few precious milliseconds of delay.

I found myself pressing the pedal further out of frustration, only to have the front wheels spin when the torque finally arrived a full second later.

It’s no athlete then. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be, but if you want a drive experience without these characteristics you’ll need to shop even further up the price scale to the 2.0L versions.

The six-speed dual clutch is a slick shifter though, and unlike previous iterations of this ‘box it has almost no jerkiness at low speed.

Overall, the suspension tune was good, but there are moments where it feels extra-stiff around the rear.

I’m not entirely sure why I noticed this more over say, a regular Tiguan, but all I can report is the rear seat passengers might notice it on larger potholes.

As a city-slicker, it’s narrow but long body also betrays its size, making it feel hatch-like to navigate around tight streets. Admittedly, this did not quite extend to parking and three-point turns.

Otherwise it’s a quiet ride, and once you’re at freeway speeds one of the best places to be in the segment.

The base car scores active safety refinements which include auto emergency braking (AEB – works at freeway speeds with pedestrian detection), lane keep assist, and park assist.

The Tiguan has seven airbags, with curtain airbags which cover even the third row. The expected stability and brake controls are also present.

The safety offering can be upped by ticking the ‘Driver Assistance Package’ box ($1600 – worth it) which includes blind spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, adaptive cruise control, as well as ‘traffic jam assist’ (allows the cruise control to stop and go at traffic), and ‘emergency assist’ (will try to alert a non-responsive driver then drive into a shoulder if no response is received).

It’s a good standard set of standard features, but truly impressive with the affordable assistance pack.

The Sorento is covered by Kia’s seven-year/unlimited kilometre warranty.

Servicing is recommended at 12 month/15,000km intervals and is capped at $346 for the first service, $555 for the second, $404 for the third, $707 for the fourth, $389 for the fifth, $665 for the sixth and $413 for the seventh/70,000km visit.

Volkswagen has updated its warranty to match mainstream automakers at five-years/unlimited kilometres, so it’s on-par with major Japanese rivals there.

Servicing can be packaged up (and bundled in on finance) at the time of purchase, with a three-year package costing $1350 and a five-year package costing $2500.

We’d absolutely recommend sticking to the five-year package if you intend to keep the vehicle for the warranty period. You do legitimately save money on what VW calls ‘servicing RRP.’