Kia Rondo review

Joel Helmes has filed this Kia Rondo review.

I must admit I didn’t know too much about the Kia Rondo when I picked it up, and I have to say I don’t really remember actually seeing one on the road.

Joel Helmes has filed this Kia Rondo review.

After driving it for a few days I wandered why.

Here is a car that gives you a bit of everything, and happily gets you from A to B without any fuss at all.

Exterior

I don’t think the Kia Rondo is really the sort of car that people will buy because of its styling, while it’s OK to look at it certainly isn’t exciting or flashy.

It’s about as straight down the line as you can get.

One thing I will make mention of however is that you can really see how far Kia have come by the quality of the exterior fittings like the door handles, wing mirrors, headlights etc. Nice work Kia.

Interior

Well really it’s both good and OK.

Firstly the positives, the seats are really nice and comfortable, there’s loads of storage space and hidey holes, and the steering wheel features easy to use stereo and Bluetooth controls.

And of course you have the extra fold up seats in the rear which means you can move six passengers around, albeit those in the back would want to be less than about four feet tall.

On the downside the interior is basic and functional and there’s probably a bit too much hard plastic.

The thing I liked the least about the Kia Rondo was the foot operated parking brake.

You have to push the pedal down to engage the parking brake, to disengage there is a plastic lever on the dash, this is better than having to use your foot to take the parking brake off but it just felt really clunky and cheap.

Also because the parking brake is foot operated you don’t get a footrest which would make longer trips behind the wheel much more comfortable.

Ride and handling

Surprisingly the Rondo really handles quiet well, in fact in some ways it is superior over the sporty Soul which I reviewed last week.

The ride is a little on the firm side, but a good compromise all round really.

One thing which I thought could have been better was the power steering, it was much heavier than you would expect in a vehicle like this and could be a turn off particularly among female buyers.

Interestingly our own Kia Rio, which is coming up to three years old, also has power steering which is surprisingly heavier than other vehicles its size.

Engine and Drivetrain

The Kia Rondo comes with just the one engine type and that is a two litre four cylinder VVTI petrol which produces 106kW and 189Nm.

It has adequate if not thrilling get up and go and while I only had it lightly loaded, with four adults and a couple kids on board you would expect to really feel it under acceleration.

Fuel consumption is pretty good at a combined 8.6 litres per 100.

Safety and Environment

The Kia Rondo boasts driver and front seat passenger airbags, front side airbags, curtain airbags, ABS and stability control.

That all equates to a four star ANCAP safety rating.

The Green vehicle guide rating for the Rondo is three stars out of five.