2021 Kia Stonic: Full Australian Review and Buyer's Guide
New Kia Stonic is the next big thing in SUVs. Or is it just a Rio with a grandiose sense of self-importance? Let’s find out…
Fortunately, there’s no mythological dimension to the name. Stonic is just a meaningless mash-up of the words ‘Sporty’ and ‘Tonic’. Disappointingly.
Which means we can get straight into talking about the good, bad and ugly about the new trumped up small car in Kia’s range trying very convincingly to be an SUV.
It costs between $23k and $30k driveaway for the poverty pack ‘S’ in manual and ‘GT-Line’ respectively. There’s also a ‘Sport’ that wants $25k in the middle.
Let’s get a few things straight, OK? A Kia Stonic is a Kia Rio - only with added roof rails, infinitesimally more luggage space, and 43 millimetres of additional ground clearance. And different hair and makeup. This will cost you $5500 extra, roughly.
As far as the safety dudes at ANCAP were concerned, after an engineering analysis that took probably 30 seconds including a coffee break, they decided Stonic was actually a variant of Rio - so the Stonic gets the Rio’s 2017 five-star safety rating. No crash testing was required. They’re the same vehicle.
We’ve seen this kind of cloning before, with crossovers and cars: Stonic is Rio just like Subaru XV is Impreza hatch. Of course, some manufacturers do this without changing the name - like Toyota with Yaris and Yaris Cross.
Either way, beancounters inside carmakers jump at this kind of thing, because the fundamental R&D is already in the can - amortised and paid for - you just jack the car up a bit, you give it marginally different styling, bit of botox if you’re lucky, slap on a new badge - and there’s a brand new SUV, at a fraction of the cost of developing a bespoke one.
USEFUL LINKS FOR BUYING SMALL CARS & SUVs
2021 Mazda CX-3 review & buyer's guide >>
2021 Subaru XV review & buyer's guide >>
2021 Kia Seltos review & buyer's guide >>
2021 Hyundai Kona review & buyer’s guide >>
Stonic’s healthy competition
We’ll get to the on-road Stonic stuff in just a sec, but first, some important context.
Don’t get me wrong here: Stonic is an awesome styling exercise. It looks great, the proportions are spot on, and the front end in particular came together really well, in my epistemically subjective opinion. Especially on GT-Line, which you’re predominately looking at in this review.
With cars being the fashion statement they often are in the minds of many, there’s all too frequently a line in the sand with the letters ‘SUV’ on one side. The ‘must have’ side. It’s kinda non-negotiable.
So there’s gunna be people out there - and you might be familiar with one, occasionally - for whom only an SUV will do. This ultimatum will be delivered to you in some way, probably with the best of intentions and a perceived logic. For these people (who I would argue can’t see the forest here, for the trees) Stonic will be a contender in the way Rio won’t because it’s a car.
Stonic is priced and equipped very competitively against its peers, such as Mazda’s CX-3 and big-sister Hyundai’s Venue. So there’s that. Like, you’ll pay roughly $10,000 more for a fully-loaded CX-3. However, the Mazda’s not a rip-off. CX-3 delivers roughly 50 per cent more power from its 2.0-litre four, and it has AWD and adaptive cruise, for example - both of which the Stonic lacks.
If you go dollar-for-dollar with CX-3, you’re looking at a front-drive CX-3 Maxx Sport - and you’re back to manual seats, non-adaptive cruise control and smaller 16-inch alloys. Stonic GT-Line starts looking pretty sharp against a Maxx Sport CX-3.
Hyundai Venue is close to a direct Stonic competitor on price and spec. Like Stonic, Venue is front-drive only, but even here, Venue will give you about 25 per cent better power to weight.
So, there’s your boxed set of three diminutive SUVs, if you want to duck out and test drive today, comparatively. CX-3 for polish and performance; Stonic as the price-leader; Venue in the middle. Just make sure you drive variants at the same price-point, otherwise this will skew your perception.
Perhaps you’re wondering why Australia is only just getting Stonic now, after the rest of the world (seemingly) got it in 2017. That’s a supply constraint thing.
Four years ago, the boys upstairs, just below the 38th Parallel, gave Kia Australia a product ultimatum of sorts.
They said (and I’m paraphrasing): ‘Seltos or Stonic? Pick one, because you’re not getting both.’ Kia Australia goes: “Well, since you put it like that, we’ll take the Seltos.”
Seltos is a great contender if you want the next size SUV up - especially the 1.6 turbo, which goes like a friggin’ cut cat, and about which I am unreservedly enthusiastic.
Seltos murders an XV in a straight line. And it’s the kind of murder where the crime scene dude is looking all over the walls and the floor, and only sees a wash of Haemoglobin.
And if you want an SUV between Seltos and Stonic, try the Kona with the same cat-lacerating 1.6 turbo powertrain. It’s pretty handy with the knife, too - with a facelift due any moment now, by the way.
Fortunately, Stonic supply has improved, and the 37.9th Parallel prohibition on Stonic for Australia has been happily reversed. And here we all are, four years late, but at least all present and accounted for, with Stonic rolling out into dealerships across our wide, brown land. And we all know why it’s really brown.
My AutoExpert AFFORDABLE ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE PACKAGE
If you’re sick of paying through the neck for roadside assistance I’ve teamed up with 24/7 to offer AutoExpert readers nationwide roadside assistance from just $69 annually, plus there’s NO JOINING FEE
Full details here >>
DRIVING STONIC
GT-Line gets a nice, taut suspension tune in line with its Saturn V aspirations, which is about 20 per cent stiffer and sportier than the Stonic Sport.
This particular Stonic is the GT-Line, which comes with the 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo engine - same peak power output as the 1.4-litre atmo four in Stonic Sport.
But let me assure you: less is more - at least in this case. Even though peak power is the same.
If you’re wondering why, here’s the beer-garden physics backyard briefing on that:
3 cylinders vs 4 cylinders
Many people might look briefly at these specs, see they’re the same and just go for the cheaper Stonic Sport. But there’s more to it than the face-value figures.
Peak power is the same (74kW), but what matters is how the engine performs across all revs because we don’t all drive at 4500 or 6000 RPM.
Power, which makes Stonic accelerate, is a product of torque and revs. So when we convert the power in kW to its bare bones configuration, it reveals the true potential of each of Stonic’s engines.
So, in trying to compare the 3-cylidner’s power output compared to the 4-cylinder, when we do the maths on the 1.4 4-cylinder engine, we find that from the 133Nm @ 4000 revs it offers 55kW @ 4000 RPM.
Applying the same formula to the 3-cylinder’s 172Nm @ 1500-4000 RPM, we get 42kW at 4000 RPM - which is better.
When you pull out to overtake, you’re not gonna be at 6000RPM. You’re going to be at lower revs and build up to 6000RPM, and in that time, you’re going to accelerate faster in the 3-cylinder.
A 3-cylinder is essentially a 6-cylinder cut in half. 3-cylinders rock on the crankshaft, inherently. And because you have fewer firing pulses, it’s going to be rougher delivery of power. The more cylinders, the smoother the engine’s operation because they’re better balanced by firing pulses per cylinder.
Looking at the market of 3-cylinder engines, there are plenty.
Stonic runs on 91 RON fuel, as does the Ford Fiesta 1.5 with 98 kW/L which is huge, and makes me wonder therefore about the durability of that engine - with a third more specific power output (and Ford has a reputation for failing high performance engines, like the Focus RS).
All the other 3-cylinder engine outclass the Stonic initially, but they all run 95, which seems counterintuitive for the budget SUV segment. Stonic is in many ways the superior 3-cylinder here because it still delivers decent specific power (kW per litre) while running on lower octane fuel.
Kia Australia’s marketing dude has actually referred to the Stonic as a “pocket rocket”.
In fairness, you can probably see the truth in this, but on my world, a pocket rocket would be a diminutive conveyance with 90-100 watts per kilo. Stonic GT-line gives you about 60. So, it’s not exactly the kind of rocket of which Wernher von Braun would be all that proud. At the elastic limit of the language you could call it moderately sporty.
To be fair, the mid-rev performance is actually pretty good, thanks to the turbo. The three-cylinder is typically raucous too, it’s got that “Shakin’ all over” thing happening, which is rather nice if you’re sufficiently motivated to get your snout out of your phone and have a crack behind the wheel from time to time.
Dual-Clutch Transmission
The 7-speed DCT on the GT-Line is quite engaging, especially if you go looking for that pocket rocket potential. And it’s quite adaptive, so if you lend the car to your adult son you’ll know if he’s been thrashing it, you’ll know because it’ll drive differently the following morning when you get in.
You’ve gotta remember that DCTs are typically not that refined at low-speed maneuvering. It’s about accepting the strengths and learning to live with the weaknesses.
But before you jump to the hasty conclusion that DCTs are crap, they’re just not. They’re good at sporty driving, mediocre at maneuvering at low speeds, and they save you 6-10 per cent on fuel, whenever the car is turning and burning. A conventional auto is the polar opposite of that. So it kinda depends on your priorities - such as: how much you enjoy paying for fuel.
HOW TO BUY YOUR NEXT NEW CAR
Sometimes I can't save you thousands on a new car >>
Copping criticism
I don’t like the flat-bottom steering wheel - they have their place in race cars where drivers cannot get in. Otherwise, and I blame Audi for this, flat-bottom steering wheels are an ergonomic step backwards.
And another thing is the infotainment system, which generally is pretty nice, except they’ve managed to put a right-hand drive vehicle together with a left-hand drive optimised screen. When you’re sitting there on the right-hand side, driving the car, the buttons for the ‘home’ screen or whatever, you have to reach the far top left-hand corner. This is the optimal position for the left-hand drive version.
How hard would it be to write a few lines of code which change these 'screen ‘buttons’ for our RHD market?
Fortunately, one of the things that has worked out nicely for Kia, is the local bespoke Australian suspension tune for our crap roads. It’s made Stonic very delightful to throw around on a piece of twisty road. The chassis is just stiff enough to be responsive without being too harsh in the bump-absorption domain. 13 out of 10 points for that. It’s one of the few things Covid has not gotten itself in the way of.
That beeping, squawking, wheel-grabbing safety shit is a complete pain in the arse - on all modern cars, not just Stonic. I don’t know how many takes that crap has ruined for me. Hundreds, by now. It’s just an intrusive, badly executed set of systems implemented by all carmakers in an effort to appease the likes of ANCAP, so the cars can be given five stars. I love politics.
And you thought it was there to save your life … If that were the case, it’d be implemented quite differently, I’d suggest.
After a week driving the Stonic GT-Line - and I do hate to shatter the illusion - but when you’ve been doing this for three decades, or something, the vast majority of your time in loan cars from manufacturers is just the same boring, crap driving as everyone else. A to B in traffic. Like, Jesus. That’s not driving - it’s just wasting your life in a car.
And while the suspension tune on Stonic GT-line is ‘Goldilocks’ (for me), I really do think they could have done much better with the powertrain. Because, to me, it’s just not refined enough - it surges all over the place, and the operant characteristics of the DCT seem to feed back into the three-cylinder, and vice-versa, in an inopportune way.
Ultimate Transmission Guide: Manual, Auto, Dual-Clutch and CVT >>
The engine showcases the worst features of the transmission, and the transmission returns the favour, sadly.
Like, DCTs are great when they can predict the future with some certainty. Like, on the open road, or just gunning it off the mark. They select the right next gear and then they shift brilliantly, at exactly the right time. But in traffic, the future’s not so clear cut, and they get wrong-footed quite easily, and this engine, which is hardly a torque monster, has quite the hard time making up the difference in a refined way, frankly.
It seems somewhat better in Sport mode. But every time I restarted the Stonic, it defaulted to Eco mode - which is annoying. I mean, I want the car to re-start in the configuration I took the trouble to set up last time I drove it. I’m funny like that.
Unfortunately, the conditions in which the powertrain displays its least-refined characteristics are the same conditions, it seems to me, that a vehicle like this is most likely to operate in. Like, urban running around, in traffic.
I’d be interested to see if the 1.4 atmo engine with its conventional auto (in Stonic Sport) is any more refined here. I wouldn’t be looking forward to 30 per cent less power in the mid-rev range, but the torque converter auto will definitely be smoother in these conditions.
Who are you?
There is of course a class of buyer who could not give a dead dingo’s donger about things like powertrains. As long as the car starts and gets you from here to there, and keeps up with the traffic, right. I’m obviously not talking to you about the powertrain - if that’s the benchmark, it’s fine.
My strong advice would be, however: Test drive both the Sport and the GT, back to back, in the kinds of conditions in which you will mainly drive, and see which of the pair ticks the most boxes for you. It might be the 1.4. And hey, you might like the raucous 1.0-litre turbo three in the GT-Line. That’s allowed. Perhaps I’m really just being a bitch. I do that, from time to time. Thank Christ for equality.
Anyway, I came away loving the spec and the styling in the GT-Line. Like, OK, there’s no driver’s electric seat adjustment, and no head-up display, no adaptive cruise - but you do get heaps of safety kit, and you do have to factor in the price, which is quite sharp.
The local product planning dudes in every car company always wage war with the factory over what they can get, spec-wise, and what it’s gunna add to the price. And here we are, in the most price-sensitive SUV segment. So that’s always a balancing act.
As hardships go, sitting in a Stonic GT-Line is not torurous.
You get wireless Car Play and wireless Android Auto (but it’s only wireless on the Sport) . With voice commands, using OK Google and Hey Siri. But you still have to plug in a cable for those phone integrations on the GT-Line, mainly because one of those two tech giants is having a tantrum over whose nav gets to be the default display. I think it’s probably Apple.
Anyway, across the range you can connect two smart phones - allowing you to argue endlessly about whose music plays.
The driver’s phone can be configured for hands-free calls, while the passenger’s can inflict notionally ‘her’ music on (notionally) him. For what I’m sure will feel like eternity - even if you’re just driving up to the local shops. I’m not sure that’s a net step forward for mobility, frankly.
And, of course, you get Hyundai-Kia’s Hilarious “Sounds of Nature” ambient backing tracks. (Which I detailed in my recent ‘Palisade’ review >> The bit about Sounds of Nature (which Stonic also has) is right here >>
Conflict resolution
Frankly, I’ve got a far more serious problem with Stonic.
There’s no doubt a Stonic is cooler than a Rio, right? (To some people.) But what do I say to the dude or dudette who emails me and asks: ‘I’m thinking of buying a Stonic. What do you recommend?’
I posed this question to Kia Australia’s chief operating officer, Damien Meredith.
I go, like: ‘Damo, someone asks me that - how else might I respond but with “buy a Rio, dude - same vehicle; $5500 cheaper.”
So, Kia’s position on this is: They price their cars competitively for the segments in which they compete. And I’d say, ‘yeah, dudes, that’s true. You do.’ Among micro-SUVs, including CX-3 and Venue, Stonic is competitive on price.
However, to me, on that increasingly distant parallel world, where people make decisions based on facts, it just makes better sense to buy a Rio. Unless you desperately need that 40mm of extra ground clearance (which, on the balance of probability, I’m willing to bet you actually don’t). And at the same time, I can’t actually see where the extra $5500 goes, stepping from Rio to Stonic. Like, it’s a 25 per cent (ish) price hike. And it’s not 25 per cent more car.
Let’s not forget, with some SUVs, that $5000-$10,000 step up, from a roughly equivalent car gets you (perhaps) a different powertrain - like, one with a diesel engine, and/or on-demand AWD, both of which would give the vehicle, even if only slightly, more actual adventuring capability. And I can see where the money goes, on all that additional hardware, in cases such as that.
But these kinds of upgrades are not part of the deal when the Rio emerges from its cocoon, grabs the nearest mirror and sees a Stonic staring back at itself - so I’m still kinda struggling with that. And I guess my message to you therefore is to at least consider a Rio if you have Stonic on your short list. $5500 does buy one rather a lot.
Tonic Films shot the epic B-roll in this review. If you need a pro videographer, visit Tonicfilms.tv. They worked on Star Wars!
The anatomy of the most common off-road disaster. Do not let this happen to you. The road to 4X4 hell: so often paved with good intentions. What could possibly go wrong?