Kia has revised its Sedona seven-Seat MPV with a new grille, new equipment and, best of all, a new 2.2-litre diesel engine.
The new 192PS 2.2 CRDi replaces the 183PS 2.9 CDRi, but the engine isn’t only more powerful, it’s also more efficient and economical with a CO2 figure of 199g/km for the automatic we drove and an official fuel figure of 37.7mpg. However, for those fleets running a typical 20,000 miles a year policy the 10,000-mile service interval is surprisingly short.
The six-speed automatic gearbox is also new and works well with the engine, producing smooth, if not fast, changes, and comes with a manual gear selection override.
If £24,000 sounds like a lot of money, you need to check out the standard equipment list, which is exceedingly healthy in this top-spec ‘3’ model and includes USB aux socket, cruise control, powered side doors and boot (with manual override), climate control for front and rear plus trip computer.
The very clever reversing camera built into the rear-view mirror is worthy of special mention. You wouldn’t know it’s there in normal driving, but when you select reverse about a third of the mirror becomes a TV screen. This is a much more logical place to put a reversing camera screen (rather than on the dash) because you can watch both the mirror and camera views at the same time.
The seats are the still traditional heavy and removable items, rather than the fold-flat variety, but they are exceedingly comfortable on long journeys.
But possibly the biggest issue facing the Kia Sedona in fleet is the whole-life costs. Despite the high spec and seven-year warranty, running costs, according to KwikCarost, are 61.2ppm, hit mainly by a residual value of just 28.1%.
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