2017 Kia Sportage first drive

Kia faces an uphill battle in a talented field

The fourth-generation Kia Sportage has an all-new look wrapping a stronger chassis festooned with more connectivity than you can shake a smart remote at. Kia hopes these changes will make the Sportage nameplate stick out in a field of compact crossover utility vehicles that are outselling it by almost seven to one. Consider that the biggest seller in the class is the Honda CR-V, of which Honda moved 345,647 units out the doors of its dealerships in 2015. In the same time frame, Toyota sold 315,412 RAV4s and Ford sold 306,492 Escapes. Kia, meanwhile, sold just 53,739 Sportages, good enough for eighth place in a field of … eight. So Kia really needed to do something to get its $23,885 Sportage on the Google searches of potential buyers typing “CUVs under $25,000” into their laptops.

Let’s start on the outside: The new Sportage is wrapped in a more rounded shape, penned in Kia’s Frankfurt design studio. It’s a more pedestrian-friendly exterior, particularly on the front end, one that is perhaps reminiscent of something like an Infiniti QX50. Or maybe it looks like one of those plankton-eating shark creatures you see on Jacques Cousteau. Kia’s trying, anyway.

The exterior is 1.6 inches longer than the previous model for a total length of 73 inches, which helps give front and rear seat passengers more room and helps increase rear cargo area by 18 percent. There’s a ginormous sunroof available that opens up the inside like a mini observatory.

The chassis is 39 percent stiffer, with a five-fold increase in the use of bonding adhesives throughout. There is also more high-strength steel; over half the steel in the body-in-white is made of the stuff.

The new Sportage is still propelled by last year’s powertrains, however, changes not having come in leaps and bounds but only bounds. The base engine is a 2.4-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder making 181 hp and 175 lb-ft of torque. The upscale powerplant is the 2.0-liter turbo, making 240 hp and 260 lb-ft. Both are mated to six-speed automatics, the only choice available.

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO DRIVE?

The only models available to us on the press launch were FWD and AWD SX turbos, the top of the line in power and handling. Imagine that on a press launch.

To really appreciate all that high-strength steel and adhesive bonding, we blasted off the pavement as soon as possible and went pell-mell over the nearest dirt road. The road we chose was alternately pockmarked with holes the size of bowling balls — or maybe they were beach balls — on either track that made it into a kind of whoop-dee-doo pair of ruts perfect for assessing both the Sportage’s stiffer structure and its new suspension. With revised geometry and stiffer bushings all around the new Sportage felt perfectly at ease: not a single squeak, rattle or buzz. Likewise the new steering with reduced friction and fewer bends in the column offered greater precision. We were reminded that soon after the Sportage was new it competed in the Baja 1000 (with us in it) and made it to Cabo San Lucas. For our purposes, given a longer stretch of dirt, or a snowy day (not likely in eastern San Diego) we could have played around with the Magna “Dynamax intelligent AWD system,” which is said to anticipate traction requirements. Instead, we got back on the tarmac and drove on. The stiffer setup also provided more precision in on-pavement maneuvering. We even used the paddles to shift while going up and down twisting mountain two-lanes.

In the more mundane driving that constitutes the 99 percent of the time you’re not competing in the Baja 1000, there are many new infotainment choices in the 2017 Sportage. Even the base LX offers Bluetooth phone, streaming audio and satellite radio. The mid-range EX offers your choice of AndroidAuto or Apple CarPlay along with UVO3 connectivity that gives you UVO eServices’ 14 telematics services, Pandora, SoundHound and more features than we can name here. While the base Sportages get six-speaker, 160-watt audio, there is also an optional eight-speaker, 320-watt Harmon/Kardon audio system available. Infotainment is increasingly important to buyers in this and any segment.

The 2017 Kia Sportage holds 18 percent more cargo

DO I WANT IT?

The near-entry-level buyer has so many choices in this jam-packed CUV class. As a result, Kia has nowhere to go but up. But there are so many strong entries that going up will be an uphill battle. Lucky they have that Dynamax traction to get them there.