Kia Carens 2.0 Elite Review: And then there was one...
Put the badge aside, and what you have here in the Kia Carens is a true value-for-money proposition. It's properly sized, is spacious and also comes with a generous list of goodies. Question here is, are those traits good enough to garner attention from the MPV-buying lot?
The transmission takes some time to get used to a driving style, and during that time, you’ll find that it upshifts too early. But once it gets better acquainted with your driving style, this shouldn’t be a problem - anyway, there’s always the manual mode.
Being a family-oriented car, we had anticipated the Carens to have a torsion bar suspension in the rear, but after just a few minutes, I was convinced otherwise. A quick glance at the Carens’ tech specs confirmed that it actually has Macpherson struts up front, and a multilink setup at the rear.
This resulted in the Carens having a very decent ride quality about it. At the same time, the slightly (and I really mean slightly) stiffened suspension allows it to go through corners with a lot less body roll than expected. The Carens is still set for passenger comfort though, so tackling corners enthusiastically isn’t recommended.
The steering is definitely on the light, easy-to-twirl side. We would’ve loved the weightier rack found in the Sportage, but then again, this is a different genre of vehicle, for a different kind of driver.
The Carens manages to hold its own in a largely Japanese crowd. Cruise control may be absent, and the transmission does lack a fifth ratio, but the additional equipment bestowed upon it over the previous model helps the lone Korean MPV stay relevant in this market.
But is it worthy of its “Elite” moniker? In a sense, it does, especially when you consider that the model it replaced had to make do without all of the goodies mentioned earlier (passenger airbag, digital climate control, etc).
We can only surmise that if the new Cerato Forte is anything to go by, then Kia’s next MPV will certainly give the Japanese manufacturers something to worry about.
Credits: Story by Jeremy R. Chua, pictures by Azfar Hashim
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