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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. |
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