The new car, 2 weeks later

We’ve been driving our new 2011 Kia Sorento for just over 2 weeks now and I figured it was time to summarize my thoughts on the experience so far.  Keep in mind that prior to this, I drove a 1997 Saturn SL1, which I bought new in late 1996 and on which put more than 120,000 miles.  It had power Nothing but overall I was happy with it.

If I was happy with the Saturn, I have been absolutely delighted by our new Kia.

Week took the Kia on a long weekend road trip to New York last weekend and it performed flawlessly.  I had the opportunity to make use of the cruise control, which made the long drive a lot easier on my knees and which also improves the gas mileage.

The car is bigger and roomier than what I am used to.  On Thanksgiving, our friends, with whom we were having dinner, asked us if we could bring an extra table.  We happened to have a spare dining room table and I was able to fit it easily into the cargo area of the car without having to move the rear seats.  It fit perfectly.  Having a lot of space back there makes life easier.  In the past, we’ve stuffed our Christmas trees awkwardly into one or another of our smaller cars and drove precariously back to the house, squished into the drivers seat being poked and prodded by branches.  I’m looking forward to this weekend when we can fit it in much more easily.

I’m still getting used to parking the car, as it is bigger than what I am used to, but the integrated rear-facing camera and backup warning system made parallel parking up in New York so easy.  I really like that system.

Kelly’s favorite feature so far are the driver and passenger seat-warmers.  And I must admit, they come in handy on cold mornings like this morning when I had to scrape ice from the car.  The defrost feature works fast, too, and apparently is integrated into the side-view mirrors, a touch for which I am extremely grateful.  One thing I don’t like about the car is that it doesn’t warn you when you leave the headlights on the way both of our old cars did.  But I suspect it shuts them off automatically if you forget, I just haven’t tested it yet.

It’s been doing pretty well on gas mileage, averaging about 25 MPG so far, but we’ve done roughly equal amounts of highway and city driving.  Actually, we’ve been using the car quite a bit, probably because it’s new and that’s what you do with a new car.  We typically drive 4,000 miles in  a year, but already we’ve put just over 1,000 miles on the car.

I really like it and I look forward to driving it.  As a car company, Kia has completely charmed me and I’ve been impressed by their cars and their salespeople.  And just today I got an email outlining our first maintenance, which, of course, is free.  My guess is that the service people will impress me just as much as the car and sales.