Kia Advice

When most people think of off-road four-wheel drives (4WDs), they tend to picture beefy, petrol or diesel-guzzling beasts that only look legitimate when equipped with winches, caked with dried mud and decorated with a constellation of bugs.

It’s generally agreed that, when it comes to towing, the bigger, heavier the car doing that job, the better. 

Think “first car”, think “budget car”. Price is the key to unlock the best choices in vehicles for first-car buyers, but if you’re in this bracket, your second criterium should be safety.

To modern Australian families, the SUV is what a Commodore or a Falcon used to be - the sensible, obvious and most common choice of family vehicle.

Small SUVs, luxury saloons, budget hatchbacks and more small SUVs make up our most popular videos.

Is 2017 the year of the new car for your garage? It's pretty easy to work out what's available now, but here are the most exciting models that are yet to arrive in showrooms.

The first thing we did when trying to figure out the meaning of the Sorento badge was to ask Kia Australia.“No idea” was the simple reply. Beyond, that is, the obvious connection with towns such as Sorrento in Victoria, Western Australia and, of course, Italy.Since the Sorrento on the Bay of Naples is the best known globally, and Kia is definitely a global company, it would stand to reason that it’s the Italian Sorrento that Kia was referencing.And there are plenty of precedents for car companies naming sometimes hum-drum cars after exotic resort locations: Ford Capri and Cortina; Chevrolet Malibu; Triumph Dolomite. So why not Kia Sorrento?That gains weight when you consider that – depending on who you talk to – the town of Sorrento was named after the Sirens that inhabited the area according to Greek mythology.And if the PR spin is to be believed, Kia picked up on the Sirens’ legendary powers of attraction to describe it’s alluring full-sized SUV.Even Tina Arena managed to get the spelling correct on her 1995 single 'Sorrento Moon'. Although, ironically, despite being born to Sicilian parents, Ms Arena was actually singing about the Victorian Sorrento in the song, and the film-clip was partly filmed at Sorrento back-beach, south of Melbourne.By spelling it with one 'r', Kia instantly put all those theories in doubt, because even the Australian Sorrentos are double 'r'.Maybe saving a few cents on each badge was a thing in South Korea back then. Rs don’t grow on trees you know.That’s a bit more interesting because even though it’s one of the shorter words on the planet, 'Kia' is actually a two-part word.The 'Ki' bit is a way of saying 'coming' or 'arising from' while 'a' is either 'the East' or 'Asia'.Which is a heck of a lot less esoteric than a mis-spelt Italian resort town.

There’s long been a bit of a stench around diesel, but with the Volkswagen scandal and big cities in Europe now considering banning them, it seems to be a fuel source that’s more on the nose than ever

We spend weeks comparing new car performance and prices... then fall for a shiny one.

CarsGuide readers Trisha and Karl are a mum and a dad in search of a new car, so they’ve asked our expert team of journalists to help them choose the right one for their little family of three.They’re currently driving an ageing Renault Megane and both think it might be time to switch to an SUV. But Trisha and Karl aren't sure which is the right SUV for them. That’s where The Cars Guides can help.Matt Campbell and Richard Berry are joined by James Cleary, Tom White and Peter Anderson who each nominate what they consider the perfect next car for Karl and Trisha’s family.Should it be a Kia Seltos, a Subaru Forester, Suzuki Vitara or even a Peugeot 2008?Watch as The Cars Guides go to extreme lengths to prove exactly why their choice is the right one.