View Single Post
  #3   Report Post  
posted to alt.sailing.asa
Cap'n Crunch Cap'n Crunch is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 1
Default Kia Sedona Rental

How does it handle in heavy seas?

What's the draft?

How tall is the mast?

How many sail did it come with? Spinnakker?

Cap'n Crunch


In ps.com,
typed:
The Kia Sedona we rented to drive to Wyoming from Florida really was
a
2006 model and we drove it for nearly 5000 miles so here is my
review.

Overall, I liked it for travelling. It has lots of room, very good
climate control system with dual controls for front and back (at
last,
the front and back can agree), good pickup and lots of legroom. The
MSRP tag was still in the glove box and it is about $24,000. It
drove
very well with only a slight shimmy near 80 mph. It got about 23.5
mpg
at 70 mph (remember, this was serious long distance so I have lots
of
data).

A minor problem was the suspension. It made the expansion joints in
concrete interstate seem like washboard roads.......brutal.

We tend to take vehicles places they are not s'posed to go and this
was
no exception. We took her over nearly 4WD roads in the mountains
and
she did well never bottoming out.

MAJOR PROBLEM: The transmission. Unlike most automatics that have
P,R, N, D, 2, 1 the Kia had P. R, N, D, +, -. From my reading the
manual, I think the +,- is sort of like "split" gears. In any drive
gear, you can either go up or down a half gear, a good idea in
concept
but it didnt work. Obviously, for mountain driving, lower gears are
a
necessity for going up or down steep grades. With a normal
automatic,
you simply use the 2 or 1 (sometimes labelled 2 or 3) to go up a
sttep
grade and use the same for engine braking going down steep winding
roads.
Casper, WY is at 5000' and the top of Casper Mt is 8000' and the
road
is seriously steep and winding with no guard rails. The +, - thing
would not work at all so I had to allow the tranny to cool when we
got
half way up. Coming down was worse as I coudn't do engine braking
with
this inoperable +, - system so even pulsing th ebrakes and allowing
them to cool half way down, they were fading and smelling bad at the
bottom.
Going down Towgotee Pass toward Jackson, the tranny wouldn't work
although this is only a 6% grade. Going up and down Signal Mt in
Grand
Teton Park, suddenly it worked very well and I liked it. It worked
going the other way through Towgotee Pass.
We went back through Casper to look at some property on the mountain
there and sure enough, it wouldn't work at all again forcing me to
take
the LOOOOOOOoooooooonnnggg back way down the mountain to avoid
overheated brakes.

THE BOTTOM LINE: If the transmission worked, it would be a good
vehicle but as it is, I would reject it.

Sorry Rob.