Clutch-less Shifting is Awesome

I bought my 2005 Kia last August trading in our `95 GMC Safari van and selling a `95 Camry to a co-worker. Having two Toyota sedans and a van was a little much for us but as people who love to fish, the van was our perfect vehicle to travel in with our two miniature pinschers. We almost made the mistake of not getting the leather interior but a few trips with the dogs was reason enough because the cloth interior would not have stood up to their active behavior or the snags it would have received from clothing (blue jean tabs) sliding across the seats.

One who loves to burn my own music, the MP3 player is to die for. With my `99 Camry you can only burn MP3 or WAV files to play on a CD and that usually gives me a grand total of 15-18 songs depending on the length of the songs. With the Kia’s MP3 player I can drag over 60-80 songs (or more) on a CD as data files and they play perfectly. So I’ve cut down the number of CDs I carry around to one or two at most. Having the title of the song come up in view is a plus too. This little automobile has six speakers and the sound is fantastic – can you imagine that!

I will not go into comparing features with other vehicles because you can find that elsewhere but when it comes to city driving, the clutch-less stick shifting is great to have as an option. There have been times I needed to get away from a traffic light first and having the option to transfer to a stick shift (Sportmatic transmission) is just downright awesome! No clutch to change gears, just push the gear shift forward and it also drops back down to first gear when you come to a stop – perfect! I must mention here that when I asked a service technician about the transmission, he did state there have been a couple cars come in where people have forgotten they were in the Sportmatic transmission mode and damaged their transmission something awful. Although there are not a lot of hills here where I live, there are a few and using the Sportmatic mode for downshifting is great. One of the comments my dad (80 yrs old) says every time he’s ridden with me is – this is a peppy little car! Under the right conditions it has even gotten rubber!

Although the rear seats fold down to give you more cargo space, the passenger seat also folds forward to give you a table of sorts to rest your PC (there’s an adapter for it) or if you need to carry something longer as a ladder for instance, the extra length come in handy. The cargo space under the floor in the rear is excellent for carrying various car care products/materials (sponge, towels, Amourall, etc). One thing I dislike about vehicles of this type is the rear wheel on the back door – I’m so glad Kia decided not to put theirs on the door. The dual capacity compartment in the arm rest between the front seats is nice and being able to adjust it up or down is an added plus. My wife tells me the drop down compartment above the mirror is for sunglasses but I use it to keep my garage door opener in and for me to be able to flip it up and down works just fine.

Again, I’m very satisfied with the mileage I get, the horsepower, and the handling of my Kia. I’ve since added the visor in front of the sunroof and all around the windows. Everyone that has made any comments about my Kia say they really like the color – Smart Blue (wherever that means) – especially women! I must admit that I like washing my own car that the wheels on the Kia Sportage are not the easy to clean and a better design would have helped.

I must admit I don’t see a lot of them on the road as we travel about but we do see more of the older models on the road which I guess have to say something about the Sportage.

The Bottom Line
The 2005 KIA Sportage is a great little SUV with a lot of fantastic features for the price not to mention a super 10 year warranty!

Recommended:
Yes