Should I buy the new Kia Carnival, Sorento or Hyundai Palisade?

QUESTION

Hi John,

The local spawning pond has gotten out of control during the pandemic and we are about to have baby number four, meaning we're about to enter the seven-seater market.

I've had a look at the 2021 Kia Carnival and am waiting to take it on a test drive.

Have you had a chance to look at them or planning on reviewing it in the near future? I read your Palisade review and went and saw one in the flesh today as well as the Kia Sorento.

I noticed that the Sorento doesn't have curtain airbags for the rear row and it lacked boot space for prams and other baby paraphernalia.

The Carnival has plenty of room for luggage and seems very practical which is very handy (we currently have an Outback, so we are used to packing heavy on our trips).

The salesman said that it may be a few months before a 2021 build plated model becomes available. We mainly do lots of little short trips (in the suburbs) and probably only do around 10-12,000 kms a year, so not sure if the diesel option would be right for us.

My main concern with the Carnival is reading that due to COVID, Kia said that they didn't have a chance to tune the steering to Australian conditions. The suspension apparently has been tuned for our 'excellent' roads. I am not sure if this is something that can be retro fixed at a service or if it should be a sticking point.

The 7 year warranty and praises I've heard about Kia and Hyundai customer service sounds very promising. What are your thoughts? Would the steering tuning be something to be concerned about? And would the lack of a center airbag be of concern? I am not sure if the vehicle has an ANCAP rating.

Any other suggestions you can provide on baby movers would be great to hear. (We'll have 4 under 6.)

Thanks for your help.

Adrian

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ANSWER

Hello Adrian,

Thank you for your Carnival enquiry and congratulations on all that breeding. Just what the world needs - more humans. Yesssssss!

Sorento (and Santa Fe) have side airbag coverage in row 3, but it just doesn’t go all the way back to wrap the rear pillar. (Most 7-seat SUVs are actually like this.) It’s also bigger than current Outback. Carnival is yet to be crash tested (mid-Feb 2021), although I highly doubt they would have gone backwards on Sorento safety (so 5 stars is almost a guarantee).

I don’t know why a ’21 build plate is important to you on any of this - it’s the same vehicle (in terms of spec, for Carnival, Sorento, Santa Fe…) Warranty and age depend upon date of first rego.

Carnival does have a lot of additional space (and you can get a sense of just how much by checking out my review of the previous generation Carnival here >>). With all three rows of seating up, you get 627 litres of volumetric load capacity ( more than half a cubic metre), and with rows two and three down, you get stealth-van mode with 2785 litres (or 2.7 cubic metres).

In terms of dimensions, with the third row deployed, you get exactly 699mm of depth to the seatbacks (72mm more than the old Carnival) and over 1.2 metres of width to stow big heavy travel bags, golf clubs or the triple stroller. Lifting it in will be easier than the old model because the boot’s liftover height has been reduced 2.6cm and the boot aperture is 19mm wider at over 1.22 metres.

Old Carnival

New Carnival

I think the suspension tune is more important than the steering, frankly, but I don’t know if the re-tune (if and when it happens) will be retro-fitted. Kia hasn’t decided on that one.

My advice would be to drive one, and if the steering feels OK, then it’s OK. I doubt you’ll find it glaringly deficient. Basically they need to get an R&D engineer here so he can plug in and iteratively tune the steering assistance map while on site with the local team. It may not make much difference at all. Certainly the average punter out there isn’t going to notice much difference unless they compare both versions back-to-back on the same day.

Palisade 7-seater

Carnival seats 7, incl. one facing rearward

Sorento, Santa Fe, Carnival and Palisade are all larger vehicles than your Outback - but the big advantage of seven-seat Palisade and all Carnivals (configured to 7-seat mode) is that you can walk through to row 3, which is a big deal when juggling child restraints and fitting multiple kids and adults into the vehicle.
Centre airbags prevent mutual head-butting in side-on impacts. I don’t know, in real terms, how important this is (like, how many people get seriously injured from this, who would not be injured if the centre airbag had been present). I suspect it’s a very small number.

ANCAP ratings are not regulatory, and ANCAP has seriously lost the plot over the past few years - so it’s making itself irrelevant. (Carmakers are about to tell them to go to buggery - it’s a case of who goes first, insofar as I can tell.)

Diesel: Hyundai-Kia DPFs are good at passive regeneration, so short annual kays around inner suburbs should be fine. Of course it’s good for all cars to get out on the highway.

I’m due to road test the new Carnival (the same colour and spec as the overlay footage I already have) but the previous road-tester crashed it, and I’m awaiting advice when a replacement will be forthcoming.

If I was you, it’d be a Carnival for me. And a vasectomy. (Just kidding.)

(Not really.)

Sincerely,

John Cadogan

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