Sedona has a lavish vibe
Reclining loungers will spoil the kids,
Shocking. “Can we get this car?” That from a car-blase 12-yearold. “What’s the name of this car?” Says his 12year-old chum, wanting to spell the name right on the Instagram caption to accompany the phone-photo he’d just taken of the Kia Sedona minivan. Minivan? Yep. The boys were blown away by the lavishly upholstered secondrow bucket seats that recline like loungers, equipped with footrests for the weary.
But their larger point is valid: The 2015 Kia Sedona van, a massively redone vehicle, is a very slick piece of work.
The U.S. van market is dominated mainly by Honda’s Odyssey and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country. But Kia needn’t rack up fat U.S. sales to make it worthwhile to compete. Sedona is sold in other markets, often as executive transport, so U.S. sales are less important to overall profits.
Not all U.S. Sedonas are as fancy as the $43,000 test vehicle, but if you like to tote folks premium-fashion, Kia can put a very lavish package in your driveway.
The Sedona is “the final model to undergo Kia’s design-led transformation under ... chief design officer Peter Schreyer,” says Orth Hedrick, vice president, product planning, Kia Motors America.
That means Schreyer now has visited his styling on all the Kia models and the next true redesign will be second-generation Schreyer. He now oversees global design for Kia and Hyundai.
The 2015 Sedona grille has a family resemblance to other Kias. The redone van rides on a new chassis that is a little longer, and the wheels are closer to the ends, minimizing “overhang.”
Sedona still suffers from an ug- ly side gash that houses the sliding door track — a flaw shared by the Honda Odyssey, but not the Toyota Sienna, nor the FCA vans.
And our tester had some troubling rattles in the vicinity of the sliding doors. We expect those are unrepresentative, but you should hammer yours down potholed gravel roads during your dealership test drive, to see if all’s quiet.
If you buy a high-end model with the reclining seats and footrests, Kia warns that using them while underway “can reduce the effectiveness of the safety restraint system and may lead to additional injury in an accident.”
Third-row seats are low, so adult legs jackknife uncomfortably, a common problem in threerow vehicles. Try before you buy; specifications don’t tell the story.
Nor has Kia come up with a magic formula to eke out superb mileage from what is essentially a 2-ton-plus brick pushed through the air by the veteran 3.3-liter V-6.
We got about 14 mpg in suburban be-bop, about what a full-size pickup or big SUV would deliver. What’s especially appealing:
The dashboard is wide, straight and laid out sensibly.
The connectivity/infotainment suite seems easy to link and manipulate.
Seats in the high-end SX Limited test vehicle were comfy.
The engine is a bit more powerful than normal among minivans — 276 horsepower vs. 248 hp in the Odyssey, for example — so Sedona is livelier.
Sedona feels less cumbersome on the road than some minivans.
Despite the possible drawbacks, Sedona was a delight overall, able to handle a variety of people and cargo tasks in pleasing, simple fashion. And, in the high-end SX Limited test vehicle, to do so with a nod to style.