I’ve been driving a 2006 Kia Sportage for the past couple of weeks while our regular car gets repaired (it was accidentally bashed by a neighbour.) I wanted to like the Kia, and while it has many things that I like about it — good seats, engine sound, fog lamps, powerful heating system, dual exhaust — it falls short in a few areas. First off, it’s kind of ugly and to me looks a bit like a design project gone wrong. Second, the V6 is a bit too thirsty for my liking and doesn’t produce enough low-end power. There’s a lot of competition in the compact SUV market and Kia (“The Fastest Growing Automaker in the world”) will have to work on the Sportage before it can compete with Toyota, Honda and Nissan.
Paul Ferriss 