Video: 2015 Kia Sedona - First Look

Even the head restraints kind of pillow upward to cradle your neck if you want, this isn't the backseat of a Mercedes S class or a rolls Royce Phantom or something like that. Believe it or not, this is actually a minivan and we're here at the 2014 New York international auto show. Checking it out. It is the fully redesigned Kia Sedona come along and look. Kia calls the new Sedona, a quote, all new mid-size multipurpose vehicle end quote. It's a minivan. Anyway, a few interesting cues up front here, horizontal headlights replace, kind of the vertical ones on the outgoing Sedona grill kind of stays the same, a little bit of indentations on the upper and lower section. It's a very unique grill on SX and SXL versions. Those are the two upper trims. They also get interesting bumper work here, some Chrome around the fog lights, which are differently shaped here. Wheels measure 17, 18, or all the way up to 19 inches in diameter. That incidentally is the largest wheel you can get on a minivan. Tell the other parents that at soccer practice get around back, not a whole lot going on there. Even most minivan makers try to stylize the rear a little bit, whether it's the Honda Odyssey with its kind of robotic look or the Toyota Sienna with kind of, it's fanned out tail lights, not a whole lot going on here. Not sure why kid didn't do more. Very horizontal shelf like dashboard here. Pretty good material quality though. And the controls kind of sit in sort of groupings where you would expect them to be things like radio knobs up here below that front climate control and finally rear climate control below that big issue here is the center tunnel. Now a lot of minivans kind of clear out this space. You have a lot of storage here on the floor not so much in the Sedona. They put the gear shift down here, which is kind of an unusual location for a lot of minivans. Of course, there is plenty of storage behind that though. There's a very deep storage bin here in the center with a couple different layers. There's a big glove compartment and a second smaller glove compartment above that lots of storage areas along here in the doors. Kia's Uvo system, that's standing for your voice. Pretty easy to use we found in past Kias with Uvo it's here. It's got a lot of features. It's got Siri eyes, free capability. It's got iTunes and Google play features. It's also got a few parental controls, things like geo-fencing and a curfew alert though. I got to say that there's kind of an automatic feature, that's going to bring your teen driver home and it's called, Hey, you went out in a minivan tonight. You've already seen the story of space in the second row. Third row space depends on where that second row sits and its tracks headroom back there a little bit tight in that third row. Again, let's take a look at cargo. Third row seats fold into the floor. Here pretty standard for minivans. The second row seats actually collapsed all the way forward. That only works if you get the seats without the leg cushions, the sort of ottomans that come up, these collapse all the way forward, they give you a little bit more storage space. The Toyota Sienna has kind of a similar setup. There they are not removable and they don't fold completely into the floor. They fold down, but they don't fold all the way into the floor. Like Chrysler stone goes seats or the seats in the Nissan quest. The outgoing Sedona was one of the least expensive minivans you could buy, but that didn't seem to increase its appeal very much in 2013 for every one shopper who bought a Sedona more than 18 shoppers bought a Honda Odyssey. The redesign should help bump up Kia in the minds of family shoppers, looking for minivans, but time will tell whether they can catch up with the big guys. And a lot of that will depend on pricing, which Kia should unveil closer to the Sedona is on sale date this fall. So stay tuned.