Kia Sorento PHEV SX Walkthrough – Luxury & Efficiency!
Hello everyone. Welcome or welcome back to the Kia Hyundai channel. My name is Gabby and today we have a very very special vehicle. Now, it is so so special that my mom, the woman I love so so much, actually drives one and let me borrow hers for two weeks. Within those two weeks, I did a lot of driving. I average about 100 kilometers per day. And I used less than a quarter tank of regular fuel within two weeks. Now, my regular driving, I’m getting gas twice a week in my pickup truck. So, needless to say, I love this rental plug-in hybrid. Today’s video, we’re going to give you a full in-depth walkthrough of everything you get, more specifically in the SX trim level. Now, here in Canada, the SX is our very, very top trim level. It’s priced at 60,245 Canadian. That is the base MSRP, and it packs a whole lot. Matter of fact, it’s almost a $10,000 upgrade from the trim level below it. If you have any questions, this is also a live streamed car video. So, if you are watching in real time, there’s a live chat box on the side where you can go ahead and ask me whatever you’d like to know about the car. Without further ado, though, let’s get right into the vehicle walkthrough. And if I said 60,245, I actually meant 60,265 Canadian. I added in an extra $20. All right, let’s start off with the front end. We’ll talk styling. We’ll talk lighting. And then we’ll work our way underneath the hood to talk powertrain. Don’t mind my sticky note. I just had to let people know, let me run. The door is open. Another thing I’ve done today’s video that’s going to be a little bit different is the car is physically on right now. It is not an accessory mode. It’s not just running its lights and its media systems. It is completely on and it’s idling in electric mode. We’ll talk more about that later. Let’s get into styling. For our headlamps, we have an amber daytime running light that expands into the grill and then works its way in a sharp vertical line encasing your main headlamp unit. Now we have our bulb or cube style bulb lights for our main headlamps. They are a projector beam too. So the laser is more focused on where you need it most and there’s less overspray. Now overspray can be nice at nighttime but it’s not exactly great for oncoming drivers. There you just heard the engine turn over. I hope you guys can still hear me okay though. So this just gives you a more sharp light beam exactly where you need it to be while you’re driving. We have fog lamps lower on in the grill. These are also LEDs. They start actually standard on the Kia STO plug-in hybrid. For styling, the SX model will get you a couple more premium exterior elements. So, things like a gloss black front bumper, as well as a satin chrome housing for your grill. The insert of the grill is also finished in gloss black, giving it a nice premium look. I’m going to stand a bit further away from the vehicle as I explain the exterior look, just because it is a little bit noisier. I don’t know how it sounds on camera or if anyone’s mentioning it in the live stream. Right underneath our license plate, you’ll notice we have our radar plate. Now, that radar will pick up your vehicle’s distance and the car ahead of you. There is both smart cruise control on this vehicle as well as highway driving assist level two. Smart cruise control is essentially using that radar plate to measure just how far away you are and allowing you as a driver to set your preferred following distance. Now, if you hit stop and go traffic, your vehicle will stop, come to a complete halt, and then right back up to speed again once traffic conditions start to change. My idea for this video isn’t actually going so well, so I’m going to turn off this car so we have peace and quiet to talk about what’s under the hood. So, the purpose of leaving the engine running on for today was to show you guys that it sits in EV mode for a pretty long time. I’ve actually put the car into sport mode, too, which prioritizes less function on the electric motor and a little bit more on the gas. And matter of fact, this vehicle hasn’t been plugged in. So, there’s no current electric driving range or rated range either. And for about an hour that we’ve had this car running on inside, it’s only turned the engine on two or three times. So, of course, it has to turn on when we start the video, but that’s just the way it goes, I guess. Now, under the hood, we have a 1.6 6 L turbocharged gasoline direct injection 4 cylinder engine. Now this power plant is also in conjunction with an electric motor and a higher capacity high voltage battery. Our total output will be 261 horsepower with 258 pound feet of torque. That is of course combining the output from the gas engine and the electric motor. for your battery, your high voltage battery, not the 12 volts that powers the accessories in your regular car. Has about 55 kilometers of all electric range. And as the name suggests, this is a plug-in hybrid. So, in order to recharge that battery, you plug it in. Now, the charge port, I’ll show you guys in just a few minutes, but you can use a level one charger that’s provided with the car or even a level two 240 volt charger. We have one here in our video bay. We use it for our electric vehicles, our plug-in hybrid vehicles, and that’s what will typically charge your car from zero to 100% in about two and a half to three hours. If you are using the charger that comes with the vehicle, the level one, that’s going to take a bit longer, usually equating to about 10 to 11 hours, so overnight. Now, the best part about a plug-in hybrid is even if you’re not plugging it in, it’s still a hybrid. So, you put gas in it, the vehicle will still utilize its electric motor. You still get the benefit of regenerative braking and you still get a vehicle that idles largely in EV mode. So, if you’re doing a lot of stopand go driving, the stop won’t be wasting unnecessary fuel. All right, let’s talk wheels. All trim levels of the STO plug-in hybrid will share the same 19in alloy. I think it has a beautiful design to it with a lot of gloss black and machine finished tones. Your tire is a Continental and let me get the size spec for you guys. two 3555 R19s. All Sarrento models, both gas hybrid and plug-in hybrid, come standard with all-wheel drive here in Canada. And we also get the inclusion of terrain modes. I know in the States, your vehicles are equipped a little bit differently where you have to get select packages to get terrain modes, but for us, we get snow mode, mud mode, and sand mode. The car is sorry, oh my gosh, the word I’m looking for is biased. The car does have a front-wheel drive bias, which means if it’s regular conditions on dry pavement, you’re largely in front-wheel drive for fuel efficiency. However, if you do turn onto a road with uneven terrain or you’re launching your vehicle from a standstill, it will incorporate more power to the rear to give you that true all-wheel drive. So, it is a smart system. The vehicle automatically adjusts it. But, if you do want to switch it manually, you can go ahead and put it into one of those select terrain modes. Your brakes up at the front are ventilated disc brakes and you get solid discs in the rear. And a fun fact about the brakes, sure we can talk about the mechanical brakes over here, but we also have adjustable levels of regenerative braking for the first time ever on the STO PHV. It starts on the 2025 model year and essentially what it does is it slows your vehicle down without actually using your traditional brakes. It does this by instead of using your electric motor to propel you forward, it reverses its function and turns itself into a generator. So all that energy that would have otherwise been wasted as heat on a regular car goes to be kinetic energy that is then stored in your battery for later use. So you can charge your vehicle by doing a lot of downhill. Even if you don’t plug it in at home, you can do a quite a bit of driving, get a little bit of range back, and use it for later on in more strenuous or consumptuous driving situations. So, lots of stop and go in the city. Use your EV range on this car. All right. Now, for our windshield, we do get rain sensing wipers on the SX trim level, as well as an acoustic and laminated windscreen. Now, the acoustic windscreen doesn’t necessarily start on this trim, but I figured I’d mention anyway. The very center we have a camera. That camera is used for both your forward collision avoidance system, which is advanced on this vehicle. works for junctions, oncoming lane changes, pedestrians, cyclists, and other motorized vehicles, as well as giving you a warning when you start to depart from your lane, and even taking corrective action to make sure that never happens in the first place. Thank you, Adam. One more camera I wanted to point out I didn’t mention on the front end was our forwardfacing parking camera. So, this will show you exactly what’s happening ahead of your vehicle when you are doing slow parking maneuvers. Not only that, but you do have the ultrasonic sensors that will give you an audible warning inside the cabin when you start to get a little too close to something. That is one of the many cameras that piece together that full 360 view. The next one is actually located on our side view mirrors. Your mirrors on the bottom is where you’ll find your blind view monitor. So these, of course, is repeated on the driver side. We’ll show you. Now, if you’re not doing a lane change, you’re just parking, it’ll use all four cameras to piece 360 image. You’ll get gloss black accents, an LED turn signal indicator, and then your body color up at the top. If you’re curious about today’s color, it’s called mineral blue, and it is a hybrid and plug-in hybrid Sarrento exclusive. We also get it on the Kia Nero, so it’s a hybrid vehicle exclusive. You can’t find this on our regular gas cars. Your accents on the exterior will be satin chrome, a little bit of matte on the bottom, and then the true satin up at the top. Same thing’s true for the belt line of the vehicle with the contrast of your pillars being gloss black. This trim level is your introductory trim to digital key entry. So, we still get the same proximity function as our lesser trim levels, except now we can also unlock, start, and drive your vehicle from your phone. So, if you’ve used Apple Pay before, you’re probably familiar with it, and you probably love it. pretty much as long as the phone is somewhere on you, connects to the vehicle, allows you to get in and out. Simply hop in the car, press the start button, and you’re off. You don’t have to use this though if you don’t want to. The top, we got our roof rails. They are a sleek flush style with that same satin chrome accent as the rest of the vehicle’s exterior elements. Coming towards the rear of the vehicle, we’ll see one of our fuel doors. Now, this is not our typical fuel fuel. This is the electric portion of the plug-in hybrid. So, AC or alternating current charging only for our PHEVs. That will be either your level one or your level two. And then your vehicle has its onboard charger that will convert it to direct. This is what the port looks like. So, compatible with J1772 chargers. And of course, you do have one included with your vehicle’s purchase. This vehicle, like I mentioned, on a level two, will typically take about two and a half to three hours to charge. Of course, the timeline can vary on where you’re starting at, whether it’s zero or 20%. Or also the output of the charger you’re using. The household charger that comes with the vehicle is going to take a bit longer, but it’s typically what we call an overnight charger. So, get home from doing your errands or from working, wake up the next day, and your vehicle has a full electric range, 55 km rated on this car. The rear is where we’ll see our LED tail lamps, which are off right now. So, let me get them on to give you a proper demonstration. I’ll also hit the brakes so you can see the full sequence. So, here we have our brake lights, our hazard lights, which are also, of course, your turn signal indicators. And then, do you guys want to see reverse lights? I can do that, too. Throw the car in reverse. It starts in electric mode so you don’t hear anything. Now, let’s run over Adam. Just kidding. Move the car back up. And I’m quickly going to talk about some of the driving dynamics of plug-in hybrids because it can be a little bit different. Then I’ll kind of explain why earlier on you heard the gas engine and then when I just turned it on now, you didn’t hear anything. So, PHEVs will operate with its gas engine if you have no electric range or depending on what kind of drive mode you’re in. Other things that can influence when the gas engine turns on or off have to do with the exterior climate. So, if it’s a very, very cold day and you have the heat cranked up all the way, it will need some power from its gas engine to help warm everything up and get your vehicle up to temp. That’s pretty standard. Now, how can I go home on full electric range if I wanted to? Let’s say I have next to no gas in my car, still want to get home and I have the capability of plugging it in. You can do that. But one thing that’s important to know is if you’re someone who is constant pedal to the metal, absolutely flooring your car, that’s going to trigger the vehicle to turn over its engine. Under very heavy load, it needs to run its gas engine. So you might have to train yourself to be a little bit easier on the throttle, but you can still do highway speeds with absolutely no problem on electric range. Trust me, I have a heavy foot and I did it just fine. Now, for our seating layouts, you can kind of get a peak that it is a six-seater. We have captain’s chairs in the middle and then two seats in the very rear or third row. Included with every vehicle, PHV I should say, we have our level one charger. That’s what’s in here. And then to adjust our seats, it’s very easy. The two rear seats will each have their own individual tabs. Simply flip up the headrest. And then to knock it down again, pull on the tab knocks the headrest down and releases the seat, allowing it to be free to fold. Now, behind our third rows, if they’re both up, we have 357 L of cargo space. And I know it doesn’t look like it, but there is a lot of room on the vertical. Now, underneath the floorboard, that’s where you’ll find your kit for your spare tire. I know, pretty rare for a PHV to have a spare, but we’ve got one, and I’m happy about it. The jack is here, and then this tire itself is located underneath the vehicle. On the lefth hand side, I’ll have Adam give a quick pan. We have clips for our seat belt. So, if no one’s sitting here and you just need as much neat room as possible for your cargo and your goods, you can kind of keep everything flush to the side to really maximize on the space. I will demonstrate myself sitting in the third row, but just to get a feel for the amenities, we have cup holders, a little bit of storage, and then USBC’s on both sides. There’s also these divots on the sidewall, which you can use to integrate a cargo cover. So, they have the uh almost like a shower curtain rod. You know how it’s uh adjustable? It’s just like that. So, you kind of wiggle it into place and it’s uh suspension based power lift gate. I think I said that earlier, but I’m not entirely sure. I can’t remember right now. It is height adjustable, so you’ll set it to your preferred setting. Press and hold the liftgate button to save it, and then it’ll be saved. You can always go ahead and override it again in the future, though. Let’s give that a close, and we’ll take a look at the sensors and cameras along the rear. So, just like the front of the vehicle, we have our ultrasonic parking sensors located on your back bumper. Little bit of satin chrome along the rear bumper, too. And then right underneath the eye in Kia is where we’ll find our typical rear view or backup camera. That’s not the only one on the back, though. There’s also one located on the spoiler. This is used for our digital rear view mirror, which is best if I show you when we hop inside. High- mounted stop lamp integrated into the gloss black section of our spoiler. And then your rear wiper is hidden underneath the spoiler, too. This cleans up the look or the backend look of the vehicle and also keeps it away from things like ice and snow. So, come winter time, it’s a little easier to get your car ready to drive. Fuel tank or fuel door is on the driver’s side. It just takes regular unled fuel, so you don’t have to put premium in it. And you know what the best part is? There’s an actual gas door button, but that’s not the g the best part. The best part about this fuel tank is it’s a 47 L tank. That is the same size that was in the KiaForte, the Kia Stos, mostly our smaller cars. However, on a full tank of fuel, regular fuel for this vehicle, you have more or just about the same range as the regular gas Sarrento, and it’s rated at 7 L per 100 km. So, that’s a big difference from the 10.3 that the true gas Sarrento is rated at on less money to fill with just the same amount of range. Not including again our electric range. Pretty dang good. Cheaper to fuel. You get about the same distance on just gas and then you get the bonus of electric range if you plug in your car. Again, if you are someone who suffers from range anxiety and maybe that’s why you’re not going towards an electric vehicle, I do think a plug-in hybrid is a great way to bridge that gap. Get that electric range, but you still have a vehicle that you can put gas in if you are on a long road trip and do not want to plan based off chargers. Now, before I hop in, Adam’s going to give a quick pin of the interior, and I’ll quickly list a few things that are exclusive or start on the SX trim level. One of which will be this beautiful leather interior. Now, you get the option for the gray or something called a dust blue. Today, we have a black, which is classy. I think it looks very, very nice on this car. This is technically the gray interior, so it’s fairly dark. We do have some lighter elements on our door card, which which I’ll show you guys in a bit. Few things that are exclusive will be our memory driver seat as well as ventilation for our front seats and heated seats in the rear. With our memory seats, we also get a couple extra controls. One of which is the driver knee extender. So, if I’m someone who’s a bit taller, you can have this push out and it’s a bit more comfortable for your leg support. And then we have four-way lumbar support instead of the typical two-way. Little easier to get the perfect and comfortable seat. These seats are again heated with three different levels, but we also get ventilation on the SX trim. Along our door card, you can see a nice mix of materials. We got some metal touches as well as a satin door handle. Then we have our memory seat controls with two buttons per user profile. So, a grand total of six actual saves. Your power folding mirrors can be controlled right over here just with a push of a button. And your mirror controls are saved to your memory seats, too. All four windows are auto, so as long as I push them down, it’ll go all the way down. If I flip them up, they’ll come all the way up. Your sound system is a Bose premium sound system, exclusive to this trim. And of course, we have nine airbags within this vehicle. Every time I talk about speakers, I always segue into airbags. Just feels natural. The lefth hand side is where you’ll find quick controls for the brightness of your screens, your auto lift gate, and then your fuel door release. So again, you guys saw me open the charge door simply by pushing it. To open your gas door, you got to press the button. So I get confused all the time because a lot of our cars, you just push on the gas door and it opens. We got to find a way to just make everything the same. But it’s okay. I’ll turn the car into accessory mode to wake up the screens and I’ll show you our gauge cluster because the digital gauge starts and is only on this trim. Full 12.3 in display. You have your speedometer on the lefth hand side and then the right hand side will show you both your tachometer, your RPM gauge, but also your eco power band. Sorry, I can’t point because I have to keep pressing this button or else it’ll tell me my door’s open. So, this will show you when you’re largely using gas power versus in a more efficient state of driving. It’ll also show you when you are getting some power back from the regenerative braking. The center display is showcasing our range right now. So on a just under full tank of fuel, we have about 537 kilometers of range. That’s just over 550 on full tank. And then for electric, it’s showing zero because someone didn’t plug this car in. Oh no. Here we have our navigation. If you had a route set, it would show you your turn by turn. And then we can also see our lane safety. There are a ton of different views on this main screen here. Here you can see your current trip since refueling since last reset, even your engine temp, your TPMS, all-wheel drive, and your current mode. Bottom left shows you your distance to empty. This is combined. And then we have our fuel gauge. Battery gauge is on the right hand side. All righty. Steering wheel is absolutely beautiful. So, it is a leather wrapped and heated wheel with two different levels of heat. The left-hand side is reserved for your driver assistance systems. So, we can change the view of the main screen with this button here. We can turn on our smart cruise control or highway drive assist level two depending if we’re on the highway by pressing this button here, adjusting your speed, and then adjusting the following distance with the bottom left. The right over here will adjust both our lane keep and lane follow assist systems. You can see by pressing it that little steering wheel icon appeared. Now, let me press it again. It’ll be gone. There we go. If I were to press and hold, however, it triggers or releases the lanekeeping assist. So, it is a single button that does both functions. It’s just a matter of if you quickly press or press and hold. On the back, we’ll have our regenerative braking paddle shifters or our gear paddle shifters. Now, what these paddles do depends on what drive mode that you’re in. If you’re in sport mode and go to hit your right paddle, the plus paddle, it’ll go up to the next gear. It’ll upshift. If you were in eco mode, however, it would change your level of regen. We have three different levels to choose from and then also an auto function. Now, auto just essentially uses the car’s intelligence to adjust it automatically. So, if there’s a lot of traffic, it’ll be in a heavier setting because the car will assume that if you’re letting off the accelerator, it’s probably because you’re going to be coming to a slowdown or a stop. So, the vehicle will automatically apply more regen pressure. If you want to do it yourself, though, like I said, just flip with the paddles. You don’t have to go through any menus to change it. It’s nice and easy. Pretty nice. All right. Now, for the main screen, again, another 12.3 in display. This has in-house navigation that is an SX model exclusive. You’ve got for media, so many different options. Sirius XM, AM, FM, Sounds of Nature, USB music if you want, but what you really care about is the Android Auto, and the Apple CarPlay. Now, on this vehicle, it is wireless. So, as long as your phone supports either or, you’ll simply connect it. You don’t need a cable. It’ll automatically go on the second you turn on your vehicle. Very, very handy. And that was what a lot of people complained about on the previous iteration of the Kia Sarrento or just all of our cars really cuz none of them had it. Now underneath you can see our air vents. Beautiful horizontal finish expanding all the way across the dash and then working its way back up vertically similar to our headlamp design. And then the controls for your HVAC system. It is dual zone, so I as a driver can set my temp, passenger can set theirs, or we can just do driver only. Pretty handy, easy to adjust. There is the automated climate function. However, this can get a bit confusing because it’s also some quick controls for your main menu. Now, what I mean by that is now it’s climate, now it’s infotainment. Once you drive the vehicle for a few weeks, you’ll probably get the hang of it, but this seems to baffle people at the beginning. Below that, we have this little hidden section. And oh, got to push a little harder. There we go. Where we have our wireless phone charger, multiple USBC’s with the one on the left also being able to control data transfer, and then our heated and ventilated seat controls for both driver and passenger. Passengers right there. Your gear shift is absolutely beautiful. It has an almost crystalall-like appearance. It’s a shift by wire, so as long as your foot’s on the brake, you’ll simply switch the dial over to your select gear and then push the P for park. Below that is where we’ll find our drive modes and terrain modes. So, eco mode, sport, and smart. Illuminate and orange to show you what you’ve selected. And then snow, mud, and sand. You can’t be in a terrain mode and a drive mode at the same time. It’s either one or the other. Right under there, we have our heated steering wheel, our auto hold braking, as well as our downhill braking assist, electronic parking brake, our button to switch between electric mode, hybrid mode, or auto mode. And then our parking sensors and our park camera. Show you guys the camera because they are such high quality and very very high definition. It’s going to look a little funky there because my door is open. Over here we can adjust which is our main view. So this is our rear view of the side mirrors. This is kind of top down of the rear. Wide view of the rear. The same for our front. So, regular front, wide front, side view front, and then normal front. Pretty cool. There is also this camera mode as well, which gives you kind of a 360 adjustable view to double check your parking, make sure you’re in between the lines. And as promised, I’ll show showcase to you guys our digital rear view. So, you can either flip this on or flip it off. Very, very high quality. You get about six lanes worth of footage when you are driving. So if you’re on the highway, you can see everything that’s happening around you. Oops, that’s scary. Let’s bring it back. And it’s also extremely helpful if you do have a full house. So if every seat is taken in this car, you don’t have to look at heads. You can actually see what’s behind you. Show the panel roof. And then I’m going to have Adam take over the camera for our seats. So we’ll get a better look at the panel roof once I hop into the second row. Okie dokie. So, as Adam walks over, there he is. You can see I have our right captain’s chair folded down. Now, to bring this seat up, it’s fairly easy. You’ll press this top button here, and that will release the seat, allowing me to lock it back into place. Now, although they are heated and adjustable, they are manual adjustments. So, if I would like to move it on its rail, there’s a bar right down here. I’ll grab it and then just adjust it to my preference and it’ll lock into place. These seats do have armrests, a beautiful quilted design just like our driver and passenger seats. And then the controls to turn on the heat are located on the door card right above our window controls. While we’re taking a look at the door, let’s just also appreciate the materials. There’s a lot of soft touch leatherrett finishes. Then we also have the inclusion of not just our premium sound system, but our sun shades. So, the sun shades are integrated into the door, making them number one, look a lot better and also be easier to use. They’re not like the ones you buy from Walmart that leave those suction cups on your windows for seemingly forever. Well, after your kids have grown up. Behind our front seats, we have a leather seat back pocket and a mesh I combined net and mesh in the same word. You know what? I’m going to I’m going to roll with that. A mesh pocket. The middle will have our center console with air vents. They are of course adjustable for the flow in the direction. And then behind that or below that we have a 12volt and a 115 volt inverter. The seatbacks also have integrated USBCs. And everything is the same on my side as far as window controls, sun shades, everything. I feel like there’s something I forgot. Like majorly forgot. Oh, it’s the power passenger seat. Adam, do you mind opening the passenger door and talking about what we’ve got over there? Or I could talk about it. So, we do have a power passenger seat with multiple adjustments. Adam can showcase them to you guys. Lumbar supports. Yep. I don’t know if you guys can hear him. Back rest, reclining, and shifting, power shifting on the railing. Yep. Perfect. All righty. Now, to hop into the third row, it’s fairly easy. The reason why it’s easy is because we’ve got a button to do it. So, provided that there’s no one in here and you’re not going to knock them out of their seat. You can press the shoulder pad button here. It’s available on both seats, that’ll allow the seat to tip forward a little bit, but also release it on the rail. And then you can step in right through the door. I’m going to take a seat on the right hand side while I get our left seat up. There we go. All right. Now, one thing the Sarrento does very well is headroom. There is a ton of space back here for a third row. Mind you, it probably wouldn’t be best to put your tallest passenger back here, but even if you do, they might not hate you that much. We got a decentiz window to look out of. We still got our USBC’s or cup holders, and a little bit of storage. And because this is a captain’s chair configuration and not a bench in front of us, you also don’t feel like you’re that disconnected from the cabin. You got the hallway in the middle where you can extend your legs on a long road trip. Kind of get the tiredness out of you. And honestly, this is more leg room than the second row if I have it stretched out like this. So, it is actually not a bad third row to be in at all. Depending on how much the people sitting ahead of you like you, too. They can adjust their seat on the rail to give you more or less leg room. So, make sure they like you. And that’s about it for the third row. I feel it’s it’s just extra seats. There’s nothing too crazy to write home about, but they’re not uncomfortable. I didn’t mention this when we were explaining the cargo area, but just looking at it now, I feel like I must. We have our second row folding buttons. So, I’m going to powerfold our left side seat. There we go. Now, the driver’s seat is a little too far back that the headrest got a bit caught, but by giving it a simple quick push, it’s completely flat now. And then if I were to fold down our third row, it’ll go completely in line with the backing of this seat. I have slept in my mom’s Kia Sarrento multiple times. Matter of fact, most recently in July, I went on a road trip to Maine for my anniversary and my boyfriend forgot to plan a place to stay for one of the nights. So, we slept in a Walmart parking lot in the back of my mom’s Kia Sto. And it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t. So, completely flat floor to work with. You do get the separation in between because of the captain’s chairs, but if you just stuff all your baggage and stuff in there, you can still make it sleepable if you are planning on buying this vehicle to sleep in. Mo, I feel like most people aren’t, but you never know. Anyway, that’s about it for our walkound of today’s vehicle. I would love to hear what you guys think about the car. We’ll take probably about two or three minutes to answering some questions and then we will end off our live today just because it is a bit longer. It’s about 30 minutes so far. So, I’m going to set the camera down over here and let’s chat, shall we? Let’s uh let’s catch up. Um Francisco said, “I would like to know how leg room is in inches for the second and third row as well as your height. This will give me a better perspective of the seating comfort.” So, I am about 5’4 um with long legs. I’m again I’ve been in this rental multiple times in every single seat just based off dealership experience and also if I’m ever in the car with my mom and my family. It’s pretty spacious. I can put the actual dimensions in the cargo in the cargo in the description right after this video is posted though. Um Spencer asked, “Is the rear cargo volume roughly the same as the nonPHV STO or is that impacted by the battery at all?” So it’s slightly slightly slightly slightly slightly smaller. So, what you would have in the regular gas STO that you don’t necessarily get in the PHEV is underneath the floorboard, you would have a little bit more storage space. I believe in your generation Sarrento, there’s actually a bit of separation. I don’t completely remember what the 2021 looks like off the top of my head, but you do have a little bit of extra hidden storage in the gas model that you don’t get in the PHED because of its battery. Now, we do have a proper spare tire in the PHV Sarrento now that we also didn’t have for the last year’s generation. I should also mention that this vehicle, I keep calling it the current generation, and the previous model was last year’s. It is still the same vehicle mechanically, but it was a product refresh. So, we do have some new software. We got a slightly different look on the exterior and the interior, but mechanically, chassis-wise, everything, it is still the same STO. Okay. MJ said, “Amazing car.” As a Srento owner, it is truly amazing. I really didn’t want to give my mom her car back when she went on a two-eek cruise with my dad for their anniversary. And um we drove them to the airport in their car. So that means I also took her car home. It was incredible. I’m very thankful that I have a garage where I could actually plug it in. And of course, at work, I can plug it in, too. So my drive home was entirely electric, and then my drive to work the next day would be fully electric. The only time I ever tapped into the gas um range was if my drive was further. So if I was doing something after work and it was more than 55 km, then I was using some gas. But then again, I I think I mentioned earlier in this video, I use less than a quarter tank of fuel within two weeks of extra driving and I drive a lot. So I was very very impressed. I think if I really wanted to and I thought about my plans and everything, I could probably do a month or longer without getting fuel in the STO PHV. I think I need a PHEV. Kia, as soon as they make a sedan plug-in hybrid again, they used to do the um Sonata Sonata Optima. It’s game over. I have to get it. I have to get it. Um what’s up? Uh someone asked, “Would you rather a Seno or an ionic 9?” I know they’re not comparable. What would you prefer? Um, I think I would prefer the Sarrento. I just think the Ionic 9 is way too much car for me. Way too much car for me. Um, do hybrids maintain a good value when you trade them or resell them? I would say absolutely. Hybrids are pretty still high in demand right now. EVs have dropped a little bit, but PHEVs and HEVs are still a pretty high demand vehicle and for good reason. I mean, better fuel efficiency, but you still get the peace of mind of having a gas car. It’s It makes a lot of sense. Um, no, you need to put a rotary in your Firefly. That’s what you need to do. I need to get working lights for my Firefly. Um, when you get a PHV, will you park it on top of one of your other cars? That’s how it’s looking right now. I would probably have to get rid of one of them if I’m being completely honest. Um, Martin said, “Every car you describe is nice, Gabby.” Thank you. Um, just checking to see what other Sto questions there may be. What is the price range for this vehicle? So, this the this specific model is priced at 60,000 to 65 Canadian and this is the very very top trim level. The trim level below is roughly $10,000 less expensive. So, you’re at the $50,000 mark. Um, since the PHEV is often driven in silent EV mode, how well is the cabin insulated from wind and road noise at highway speeds? And is the suspension tuned, sorry, it disappeared. Tuned for comfort given the added battery weight. So, we have a multi-link rear suspension, which handling wise, it it’s pretty dang good. Now, it’s not like sports car handling. It’s not the tight corners and, you know, all that, the chicades. Um, it’s more so for average drive, like you know, speed bumps, Ontario roads, that kind of thing. My experience driving the STO PHV and doing a lot of highway driving, I thought it was a very, very quiet ride. So, not a lot of wind noise, not a lot of road noise. It’s a fairly silent drive. The sound system on the Bose is also very good, too. I’m not a huge music, not music freak. I am a music freak, but I’m not a big audio freak. So, I don’t know if it’s up to someone who is very into audio standards, but I quite like it and I think it’s very good. Um, what is the color name? Mineral blue. Why are all the cars you’re buying not Kia or Hyundai? Because neither of them have a 4×4 truck that I wanted. I mean, there’s the Santa Cruz, but I wanted something different and also not as expensive. My truck was five grand. The uh Santa Cruz is not five grand. And then the Firefly was $2,000 off marketplace. So yeah, I like them cheap. All right, you guys. I think that’s about it for today’s video. Thank you so so much for watching. We hope to see you again on Monday’s stream. If you really really need your dose of Kia Hyundai channel, though, we have three videos going up this weekend. I think two tomorrow. I still haven’t set the date yet for them, but they’ll all go up this weekend. So, two videos up on Saturday, one video up on Sunday. And some of them are kind of fun. All right, thank you guys so so much for watching. We hope to see you again in the future. Bye-bye.
The 2026 Sorento PHEV SX! With an addition of LED taillights, a panoramic sunroof, and more on top of the previous EX trim, this is the highest trim to get for the PHEV Kia Sorento. In this video, Gabi goes over notable features, style, and the unique mineral blue colour! Are you a fan of this Sorento or do you prefer another trim? Let us know in the comments!
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