Our long term test on the Kia Sorento Ltd is coming to an end – and there’ll be no crocodile tears when good old EFN leaves the office for good – they’ll be real ones. It’s been a fantastic vehicle, and has done tasks far beyond what we expected, without ever complaining. We’ve been driving the vehicle for 10 months now, and have covered just over 10,000 km, and during that time we had only one breakdown that required outside help – caused by a staff member’s oversight – and one which meant we could still limp home. The vehicle came to us virtually out-of-the-box-new, and was initially used as staff transport, although as time went on it became more and more the backup vehicle for our standard road tests, especially after Cooper STT mud tyres had been fitted. It was also used in a couple of tow tests with camper trailers, and with roof bars fitted carried a fair selection of building materials during the building of the editor’s new deck! The Sorento has a ground clearance of only 203 mm in standard trim, and at first this was seen as a major problem to its use on club trips. However after fitting the bigger tyres this raised clearance to a more acceptable 215 mm and we have never encountered any problems in this area. This was particularly brought home when we went into the Jeep Woodhill 4WD Park to test the Hummer H3. Because of its length the Hummer at one point got stuck on its belly, and we had to haul it out with the Sorento. The ground was quite sandy and loose, causing the Kia to dig in as it sought for traction, but eventually the Hummer moved enough – without having to do a snatch recovery – to get out under its own steam, and the Sorento still had plenty of clearance. One of the reasons we enjoyed the Kia as a recovery vehicle was its lusty common rail turbo-diesel engine. Overall fuel consumption has never strayed higher than 10 litres/100 km even when it was driven hard off-road, and it’s a smooth and reliable unit that only let us down when the vehicle was accidentally filled up with petrol. Even then all that had to be done was a drain and rinse to get it going again. The big plus is that the 2.5-litre common rail turbo-diesel produces a stomping 392 Nm of torque from as little as 2,000 rpm, with a big whack of that available at tick over, so it makes towing a dream, whether it be pulling your mate out of the mud or a boat to the bach. What’s more its braked tow rating of 2,800 kg is top of the class in this price bracket. The Sorento excelled when it came to tromping up long, steep hills, and it swallowed cross axle situations with ease, courtesy of a smooth auto gearbox (with sequential manual shift option), and that 125 kW turbo-diesel, and traction control. And it easily descended long steep inclines with badly troughed tracks and a couple of deep holes that required quite a delicate touch. Thank goodness for low ratio and an auto ‘box with manual sequential change that locks up in the gear you choose – in our case first, and no more than that! This is the second generation Sorento, and although it doesn’t look a lot different from the first, there have been quite important changes to the plot. On the outside there’s a revised front end with a new bumper, grille and headlights. Indicator lenses (not just the bulbs) are now orange, with projector-style lighting more obvious behind the clear polycarbonate of the all-in-one headlight pod. Circular fog lights are incorporated in the bumper, but there’s still that trademark high and prominent bonnet. There are also minor changes to the rear and tail lights have a wrap-around effect to make them more visible from certain oblique angles. A re-sculptured bumper and a chrome garnish above the tailgate release echo the frontal treatment. Sorento has grown by 20 mm as a result of the bodywork changes, and there are new-style 17 inch alloy rims. Our Limited came in monotone silver with the protective cladding and waistline garnish colour-coded. Although we went off-road as much as we could, most of our time with the Sorento was spent on ordinary roads, and it’s here that the hard work to improve noise, vibration and harshness shows up best, with a sophisticated ride quality and improved comfort levels. The knobbly Cooper tyres took away some of that sophistication when they were fitted, of course, but their regard off-road more than made up for it. That said, the Coopers weren’t as noisy as some we have driven on lately, nor did they affect ride and handling too much, though we always took care in the rain. The roof bars also increased wind noise at first, but we got over that by pushing both right to the back whenever we weren’t using them. The interior has a modern look and feel that takes the car upmarket. The dashboard is covered in high quality soft-look material, while the centre console, also in black, has chromed relief lines which look really distinctive. The leather-covered seats are very swanky, though we always used seat covers when venturing off-road to keep them in pristine condition, and we were particularly impressed by the interior space, particularly in the back. There’s also more room in the back thanks to redesigned seats. The big surprise about the Sorento is how nimble this big vehicle feels, despite having a solid rear axle. In 2WD mode (you dial in either 2WD High, 4WD High or 4WD Low via a dash-mounted switch) all the torque goes to the rear wheels, and the car handles extremely well, with only a modicum of understeer converting to oversteer if you get close to the limits – at which point the electronic stability control kicks in and straightens everything out. One of the things we like on the Sorento is that it’s a very safe vehicle, with four Euro NCAP stars and five in US testing, and the addition of curtain airbags (as well as the dual front airbags found on the previous model) boosts this. There are also are all-wheel ventilated disc brakes with ABS and EBD. The Sorento is a premium SUV, and as such comes well loaded with features. There’s luxurious black leather upholstery, a 16-way adjustable electric driver’s seat, height adjustable steering column, power steering with cruise control, full dual-zone air conditioning with full auto climate with rear vents, a six-speaker/MP3-compatible CD/tuner sound system, rear cargo net, wiper de-icer, and reverse parking sensors. The car also gets a comprehensive roof-mounted multi-function trip computer with compass, distance to empty, average speed and elapsed time. Another feature is rear park distance control, plus revised instruments with brighter LED lighting. Improved oddments/drink storage solutions round off the cabin, and a sunroof is standard, as are electrically heated front seat warmers and factory tinted rear widows. The rear seat is split 60/40 and when folded creates a cargo area of gargantuan proportions. Even with the seats up the Sorento provides 667 litres of boot space, growing to 1,886 litres when the rear seat squabs are flopped and folded. We’ve had people asking for our opinion about changing from a petrol-guzzling Aussie V8 sedan to a Sorento for towing a boat, we’ve had those who want to upgrade from an old imported 4WD, and we’ve had newbie 4Wheelers who want to know just how good it really is. For us, well, as we said, it’ll be a very sad day when we finally say goodbye!