2016 Kia Sedona Review - Minivan in a Crossover Suit

Alex L. Dykes
by Alex L. Dykes

Let’s face it: Nobody wants to drive what their parents drove, even if it’s the right vehicle for the task at hand. Minivan shoppers balked at their parent’s station wagon, and CUV shoppers seem to believe that minivans are the gateway to mom-jeans and velcro sneakers.

My sister-in-law is the perfect example of a conflicted minivan shopper. With four kids, she needs a minivan. However, because she grew up sitting in the back of a string of Chevrolet Astro vans, she has a special hatred reserved for minivans. It probably doesn’t help that her parents recently traded in an Oldsmobile Silhouette for a Chrysler Town & Country.

Technically, a family of six will fit in your average three-row crossover, but even the biggest CUVs have a cramped back seat and limited cargo compared to the average minivan.

Seeing an opportunity to differentiate itself, Kia decided to put a different twist on the Sedona when it was redesigned for 2015. The latest Sedona gives up some traditional minivan practicality in an attempt to appeal to crossover shoppers on the fence.

Although Chrysler has done an excellent job styling the new Chrysler Pacifica, its overall shape still screams “I’m a minivan!” The Sedona, however, uses a front-end design lifted from Kia’s popular Sorento crossover. The result is a minivan that looks like a traditional people-hauler from the side or rear, but more like a crossover in someone’s rearview mirror. The styling team’s attempt to “crossover-ify” the rear 3/4 view results in much smaller windows for third-row folks, but the windows give the Sedona more style than we see in the Pacifica or Toyota Sienna.

Also more stylish than the competition is the Sedona’s interior. The clean-sheet design is as impressive as the previous Sedona was drab. So dramatically changed is the interior, the casual observer is unlikely to believe they were produced by the same company just one year apart. Don’t believe me? Ward’s Auto even put this cabin on its 2015 best interiors list.

In an un-minivan move, Kia designed the new Sedona with a fixed center console, console-mounted shifter, and a shared center armrest. The result is less utilitarian than your run-of-the-mill minivan — you can’t jam purses or backpacks between the front seats — but it does make the Sedona look more modern than a Honda Odyssey and less minivan-y than a Dodge Grand Caravan.

In addition to style, plastics quality is surprisingly high with soft touch materials used liberally across the dashboard and doors.

Moving one row back, you won’t find a bench seat in any Sedona. The base L trim starts with two captain’s chairs in fabric, which limits the passenger count to seven. Want to seat eight? No problem, jump up to the LX or EX trim and Kia inserts a small (and less comfortable) seat between the two captain’s chairs. Migrate to the SX or SXL trim and the center seat is once again removed, but can be re-added by checking the right option box.

Our tester was the SXL trim, which bumps the captain’s chairs up to a 14-way manual adjustable design with integrated ottoman and butterfly headrests. Clearly aimed at empty-nesters, the seats are more usable than the luxury thrones found in the Sienna. Kia allows the second row to slide so far back in the Sedona that the third-row can be made unusable.

Snazzy seats in a minivan aren’t new, of course. What’s new is that these seats don’t come out. You heard that right: the SXL’s thrones contort in a million different directions, but cannot be removed from the vehicle (unless you have a ratchet and plenty of time). The other trim levels use Kia’s “slide and stow” seat that collapses forward as you see above, but they still don’t come out of the vehicle or descend into the floor like the Chrysler Town & Country.

Hop in the way-back and you’ll find a traditional 60/40 split third-row bench seat with three belts. Riding in the back isn’t as comfortable as the other rows, or as comfy as the same seats in the Odyssey or Pacifica, but it’s miles ahead of any three-row crossover. Although the window line limits visibility at the third row, the actual roofline is just as square as the rest of the minivan crowd. This allows the seat bottom cushion to be significantly higher off the floor than in a Nissan Pathfinder or Chevrolet Traverse while still offering more headroom than the largest CUVs. In addition to the more comfortable seating position, the Sedona offers a whopping 5-inches more combined legroom than Chevy’s large CUV.

With the third row in place, the Sedona’s cargo area lags behind the Odyssey and Sienna at 33.9 cubic feet but manages to beat the Caravan and new Pacifica by a hair. More importantly, the Kia swallows 42-percent more cargo than the aforementioned Traverse with the seats in place. Even though the Sedona has a less practical second row that doesn’t come out, you can still squeeze 33-percent more cargo behind the front row than you can in a GM Lambda crossover.

Powering the Sedona is the same 3.3-liter direct-injection V6 engine used in a variety of Kia products from the Sorento to the Cadenza. Despite being one of the smaller displacement engines, the modern design with direct injection, dual variable valve timing and a high 11.5:1 compression ratio means that power and torque are among the best in class at 276 horsepower and 248 lbs-ft of torque.

The only transmission on offer is a six-speed automatic shared with the Sorento crossover. Unfortunately, the Sorento’s optional all-wheel-drive system does not make it into the Sedona. Optional AWD would have been one way to completely differentiate the Sedona from the average minivan, so this seems like a truly missed opportunity. If you want all four wheels to make your school-bus-wheels go round and round, the Sienna is your only option and you’ll have to kiss your spare tire goodbye as well.

Most crossover shoppers are convinced that their large car/truck hybrid handles better than a minivan. Are you ready for a serving of reality? Sippy-cup haulers may have softer springs, but they generally handle better than a large three-row crossover. When you start pushing the Sedona in the corners, you’ll notice less body roll and less tip and dive than a large CUV. The greater poise is primarily thanks to a lower center of gravity, although the suspension travel likely contributes as well. Thanks to the planted nature and the standard 235-width tires, lateral grip is actually better than most three-row CUVs sized like the Highlander or larger, especially GM’s Lambda triplets. Compared to other minivans on the market, the Sedona also fares well exhibiting better road manners and more grip than the Honda, Toyota or the Chrysler.

Getting from 0-60 takes 6/10ths longer in the Sedona (7.6 seconds) than the Sorento with the same engine due to the Sedona’s 4,658-pound curb weight, yet the Sedona actually stops shorter — 127 feet vs 135 feet in the Kia crossover. Obviously, the heftier curb weight explains the acceleration time, but the deceleration time surprised me since neither vehicle’s ABS system engaged in the panic stop testing. The added heft, long wheelbase, and a suspension that didn’t need to be designed for off-road travel give the Sedona a plush highway ride that can’t be matched in the crossover segment.

L through EX trims of the Sedona get a traditional hydraulic steering rack while SX and SXL trims swap in a rack-mounted electric power steering system. The hydraulic system gives the base models a more traditional feel while the SX and SXL have the same isolated steering feel as any other vehicle with EPAS. You might be wondering, “if the system saps feel, why do they use it in the top trims?” The reason is fuel economy. L, LX and EX are rated for 18/24/20 (city / highway / combined) in the EPA cycle, but adding EPAS bumps the EX trim to 18/25/21. For reasons not fully explained, the SXL trim then drops to 17/22/19 even though it is not significantly heavier than the SX and employs the fuel-sipping electric steering rack.

As you’d expect from Kia, the Sedona undercuts the Odyssey, Sienna, and the new Pacifica with a base price of $27,295 (after an $895 destination charge) while delivering a longer warranty and more standard feature content. $29,395 is the point of entry for the eight-passenger LX and $33,595 gets you leather and a host of other upgrades like power sliding doors, power tailgate, 18-inch wheels, a touchscreen infotainment system, backup sensors, keyless go, tri-zone climate control, auto dimming mirrors, integrated window shades, heated seats, and a leather steering wheel. A fully decked out SXL model with Nappa leather, HID lamps, radar cruise control and everything else you can think of will set you back $43,595 with the snazzy second-row seats or $42,595 if you check the option box to get the 8-seat SXL, which deletes the integrated ottoman.

By marching to a slightly different tune, Kia has created a slightly different minivan. However, in doing so, it has created a minivan that’s less practical than the elephant in the room: the Dodge Grand Caravan. The Caravan doesn’t handle as well, it’s not as comfortable,not as stylish, not as well configured, and the warranty is shorter than the Sedona — but it’s also a whopping $4,200 less than the Sedona before you factor in the inevitable and massive FCA incentives. As a minivan, the Grand Caravan’s biggest trump card is the fold-flat second row, which allows you to head to Home Depot and slide a 4×8 sheet of plywood into your minivan on a whim.

Oddly enough, the overt practicality of the Caravan is ultimately its undoing in my sister-in-law’s eyes. The Caravan, Odyssey, and Sienna are better at the job of cargo carrying and people hauling. Removable second-row seats are almost essential to the “traditional” minivan shopper. On the other hand, a quick poll of minivan owners proved Kia’s point that the second row seems to rarely (if ever) leave the van. By leaving the seats in, Kia was able to make them more comfortable and offer a heated seat option. Likewise, the center console isn’t as practical as an open space where you can store your shopping, but it gives the Sedona a more premium look inside. Then there’s the price. The Sedona also manages to deliver more feature content than the competition, with a longer warranty for less.

I’m not sure if the Sedona’s brand of “un-minivan” is “cool” enough to haul my sister-in-law’s family, but it has the best chance of the bunch.

[Images: © 2016 Alex L. Dykes/The Truth About Cars, Kia]

Kia provided the vehicle, insurance and one tank of gas for this review

Specifications as tested

0-30 mph: 3.1 seconds

0-60 mph: 7.6 seconds

1/4 mile: 16.7 seconds @ 89 mph











Alex L. Dykes
Alex L. Dykes

More by Alex L. Dykes

Comments
Join the conversation
5 of 81 comments
  • Jimbo1126 Jimbo1126 on May 25, 2016

    Glad to see the 2016 Sedona has a 5-star IIHS crash test rating. Previous Sedonas did not do well and that alone would have given me pause on buying one.

  • Corey Lewis Corey Lewis on May 26, 2016

    1) Anybody with the chirrens who are young should not choose this two-tone luxury package, as they'll ruin the light leather. 2) Anybody with the chirrens who are young should choose a different van, unless you want to help them slide the second row forward every time you get in the car, since there's no pass-through in the middle to the third row.

  • Google Maybe if the Toronto police weren't so busy falsely arresting reporters who were doing their job, they might have more time to protect the citizens of Toronto from these thieves. Of course its easier to pick on peaceful reporters than actually arrest criminals who may have guns!
  • SCE to AUX It's fun when liberal interests fight each other.
  • Varezhka Suzuki Jimny, Toyota Century, and I know it technically just ended production but Honda e.
  • CoastieLenn For those that care to read the details of the crash NOT included in this article but published elsewhere- this happened at nearly 10pm when the CRV was stopped in the center lane of travel, lights off, with the driver remaining in the car. Not only is it not known if Blue Cruise was being used, it would have been a nightmare for most alert human drivers to mitigate that driving the 70+mph speed limit on many sections of I-10 in Texas, much less an AV system.
  • Jeff This is what I would want: Toyota has now released an affordable truck called the Toyota IMV 0. The newly developed vehicle made in Thailand comes with a rear-wheel drive and a gasoline 2.0-liter inline-four matched to a 5-speed manual transmission. NEW $10,000 Toyota Pickup Has Ford & GM Crapping ... YouTube · Tech Machine 8 minutes, 46 seconds Dec 26, 2023
Next