Video: 2023 Kia Sportage Review: A Comfy Compact SUV With Off-Road Aspirations

(upbeat music) What do we like about it, Aaron? Frankly, I think this has the best interior here. It is comfortable. It is stylish. I really do like the whole single panel for both the digital gauge cluster and the touchscreen. It feels almost frankly like things you see in much more expensive vehicles like from Mercedes-Benz or from Cadillac, and it works really well too, I think. Absolutely. The graphics are great. It's very easy to use, lots of helpful information, big screens. <v Aaron>Uh-huh. Big fan overall, and the interior layout is great. Very comfortable inside as well. This was first in both front and backseat comfort. I believe it. It's a really well done interior, both the material quality, the layout, as you said, the seat comfort, and it still maintains things like an actual traditional shifter and a volume knob for the controls for the multimedia screen as well, so things that we value, things that we know help to avoid distractions while you're driving, present in the Sportage. Absolutely. One slight mark against it though is that the physical knobs operate both the climate and the audio controls and you have to switch between the two. I had some issues. I changed the air when I wanted to change the volume. I changed the volume when I wanted to change the air. It's a learning curve. If that's the price to pay for having to maintain, still, an actual physical knob, you know what? I'll pay it, but you know, I liked that a lot more than I liked the Powertrain in the Sportage. <v Brian>Absolutely. This is adequate, I would say- <v Aaron>Yeah. But somewhat overtaxed, and also, these big X-pro off-road tires don't really help with the performance aspect. Yeah, the whole idea of this thing being an off-road vehicle kind of really doesn't work for me. I do like the fact that it rides beautifully because you've got the smallest tires, the smallest wheels in this test were the 17-inch wheels wearing these big, balloony all-terrain tires, but that also sets it up to be rather loud inside as well. These are not quiet tires on the street. <v Brian>No, absolutely not, and it gets worse, for me at least, at highway speeds. It's a little less noticeable around town, but once you start getting into 70, 80 miles an hour when it really starts to drone on. It also scored poorly in braking, which I think might come down somewhat to the tires. Uh-huh. The pedal feel, I don't think any of us were huge fans of- No. But just the grip for these on pavement is a bit lacking, which also translated into some low handling scores. Yeah, I mean, the thing is they're trying to build this as the top off-road-capable model, but frankly, I wouldn't drive this thing any further off road than the dirt driveway up to an organic farmer's market. It really doesn't need to have that kind of abilities. It's really more about the appearance and these black plastic side sills, the black roof as well, it's meant to look like you can go anywhere and be all kinds of crazy adventurous, but it's really not built for going really very far off road at all. No, it really, really isn't. The ground clearance doesn't even change. No. <v Brian>Overall though, big fans of this. Personally, I think if I were picking one of these SUVs, I think this would probably be my choice. It was the most comfortable for me. In the X-pro trim? Probably not. Yeah, exactly. <v Brian>To read the full review and see how it fared in our compact SUV comparison test, you can find it all on cars.com.