Kia Sorento EX Hybrid – Full Overview + What’s New for 2026?
is the 2026 Kia Sarrento Hybrid in the EX trim level. Now, if I were doing this video last year, the EX was the introductory trim level, but now it is right smack dab in the middle. That’s right. For 2026, we now have three options to choose from. Whether you’re opting for hybrid or plug-in hybrid, there’s an LX, an EX, and an SX2. Today’s video though, we’re highlighting everything you get with the EX model. Again, our volume or middle trim. It’s a full live stream walkthrough. So, we’re talking powertrain, efficiency, interior specs, exterior, and of course, the technology and safety in this vehicle. It’s also done as a live stream. So, no script, no editing, just internet connection, a vehicle, me, and hopefully hopefully good vibes. Now, let’s get right into it. Starting off with the exterior where we’ll also pop the hood and talk about the powertrain. Adam’s going to grab the camera and I’m going to mention the price point first. It is 463.95 Canadian for the EX trim level. Now, here in Canada, every paint color except black has a $250 paint charge fee, which again, as far as manufacturers go, that is a relatively affordable paint charge. Today, we have Interstellar Gray shown. And Interstellar isn’t just a good movie. It’s an amazing paint color. It has a metallic finish, which means in the sunlight, you’ll see a lot of definition and sparkle, but under fluorescent lighting, it just looks like a shiny gray. We’ll take a look at the headlamps first off. And we have an amber or orange, if you want to call it that, daytime running lamp. Now, this was added for the Sarrento in 2025 for our hybrids and plug-in hybrids. Really giving a more squared off and angular approach to the design of the car. The headlamps are finished with a cube format. So, both your low and high beams are cubic lights. This starts on the EX trim level and also translates towards the SX. So, our entry model LX will not have the cubic projection. With projection lights, they also have a more focused beam of light, so there’s less overspray, which is also helpful if you’re someone who’s maybe driving on the opposing side of a Sarrento. It’s less likely to hurt your eyes too much. We also get intelligent high beam assist on that topic. So, essentially, if I have my high beams on and the vehicle detects another car or enough sufficient light around you, it’ll temporarily temporarily shut off your high beams and then turn them back on when it’s necessary. As far as built-in safety, we have forward- facing ultrasonic parking sensors. So, those are these circular sensors peppered throughout the front bumper that will give you an audible and visual alert inside the cabin when you approach something too closely. Now, of course, with a regular hybrid, you’re not really going to be plugging it in, but you still might be maneuvering tight spaces, parallel parking, or even just going into your garage, and these are extremely helpful. The grill is finished in a matte black coating and then the housing has a satin chrome touch. So, there’s a nice blend of contrast between the dark and the light segments for design. As far as your Kia emblem goes, it’s finished in brushed aluminum, which again brightens the overall appearance of the vehicle. I know a lot of people like the all blacked out look. Hey, you can totally do that aftermarket. A can of plasti dip can go a long way, but I do think this is a little bit classier, at least in my opinion. But tell me what you guys think in the comments. The next thing we’re going to talk about is the powertrain. Now, hybrids always make me excited. Now, some people are confused by them. They can seem a little bit intimidating. I will say hybrids aren’t exactly brand new technology. Kia’s had them for quite a while with the first one being the Optima Hybrid that was brought to us here in 2011 or for the 2011 model year. And it’s a fantastic car. Essentially, with the hybrid, you still have a gasoline engine. And in this case, it’s a 1.6 6 L turbocharged 4 cylinder gasoline direct injection engine and we have an electric motor with a high voltage battery. Now the high voltage battery in a regular hybrid versus a plug-in hybrid is going to be relatively smaller. So you don’t plug in this car and charge it that way. It does all of its charging entirely by either the engine running or by slowing down coasting thanks to regenerative braking. Talk more about that when we get over to the wheels. But when we have these two powerhouses combined, our electric motor and our gasoline engine, we have 227 horsepower and 258 pound- feet of torque. Now, that’s quite impressive because considering the entrylevel Kia Sarrento, I was about to say Sportage in its regular gas variation, no turbocharged engine, that car only produces about 181 horsepower. So, got a smaller displacement engine on this one. way more power and far more efficiency, too. All while having the same sized vehicle, still getting all-wheel drive, and getting the Sorrento styling. So, it is a huge win opting for the hybrid. Your transmission is a six-speed automatic, and we do have paddle shifters mounted on your steering wheel if you’d like to manually manipulate your gears. Talk about the windshield next. It does have an acoustic film on that and that on it and that is meant to reduce some wind and road noise. So, an overall quieter cabin because the hybrid engine is also relatively smaller and it spends quite a bit of time in EV mode. You can also expect just less driving noise period. So, you’re not going to hear your engine running as much and a lot of the times, especially if you frequently have passengers or listen to music, you may not hear the engine at all. It is very, very quiet. In the center of the windshield, you’ll notice we have a small camera, and that camera watches the lanes ahead of you, giving you active safety functions like lane keeping assist as well as lane following assist. These two often get confused as one because they are adjusted by pressing the exact same button on your steering wheel. But lane keeping assist sees the lanes on the road and beeps while giving gentle correction to push you back in if you start to depart or drift away. While the opposite lane follow assist sees those same bends or changes in the road and proactively steers you to keep you centered in them at all times. If it’s only a one lane road, so you’re on the country on a country road, it does a kind of fake line. It gives a can’t think of the word I actually want to use right now. It draws an artificial lane to keep you centered in where it seems a regular road would have its secondary line. So, it is a very smart system, more again a proactive function rather than a reactive beeping annoying function. Your mirrors are body color with a slight bit of gloss black along the bottom. And then you have a turn signal indicator mounted on the mirror housing itself. When you take a look at the reflective surface, that’s where you’ll find your blind spot detection alert. So that small icon will illuminate whenever it senses a vehicle in your left or right blind spot. And then if I was actively signaling, I would also get a beep or an audible alert inside the cabin to give me an extra warning that it may not be safe to do a lane change yet. If I still try to change a lane and there’s a car in there, my car will revert me back to my originating lane to avoid a blind spot collision. That’s not the only collision avoidance on this car. There’s a whole lot more to talk about, so hang in the end of this video. We’ll go over everything. Next, we’re talking wheels. So, the wheels on this vehicle are a 19in alloy. They’re actually shared across all trim levels of the Sarrento hybrid and plug-in hybrid. That’s right. Doesn’t matter if you get the base model, middle trim, or top model, you’re getting this design for your alloys from factory. And it’s not a bad design at all. We have a machined finish. So, there’s quite a bit of gloss black for your spokes. And then our outer portions will have the machined finished bright elements. So, just like the contrast we saw in the grill, the same follows through for the side profile of the vehicle. Your wheels, your mirrors, your body panels. But back to the wheels. Sorry, Adam. We’ll get a closer look at the brakes, too. The brakes on this vehicle are ventilated disc brakes for both the front and the rear, with, of course, the front ones being larger. Now, I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier, but the EX is all-wheel drive. Matter of fact, all Sarrentos here in Canada are all-wheel drive standard. Now, that is a fantastic thing to note. I will point out all-wheel drive vehicles can certainly be a little bit more fuel consumptuous. That’s why our all-wheel drive system does have a front-wheel drive bias. So, if it’s a regular dry pavement type of driving day, it’s going to primarily operate in front wheel to give you the best fuel economy. However, if the car detects you’ve since turned onto a gravel road or a dirt road, it’ll automatically automatically redistribute its torque to give you proper traction in those conditions. Something that I know in the States you guys have to add on a certain package or get the top-of-the-line model to get is terrain modes. Now, here in Canada, all of our all-wheel drive vehicles have terrain modes standard for the Sarrento at least. That allows you to cycle between snow mode, mud mode, and sand mode, which all have their own predetermined torque splits that can adjust again as needed. Some of them will also turn off your traction control, too, to allow a little bit more wheel spin to get you out of really sticky situations. All right, that’s it for our all-wheel drive and torque distribution, but let’s talk about regenerative braking real quick before we move on to the rest of the exterior. Now, regen braking, and I always do this with the wheels, even though I can’t really show you anything. Regen braking is essentially on a hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or electric vehicle. When you let off the accelerator, your vehicle can slow itself down without you actually really pushing the brake pedal at all. It does this by changing the function of its electric motor. So instead of propelling you forwards, it changes its operation to draw kinetic energy back into your battery pack. So it’s recharging itself. On a regular gas car, that would just be heat that’s lost by braking. But on this car, slows you down and stores energy. That’s a win-win for everybody. That energy allows you to drive in EV mode later, and you do less wear on your real brakes. So longer brake life, better fuel efficiency, a charged battery wins. All right, let’s take a look at our pillars. Now, when I mentioned the contrast that we saw on the front, our wheels, and the side, this is what I mean by it. You get a satin chrome fender flare, gloss housing around your mirror, and then for the belt line of the car, it’s again satin chrome that transforms very nicely into the gloss black windows. The SE-pillar of your vehicle, again, finished with gloss black and a touch more satin chrome. So everything repeats itself and it flows in nicely. For your roof rails, they’re flush with the body and they are usable. So if you want to get a roof rack or any sort of aftermarket accessory, you have somewhere to latch it onto the back of the Sarrento. Pretty classic. It’s not too different than what we saw on the initial redesign in 2021. We still have our Sharp tail lamps except they are now connected in their housing. There’s no longer a break point right down the middle. They do have a mix of LEDs and regular bulbs. And for our highmounted stop lamp, it is a full LED. The spoiler over here, as you can see, has quite a bit of gloss black for accent. And then underneath it, we have our rear wiper hous. So, because your rear wiper has its own little apartment, it protects it from snow, ice, any sort of general environmental things. That means maybe you have to change it a bit less. Maybe someone won’t rip it off. It’s hidden away. there is a way to easily access it. We have done a video about our wiper service mode and maybe if I remember I’ll link it into the description after this video. Now, a nice touch for the EX model is the addition of a smart power lift gate. So, that starts on the EX. The height is adjustable and if you don’t want to press the button to manually or automatically have it open, you can turn on the proximity function within the vehicle’s head unit. That way you just walk up back here and instead of kicking underneath or finding the button, it just senses that you’d like it to be opened and it power opens. So again, stops you from having to put your stuff down to hit the button. For our cargo area behind our third row, we have 357 L of cargo space. Now, what does that look like? Well, if I were to sit back here, I could put my back completely against the sidewall here, and my feet are nowhere near touching our passenger side. When I move the third row up, of course, I’m going to have a whole lot less space, and I don’t think the tailgate could really come down, but I still have a good amount of room. Oh, there’s still plastic here from when we PDI it. it’s preventing it. Anyway, we we’ll cross that bridge later. Obviously, we’re going to work with quite a bit less space. Now, the benefit of having these seats in such a modular configuration is if I’m only carrying five passengers with me, of course, I only have to bring one of the third row seats up. That gives me a whole ton of room on our opposite side. If nobody is sitting in the third row and these seats are completely flat, we have a ton of room. Fun fact, my mom has a Sarrento plug-in hybrid. I’ve taken it camping many, many times. I’ve slept in this car many times. It’s actually very comfortable. The seats are completely flat, so if you are just moving cargo around, you have a great surface to work with. And as far as width goes, as you can see, we’re working with quite a bit. We’ll put the dimensions in the description because I’m not a robot and at the end of the day, I’m not going to know the total amount of inches and this total height of the cargo area, but I know the horsepower, the torque, and just about everything else. On the side, we’ll get a quick look as well at some of the amenities. So, we have our USBC’s, our storage pockets, and then a cup holder. The same is repeated on the passenger side. In addition, there’s also a second row fold button. So, they’re separated by both the left and the right seat. Press which one you’d like to fold down. And of course, the car does it for you. And like I said earlier, almost completely flat in its fold. There’s also a 12vt inverter. I’ll just have Adam point out. Right next to our power seat or our seat fold button. There we go. And then underneath the floorboard, this is quite impressive. We have our jack for our spare tire. And that’s right, a hybrid vehicle with a proper spare. The tire itself is located underneath the vehicle. May not be the easiest to show on camera, but promise me or I’ll promise you that it is there. As far as towing capacity on this vehicle, if you do plan on towing, the hybrid is rated for 2,000 lbs. And of course, that’s when properly equipped. There’s rear parking sensors along your back bumper. So, these will operate the same way the front ones do. if you get too close to something, let’s say a car parked behind you or a wall. The vehicle will give you an visual and an audible alert inside the cabin to warn you. Top of that, of course, you have your standard backup camera, but Kia does a really good job at making it a very high quality camera and also giving you those dynamic guidelines. So, every time I turn the steering wheel, the guidelines will change to show me where the back end of my car will end up as I’m moving it. All right, let’s close this up and we’ll work our way inside the cabin. For fuel efficiency on this vehicle, it’s rated at about 7 L per 100 km. And let me say that rated number, I I’d say it’s pretty safe. Depending on how you drive, this vehicle does very, very well in the city where an otherwise all gas Sarrento would be pretty terrible in the city and fairly better on the highway. This car can do both and does it very very efficiently. So 7 L per kilometers combined is a really good number for a three row all-wheel drive SUV. Now when you are sitting in stopand go traffic on a hybrid, you can expect to see it in EV mode a good chunk of the time. So that means instead of idling, it’s going to simply sit in EV. You’ll creep around, travel slowly without wasting a drop of gas. On the interior, the EX model introduces leatherrett seating surfaces. So, both your driver and passenger front seats will be heated on three different levels. Let me tell you, they heat up quickly. You’ll also get a power driver’s seat. Now, your driver’s seat is adjustable many different ways. You got the bottom adjustment, so you can raise the seat or lower it, as well as tilt it upwards or downwards, so find the perfect angle. Your back rest can of course be reclined or adjusted upright. And then you have two-way lumbar support. Lumbar support is essentially that kind of sunk in or pushed out feeling. It’ll work on the lumbar portion of your back to adjust your posture. If you have bad posture, you can have it pushed out all the way to kind of straighten you out a little bit. That paired with a heated seat, cancel your chiropractor, block them, matter of fact, unless you’re a chiropractor watching this. Anyway, speakers. We just have our standard speaker system in the EX where the SX top model will move to a Bose premium sound system. As far as materials go, everything is finished with a nice metal or deluxe touch. Your door handles are silver painted and you also have a little bit more metal piping separating our top portion near your window to the rest of the door card. There’s a good bit of soft touch leatherrett here too. So if you do like to rest your arms, you’ll have a soft place to put them. Then their handle is pretty sturdy. I do like when we have a proper handle here for closing your door. Then right over here for our window controls and mirror controls. We have our power adjustable mirrors. They are heated. Our door locks and then an express window for the driver with regular power windows for the rest of the cabin. Your child lock for the doors and also your window locks are integrated into one button. Going to make sure to turn that off. I feel like every time we film a Sarrento, I end up getting locked in the back when it’s time to show the second and third row space. So, not today, Satan. Not today. Left hand side, we have our brightness adjustment, our liftgate control, and then our traction control. The steering wheel itself, like I mentioned, is heated with two different levels. And we have a beautiful design. Believe this design is slightly changed for 2026, too. So, we have a little bit of a matte or maybe it’s more so satin. It’s not completely flat. Metal finish along the bottom with a little bit of gloss black for some spice. The left portion will have your driver assistance functions. If it looks a little crummy right now, it’s because there’s a sticker on top. This will turn on our smart cruise control. The plus and minus allows you to adjust your speed. And then this button here changes the following distance. Now, smart cruise control has four preset distances. One being as close as possible to the vehicle ahead of you, and four being further and further away. I like to call them one car lengths, two car lengths, four car lengths, etc. Is it actually one car length? No, it’s a little bit more. I would say it’s a very safe distance. So, please do not feel scared to use the closest or feel like you have to use the furthest. They are all safe and all of them will slow you down if you hit stop and go traffic or if there’s just any changes in the vehicle speed the rest of the traffic it’s following. Nice thing to do with your smart cruise control is turn on your lane following assistance. So that way of course you have the speed monitored by your vehicle but also the steering touches. If you are someone who does a lot of long distance driving essentially turning on lane follow assist will save you from doing those constant micro corrections to you know keep yourself centered in the lane. The vehicle handles it for you, but you do still have to keep your hands on the wheel and of course pay attention. On the right hand side of the wheel, we have our volume and media controls. So, the voice command button will put you on the line with Kia’s voice assistant or if your phone’s paired, you can use your phone’s assistant, whether that be Siri or Google. Volume here, just operated like a dial. And then we have our phone button to answer a call and a star button that you can program to do whatever you’d like within the vehicle’s limits. That is behind the wheel is where we’ll see our gauge cluster. Now, this is not technically considered a full digital gauge. This is our 4.2 in screen, which is right over here. However, as displayed, you can see your digital speedometer and your digitalometer on the right. Battery right down on the bottom right. And then on the left, we have our fuel gauge. Of course, no gas in it today. We got about 9 km till empty, but we’re doing it efficiently. By pressing this note button here, I can go and select what else I’d like displayed on the gauge cluster. So whether that’s trip or the vehicle’s safety systems, there’s also this all-wheel drive menu, a tire pressure menu, and an engine temp. For our main screen, it’s 12.3 in in size. And this is running our new CCNC software. With this software, we have overtheair updates. And major major news, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. So in the past for Kia, namely before 2025 for the hybrid or plug-in hybrid Sarrentos, we couldn’t use wireless CarPlay or wireless Android Auto if we had a screen size larger than 8 in. Now we can and it’s seamless. The head unit itself also has brand new software. So operates very similar to a smartphone. You kind of drag and drop it to customize it. You have different profiles, too. So, if there’s multiple drivers in your household, whatever you’d like saved for yours, they can have something separate in their account. Whether that’s media, favorite radio stations, if your vehicle is equipped with navigation, your saved addresses for home or work, completely different based off your profile, which is a lifesaver. I don’t want to go too in-depth on the software itself, but if you guys have any questions, let me know in the live chat and before we end off the stream, we can always head back and touch on them. But let’s go towards underneath our touch screen. We have our air vents, our hazards button, and this panel here that adjusts both between media and climate control. Going to brighten it up a little bit so it picks up better on camera. Right now, it’s set to media. So, this dial will adjust our volume. The far right dial will be tuned. And everything in the middle does exactly as it says when the car is on. Let’s turn it back on. Home button jumps you to your home on the main screen. The map here will be based off your phone’s map simply because the EX trim does not have built-in navigation. So, as long as my phone’s paired, whether I use Apple Maps, Google Maps, Ways, it’ll jump to that specific map. If I press the fan button, this will cycle to our climate control where we can select between driver only or our dual zone. While the third row does not have its own climate vents, we do have a second and third row air duct for our heat, which is quite handy. You will still get some ventilation back there. Below our climate control menu, here’s where we’ll find two USBC’s for quick charging with the one on the left also being applicable for data transfer. And then our wireless phone charger. Now, the wireless phone charger does start on the EX model. Just to the left and the right, we have our toggles for our heated seats. Very easy to use. And you have that amber light showing just how strong you’ve set the intensity to. Your gear shift is right in the center and it’s a shift by wire dial. So, as long as your foot’s on the brake, you’ll just simply flip your vehicle into your select gear and push in the center for park. Don’t mind all the beeping. The car is in accessory mode, so it does not like being tried to put into drive. All right, our two cup holders. Just standard cup holders. They’re in a fixed position. And then right behind that, we have just this little storage slot. I’ve got my drive mode select right below our gear shift where we can cycle between eco, sport, smart, and then if I push it down like a button, it’ll change my terrain modes between snow, mud, and sand. Below that, we have our parking sensors, our camera button, our electronic parking brake, as well as downhill braking assistance, auto hold, and our heated steering wheel control. Right behind that is our center console. This is definitely one of our bigger center consoles in the Kia Hyundai lineup. It’s just standard. There’s nothing really hidden in there, but it’s spacious. Now, I’m going to have Adam open up the glove box. I’m going to take a drink of water because I feel like I’m dying. Oh, we’re live. And then we’ll also show the passenger seat, too. Now, the passenger seat controls are manual. You have your back rest adjustment right over here. And then the bar right in the middle will allow you to move the seat either forwards or backwards on its rail. To access the second row, it’s very easy. Of course, you got your doors. And with all trim levels of the hybrid and plug-in hybrid Sarrento, we have captain’s chairs. So, that’s something I wanted to talk to you guys about while I get the other seat up. For 2026, they’ve made some changes. Number one, I shouted out right at the beginning of this video, and that was introducing a new trim level called the LX. Now, the LX is our new base or entry trim for both PHEV and HEV, that is plug-in hybrid and regular hybrid. In the past, usually our LX model would have a bench seat in the middle. Except that’s not the case now. It’s going to be a captain’s chair regardless of your trim. So, what does that mean? There’s no seven-seater hybrid or plug-in hybrid Kia Sarrento. Let me know what you guys think about that. I will say captain’s chairs are fantastic if you have kids that fight or if you just want a more premium second row experience, but they can be a bit of a downside if you ever are going on a road trip where you need to carry five passengers plus quite a bit of goods. Because of course, like I showed earlier, when we have one of the third row seats up, you lose a fair bit of your usable cargo space. So, tell me what you guys think. Are you picking the lux or the comfort over the capacity? Again, use the comments. Let me know. I will say these second row chairs are very wide. They’re extremely comfortable. And because it’s your own individual seat, you can really customize it and not feel bad about the person next to you. So, if you want to recline it all the way, you can, and the person next to you is not influenced. You also have your own armrest. And then if I move myself a little bit, you can see there’s individual storage pockets for each of these seats. The seats also move on a rail, so I can bring them forwards or backwards, giving the person sitting behind me more or less leg room. Right now, I’ve moved my seat upwards just a little bit, and I still have tons of space from the seat ahead of me. I’m by no means cramped. Speaking of the seat ahead of me, leather pocket, net pocket, and even a USBC built into the backing of the seat. In our center console, or in the back of our center console, we’ll find our air vents where we can adjust the air flow in the direction. And then we have a 12volt inverter just below. The same, of course, is repeated on the back of the passenger seat. Now, I’m going to have Adam quickly show the door card, and I’ll kind of just explain what we see. There we have the same metal finishes that we showed on the driver door. A built-in cup holder and then a bottle holder on the lower portion of the door. I just realized I did exactly what I did yesterday. I did not leave one of the third row seats up for me, but that’s okay. To get into the third row, this is the easiest way to do it. It’s by pressing the button mounted on the shoulder portion of our captain’s chairs. If you do have a Sarrento with the bench, of course, it’s not going to be a hybrid or a plug-in hybrid. If it’s just a gas model, you’ll have this as well, too, but it’s going to move, of course, the far right chair and the middle seat. Doing this is going to be a little bit interesting, but we will try anyway. The backings of the third row seats have a little tether that allows you to pull them up. By far easier to do in the cargo area, but we make do. There we go. All right, I’m going to sit in the far left seat. And here’s where we’re looking at for space. Headroom wise, we’ve actually got quite a fair bit. Now, there is no sunroof in this trim level, which almost makes the cabin feel a little bit smaller because there’s no light coming in from the ceiling, but I still have a fair bit of window visibility. And because it’s a captain’s chair and not a bench seat in the middle, I can see right through this little hallway here as to what’s ahead of me. I can see the touchscreen up at the front. I can see the driver through the mirror. I still feel like I’m connected to the cabin, which is not bad. Seriously, not bad. My mom’s older Kia Sarrento had the bench, and anytime I sat in the third row, I felt like I was cargo. I felt like I was just like a cooler in the back or something. The seats are also quite wide because it’s only two seats and not squeezed into three. I have my own personal space here. My feet are going to look slightly elevated. One, because I’m wearing heels, and two, because they are elevated. Of course, we got a drivetrain in this vehicle. We’ve got wheels back here, so it is slightly raised. This also does give me more visibility over the cabin, over the person ahead of me. So, again, I don’t feel like I’m looking at the back of a seat all day. It is a fairly comfortable third row. Going to take the camera from Adam again just to show you guys what we’ve got along our sides. So, as we pointed out earlier, USBC’s on either side as well as your own cup holder and storage pocket. Show you on mine. Same thing repeated. When you’re going to hop out of the third row, there is a small handle integrated onto the side that allows you to brace yourself for support. And these little clips here are meant for your seat belts. So, let’s say you have no rear passengers. Oh, there we go. Let’s say you have no rear passengers and you just need all the space back here for moving your cargo or your goods. You’re going on a camping trip. You can get the seat belts out of the way. That way, your goods don’t get stuck on them, which is helpful. They thought of that. My hair is in my mouth. I’m out of breath, but I think it’s time we do a little bit of a Q&A before we end off today’s video. So, let’s scroll and see what you guys have to say. I saw Zoran was on because there’s a bunch of chats deleted by him. Um, very nice. But I’m eyeing the 2026 Santa Fe. That has my heart set. Hey, and that’s still a great car. If you guys didn’t know, the Sarrento and the Santa Fe are largely the same vehicle. Now, one thing about the Santa Fe, there is no plug-in hybrid option for its current model year. We do have a hybrid, though, and they have quite a bit of good trim variation for their hybrids, too. Sorry, I’m moving this around a little too much. Okay, Ryan also mentioned the MSRP in the chat again, and I’ll mention it to you guys on video, too. We’re at 46, 395 Canadian. Eduardo said, “Please like and subscribe.” Eduardo’s always got some some good knowledge in the chat. I agree with Ardo. Eduardo. Um, okay. A couple go Jays. Some people saying go Dodgers. Guys, you realize this is a Canadian channel, right? Go Jays. Definitely go Jay’s. Should he always put the handbrake on when parking or just use the P function? So, I mean, I only use the parking brake if I’m in a manual vehicle just because you kind of got it in that case. Now, there is Adam, for example, Adam’s our co-op student and he’s on camera. Every single vehicle I get in that Adam has driven has the parking brake on. And that is typically not the most standard practice here in Canada, at least if you drive automatic. So, I mean, you’re not going to destroy your car by not using your parking brake. Sure, it can be a good habit. I would say um maybe with used cars, especially if Adam, we’re going to have a discussion right now. So, with used vehicles, sometimes if the previous owner never used the parking brake, they could be really seized. And if I were to pull it at the dealership here, if it’s a used car of ours, we just got it in and uh the next person to go to drive goes to put it down, maybe it won’t release. So maybe not with an old car if you’ve never used the parking brake before. You might want to get it checked out before you start. Um, always good to make sure you maintain your parking brakes, too. So whether that’s by using it regularly or just by doing proper maintenance on your vehicle, you don’t want the brake to seize because if worse comes to worse and your actual mechanical brakes fail or your hydraulic brakes fail, it’s helpful to have a functioning emergency brake or parking brake. Um, the car often automatically puts the brake on and tells you it has done so. Yes. So, if you are someone who frequently uses the auto hold function, once you go to put your vehicle in park and turn it off, it’ll automatically deploy the parking brake automatically just based off the fact that you’ve used auto hold. I also found a lot of our vehicles, if it senses you’ve parked on a gradient, so an uphill or a downhill, it also automatically applies. The rule of thumb with our cars is if the car was the one to automatically apply it, then it’ll automatically disengage. But if you were the one to apply it, it forces you to manually disengage it. Either way, when you do if you do forget to disengage it and you put your car in drive, it should alarm to warn you that you are going to drive with the parking brake on. Sorry, that was a lot of again you guys, I’m kind of out of it right now, but I hope that made sense. Um, just finished for today. I painted two ceilings, but I stepped on a spider accidentally. Oh. Um, let’s see. What maintenance considerations or potential battery degradation issues should an owner be aware of on the long-term reliability of a hybrid battery? And what is the warranty coverage? So, for warranty components on EV, hybrid or plug-in hybrid specific components, that of course would be your battery, your electric motor, that is 8 years, 150,000 km compared to the regular powertrain, which is 5year, 100,000. That again is here in Canada. So in the states your warranty coverage may vary. Now as far as battery degra deg degradation well I can’t speak English today. Um when we talk about you know quick battery degradation it’s often in relation to charging and when it’s in relation to charging it is more so in relation to DC fast charging that is your quick public chargers just like charging your phone. When you’re using a fast fast phone charger while it’s very convenient I mean my phone’s fully charged in 20 minutes. That’s not good for the long-term health of your battery. So, slower charging is optimal. Also, high changing conditions. If you’re experiencing very, very frequent freezing conditions or very, very high temps, that can also impact the lifespan of your battery. So, batteries lives are based in cycles. How many charge cycles do you have? With a regular hybrid vehicle, it doesn’t have the same type of charge cycle as an EV would, where, you know, you plug it in every day or you fast charge every other day. So, it’s a lot harder to kind of explain or judge. Um, okay. Let’s see. Maintenance consideration. Again, this vehicle is still a car with a gasoline engine, so you still have to do your oil changes. That is still going to be recommended maintenance. You still have Yeah. regular brakes. Um, just checking to see if there’s anything else in relation to the Sarrento. I will say again, I mentioned this earlier on when we talked about regenerative braking. You can expect your brake lifespan to be a bit longer with the vehicle with regenerative braking. That also comes down to how often you use it, though. So, on this vehicle, when you’re in your eco drive mode and you use your paddle shifters, it’ll change the level or the intensity of regen. So whether you want level one, which is very, very light, or level three, which is quite a bit harder, you will definitely feel a little bit more resistance when you let off the accelerator, that influences how much you use regen or don’t use regen. Um, for a hybrid, would I be able to do my own oil changes? Any particular Oh, it disappeared. Any particular safety precautions to consider? So, when you are working with a hybrid or any sort of vehicle with high voltage components, it is important to be aware of said components and not to touch them. Now, while if I had an old janky car, I would absolutely do my own oil changes, I don’t think I would do it on such a mechanical and new car. While it’s in warranty, I definitely recommend you take it to your dealership to get serviced. That way, if anything does go wrong, it’ll be worked on by certified Kia technicians. Or if you have a Hyundai vehicle, Hyundai technicians, that takes a lot more reliability off of you. But if you are fairly I’m trying to find somewhere to put this comfortable, but I can’t. If you are someone who is again mechanically savvy and has the proper equipment and the knowledge, then by all means, you can. The end of the day, it is a gas engine with oil changes, but there are high voltage components with this vehicle, too. And please do not take that lightly. High voltage can kill. So, all right. So, what’s your costume for Friday? I can’t tell you that. Um, I need a good used car for my dad. Gabby, contact me. Thanks. Oh, Saurin. Um, once I figured out the regen braking, I use it all the time. No, seriously, it’s fantastic. It definitely takes a little bit of getting used to at first. It can feel a little bit jerky, but once you grasp the level of the resistance on the brakes, then it’s it’s smooth sailing from there. and efficient sailing too. Um, when is your partner coming back on Matt leave? So, Charlotte was actually here today to use our printer and she mentioned that she is going to start coming back hopefully next week. So, she’s going to aim for two days a week. Now, because she has a relatively different life right now with two little ones, may not always be two days a week, but that is the aim. That is the goal. Um, anything else? Keith said, “My Prius made it 15 years with the original traction battery.” That is fantastic. That is very, very good. Uh, anything else? Um, also back to the E bra situation. My truck, the E brake does not work on that car. So, it is it is seized. It is certainly seized. Or if I pull it, it’ll it’ll be seized. So, I was told not to use it. So, if something were to fail for a driver who changes their own oil, the warranty people would blame it on the driver. So, okay, warranty is a tricky thing. A lot of people are scared of, you know, modifying their vehicle or doing anything because they think it may void their warranty. More specifically, let’s talk dash cams for a second. So, dash cams can often be plugged into your 12vt, that little inverter in your car. But some people also choose to hardwire them into their battery because that way it can run consistently even when your vehicle is off. Now, it’s not the dash cam itself that’ll void your warranty, but if something, let’s say you play around with your electrical system because you want to install your dash cam and something goes wrong. If it went wrong because you installed that dash cam, then your warranty is voided. But it’s not, you know, let’s say you use the dash cam and everything goes right and then later on down the road something goes wrong with your electrical and it’s completely unrelated. that does not void your warranty. Same thing with let’s say an exhaust on your car. Exhaust and let’s say the sunroof not no longer working. Those often I can’t see how those would be correlated. So your warranty should still fix the operation of your sunroof. So warranty does not necessarily get voided unless what you did directly caused the problem. So if you horribly failed the oil change and something mechanically went wrong with your car, then yes, your warranty could be voided. But if you do your own own oil changes and your power lift gate stops working, they can’t void your warranty. They absolutely should not. And if they are trying to fight them on that. All right, you guys. That is my legal advice. That’s not legal advice. But that is the way it should work. I know some people like to or some dealerships will like to say, “Nope, that’s going to void your warranty. Don’t do it.” And it’s completely unrelated. But that is not the case. So that that is all. Thank you guys so so much for watching. I know we kind of went off on our train of thought a few times, but hey, it’s me doing the video, so of course it’s going to happen. See you again tomorrow at 2 p.m. Bye-bye.
The Sorento is a South Korean manufactured SUV that is road-capable and family friendly. Join Gabi in today’s livestream for a presentation on the Hybrid Sorento in the EX Trim. What do you think of the Sorento?
Is there any other Kia car you’d like us to present? Let us know in the comments!
Quick specs: 2026 Sorento HEV EX
• MSRP: $46,395 CAD
• Colour: Interstellar Grey
• Engine: 1.6L Turbo HEV
• Transmission: 6-speed automatic
• Horsepower: 227 hp | Torque: 258 lb-ft
• Drive type: All-wheel drive (AWD)
EX Trim add-ons:
• LED projection headlights• Smart power liftgate
• Leather seats (synthetic)
• Heated steering wheel
• Electric Chromic rear-view mirror (ECM)
Check Out Our Podcast! https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx93MBoYnWb3D0897S_bjQ-0EB_QBAd7V&si=jpAcBjouD7wFY1DZ
Thank you for watching! We appreciate your support – Gabi and Charlotte
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