2009 Kia Borrego: Spring Break Part 1
In one of the Suburban Dad’s annual traditions, spring break is time for a family vacation. This year, we headed to Southern California for a week and lined up a brand-new 2009 Kia Borrego as our mode of ground transportation.
As a longtime Kia driver (I bought my Sedona back in 2004), I was eager to try out the 2009 Borrego and see how Kia’s entry in the three-row SUV segment compared to the Sedona as a family-hauler. The Borrego feels fresher in many ways, but in crucial areas my wife, kids and I definitely prefer the Sedona.
First off, I loved the look of the Borrego. Painted a dark blue, it says truck-based SUV in a way that will definitely appeal to a lot of men, though my wife liked it, too. Inside, the interior is attractive, with soft-touch surfaces in and around the dash. The leather seats were very comfortable and supportive, and visibility was great.
In addition, much like last summer’s vacation with four three-row SUVs, the Borrego did very well with cargo space. I really liked the 50/50-split third row, as there was enough space for all our bags, but still enough room for one of the kids to sit back there without feeling too cramped. Even with all our stuff packed in the car, visibility remained good.
As long as the Borrego wasn’t moving, we were pretty comfortable.
The downside of making a body-on-frame SUV in this day and age is that the ride is rough. Very rough. Rough in a feel-every-pebble-on-the-road kind of way. Compared with our Sedona, which has a unibody frame, the ride was very uncomfortable on California’s roads — though, in fairness, while it’s easy to think California roads would be nice and smooth given they don’t go through any winterish hell, the Golden State has really let its roads go since I lived there. They were as pothole-laden and cracked as any Midwestern highway. That didn’t help our experience at all.
Because most automakers have moved three-row vehicles to a unibody frame — even the next Ford Explorer will be unibody — it’s a little retro (in a bad way) for Kia to take the body-on-frame approach with the Borrego. That’s not the only approach that seems out of date in the car. There’s only easy access to the third row from the passenger side of the car. What’s really odd is that the Hyundai Veracruz — which admittedly doesn’t share much with the Borrego, but it is in the Kia/Hyundai family — offers perhaps the best third-row access in the business, from either side of the car, complete with hand-holds and pull-back straps on the second-row seats. Sadly, none of those innovations grace the Borrego.
One great note about the driving experience is the Borrego’s turning radius. It was simply amazing — far better than what I get in my Sedona. I was able to navigate through really tight Los Angeles parking lots with no danger of sideswiping other cars. Most of the three-row SUVs I’ve tested have driven me nuts with their poor turning radii; this was a welcome surprise. I’ve often told my wife that our Sedona turns like a water buffalo. The Borrego shone in this regard.
In terms of its overall drive, the Borrego was above average. It had more than enough power, even with the V-6 engine. While there were no poor weather conditions in which we could test out the four-wheel drive, the Borrego had nicely responsive handling and steering. I felt like I had a good sense of the road (maybe too good a sense at times); the steering was neither too light nor too heavy, and acceleration was acceptable, if a little noisy at times.
The downside, though, was the mileage. In very heavy city driving, we averaged 15.4 mpg over the first few days in the car. By the end of the week, with a long highway stretch thrown in, we raised that average to 16.3 mpg. With gas at only about $2.15 a gallon that wasn’t too painful, but we went through 40 gallons in a week. If gas prices had been at last summer’s levels, that would have been hard on the wallet.
By the end of the week, and especially after spending three hours in the car driving to and from Santa Barbara, the kids had voted: They much prefer our Sedona. They were happy enough with the technology in the car (more on that in Part 2), but they felt the Borrego’s ride was like a roller coaster, and not in a good way.
2009|Kia|Borrego
