Ford Transit Custom vs Kia Rondo

What's the difference?

The Ford Transit Custom Trail has plenty of appeal as a work van or a camper fit-out candidate. It’s a well-packaged, comfortable and contemporary van that’s nice to drive and as a bonus, with all-wheel drive it’s given the scope of capability to be able to tackle mild off-roading situations with confidence.

It’s built for work and play and though it’s limited to two-up for travels, the Trail offers so much potential as a camper conversion for adventure seekers its few niggles are easily forgotten when you’re busy making memories.

If you're thinking of getting an SUV because you like to sit a little higher up and want a car with plenty of room and a big boot, but don't head off-road ever, then you may be better off in a Rondo S which drives more like a car and has much of the benefits of an SUV.

It looks like a van but with some striking yet low-key flourishes that all kind of work as a whole. Those include a Trail grille and the matt black alloy wheels. The yellow sticker-pack is a neat touch.

The Trail has more presence than a regular Trend with its 30mm-taller raised suspension and overall adventure-ready look with strong front end and chunky wheel arches.

The striking but low-key theme continues inside with a neatly laid-out yet spartan cabin. The two synthetic leather seats are topped with Trail embossing and lined with yellow stitching.

The cabin is separated from the rear cargo area by a bulkhead, which incorporates a small wired window.

The Rondo has a mini-people mover shape with a horizontal and high roof, an upright back and a heavily raked windscreen and pointy nose. The headlights look too big for its face but that's kind of cute in a manga-cartoon way.

Take a look at the dimensions for the Rondo S - it's bigger than you might think.  At 4525mm end to end it's 45mm longer than a Kia Sportage mid-sized SUV, and 35mm shorter in height at 1610mm tall. It's 35mm narrower than the Sportage, too, at 1805mm across. 

Clearance is about the same as a regular car at 151mm but the driving position is higher – though not as high as the Sportage's.

Inside the dashboard and steering wheel are low, the windscreen is enormous and those A-pillars either side of it are long.

On the outside you can tell a Rondo S from the top spec Rondo Si by the wheels – the S has plastic hubcaps and the Si has alloys. You can spot a Rondo S from the inside by the tiny media screen and the chunky plastic steering wheel – the Si gets a bigger screen and sleeker looking wheel.

The cabin is stylish with the brushed aluminium look trim and dark materials. The CarsGuide photographer told me he liked its '80s retro look – thing is I'm pretty sure the designers weren't trying to go for an ironic retro feel.

It’s a van so there are two distinct sections to the Trail, the cabin and the load space.

Firstly, the cabin. More a work-friendly than family-friendly interior, this Trail is a two-seater with plenty of durable plastic everywhere – ready for work and life – as well as charging (with USB-A and -C ports) and storage (including a van-favourite dash-top slot for logbooks etc, outboard moulded cupholders and a nifty pop-out cupholder), all amenities enough to cope with most daily van-related duties.

The seats are comfortable, supportive and have a fold-down lock-in-place armrest.

Now for the load space. There are no seats back there and as such it has plenty of potential as a work van or touring vehicle.

Access to the rear load space is via a barn door at the back and this Trail has a sliding door on both sides.

The cargo area is substantial – 3002mm long (to the bulkhead; 3450mm long if load-through hatch is used), 1392mm wide (between wheel arches) and 1425mm high (floor to roof). Easily big enough for work equipment or recreational gear. It can cope with four Euro pallets (each measuring 1200mm x 800mm) and it has a listed maximum load volume (with the bulkhead) of 6.8 cubic metres.

Load height through the rear barn doors is 531-585mm, depending on how much weight is already onboard.

The load space has the aforementioned metal bulkhead (with window and load-through hatch), load area protection kit (full height walls and moulded floor), LED lights and eight tie-down loops.

Otherwise, this is a load area ripe for customisation. Maybe a plethora of shelves for a tradie, or some bedding and extra storage for an adventurous person or couple.

The Rondo has enormous rear doors that are light and easy to swing open and when they do you have a wide and tall entrance which makes getting in and out easy. That's good news if you're not as agile or young as you used to be or if you're a parent putting kids into car seats. I find I almost double over when putting my toddler into his car seat in small cars, but the Rondo's seat height is elevated enough that there's less of a bend needed. The step to get in is low, too.

The second row is made up for three individual seats rather than a single bench seat. The legroom in all of them is excellent and even at 191cm tall I can sit behind my driving position with two finger-gap between my knees and the seatback.

Headroom is outstanding and even with my big hair I still have about 20cm of clearance.

The Rondo was already so impressively practical and roomy that it could have been terrible to drive and it still would be worth buying.

The cargo volume of the Rondo S is 536 litres, and that's 44 litres more than the boot space in the seven-seater Rondo Si which loses luggage capacity because of the foldable third row seats and 130 litres more than the Sportage's boot.

Under the boot floor is like a giant bento box of storage compartments with three equal-sized large rectangular areas big enough for handbags, shoes and laptops, a smaller shoe boxed-sized area and a tiny hidey hole big enough for my phone. Also in the boot on the right-hand side wheel are elasticised straps for – picnic blankets or whatever else you don't want flapping about in there.

There's shoe-boxed sized storage under the floor in the second row, on both sides, too.

The centre seat in the back folds flat and being hard-backed can act as a table, it also has three cup holders moulded into it. There's another two cup holders up front and giant bottle holders in all doors.

The Rondo is just as practical as many SUVs if not more so.

And here's a random Rondo fact for you – the Rondo is pretty popular with dog owners because the height of the roof means their hounds can stand up and turn around. Yup dogs love the Rondo.

The Rondo S lists for $26,990. The $40,990 Citroen C4 Picasso is the closest in price to the Rondo S, while the Mercedes-Benz B180 is $42,400 and BMW 2 Series Active Tourer starts at $49,100.

It has to be said, the Rondo S isn't a prestigious as those rivals and the standard features aren't as extravagant. Still the basics are covered with a 4.3-inch touch screen with reversing camera, rear parking sensors, six-speaker stereo, Bluetooth connectivity, CD player, cloth seats, auto headlights, tinted glass, cruise control, and air conditioning with vents in the second row.

That screen is pretty small – like business card small, and that means the image for the reversing camera is a bit hard to make out at times.

The Rondo S is still good value though at this price.

The Ford Transit Custom Trail has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine producing 125kW at 3500rpm and 390Nm at 1750-2500rpm.

The Trail has a clever eight-speed automatic transmission and an on-demand all-wheel drive system.

It all works rather well, but it’s a van afterall and as such it is less dynamic and more dependably driveable than perhaps a cross-shopped SUV wagon. However, as an AWD van the Trail can be trusted to keep its grip on wet bitumen, soggy grass and loosely-gravelled tracks and that’s a strong part of its appeal over a 2WD van.

There's one engine in in the Rondo range – it's a 122kW/213Nm 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol and it comes with a six-speed automatic transmission. A manual gearbox isn't available.

You may hear the engine called a GDI, don't let then name throw you – it's not a diesel. The acronym stands for Gasoline Direct Injection.

The Ford Transit Custom Trail has an official combined cycle (urban/extra-urban) fuel consumption figure of 8.5L/100km. On this test I recorded 8.8L/100km.

The Trail has a 70-litre fuel tank so going by my on-test fuel figure you could reasonably expect a driving range of about 795km from a full tank of diesel. However, as with any vehicle, once you’ve loaded the Trail with real-world burdens (e.g kids, dogs, camping gear, etc) you’ll soon see that fuel consumption increase.

Kia says the Rondo's average combined fuel consumption is 7.9L/100km or 10.8L/100km if you're keeping it urban. Our test vehicle was thirstier and was driving at a rate of 10.1L/100km according to the trip computer over a week of highway and urban use, while our city commuting saw usage jump to 17.4L/100km.

It’s easy to get in and out of the Trail’s driver seat with a wide-opening door and a big step to help you inside.

The seats are comfortable and it’s simple enough to dial-in your driving position via the tilt-and-reach adjustable steering wheel and manually-adjustable seat.

Word of warning: the auto transmission is operated via a stalk mounted on the right-hand side of the steering wheel column, which takes some getting used to.

Once underway, the Trail is punchy enough around town and in the suburbs with its 2.0L 'EcoBlue' turbo-diesel engine offering a more-than-adequate amount of power and torque (125kW and 390Nm) and its clever auto helping out with nifty moves through traffic (for a van, anyway).

Visibility is impressive from the cabin and you’re afforded a convenient vantage point with the Trail standing a bit taller than its regular Transit Custom stablemates as it’s on lifted suspension, but feeling composed on most surfaces.

The Trail has a listed kerb weight of 2046kg and a turning circle of 12.1m, pretty standard for a long wheelbase van, so this is not an insubstantial vehicle and it’s a bit tricky to 'flip a u-ee' if the situation demands it.

It has six drive modes – 'Normal', 'Eco', 'Slippery', 'Tow/Haul', 'Sport', 'Trail' – which each adjust engine torque, throttle response and traction control, among other things, to suit the road surface and conditions.

But we’re all here to see how it goes off-road, aren’t we?

Well, obviously this is no rock-crawling machine and it’s not intended to be. It’s best thought of as having an all-wheel drive system that gives this van mild off-road capabilities, as in it can tackle wet bitumen, soggy grass, lightly corrugated bush tracks and very shallow mud puddles with more confidence than the Transit Custom Trend it's based on.

In a nutshell, the AWD Trail will be able to handle most low-level traction-compromised scenarios. But it does not have enough ground clearance, wheel articulation, grip or underbody protection to tackle any terrain beyond modest off-roading.

Speaking of grip, the Trail as standard rides on Bridgestone Duravis R660 (215/65 R16) rubber, a van/light truck commercial tyre and they are not so well suited to dirt tracks and the like. Grippier all-terrain tyres would help this van perform slightly better off-road than on its showroom rubber.

In its favour, the Trail has a front skid plate and underbody protection in case it cops some knock from the ground during its adventures.

Not in its favour, however, especially as a potential touring vehicle, is the fact it has a space-saver spare wheel and tyre.

If you’re thinking of using your Trail as a tourer, it’s worth knowing payload is listed as 1179kg, maximum braked trailer towing capacity is 2500kg, Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) is 3225kg and GCM is 5725kg.

You know what? The Rondo was already so impressively practical and roomy that it could have been terrible to drive and it still would be worth buying, but its on-road performance was pretty impressive.

Look, the brakes can be a bit bitey, acceleration on take-off is sharp and then the engine seems to run out of oomph and just get noisier at higher speeds, but those are my only real complaints, because the ride is composed and comfortable, the steering feels smooth and light, while the handling is impressive. I took the Rondo through the same test loop as all my test cars and it performed better than many in this price range.

Being lower to the ground gives the Rondo better dynamics than many SUVs, too. Corners that cause a good degree of body roll and tyre chirp in a Sportage or RAV4 saw the Rondo coast through perfectly stable and unfussed.

The A-pillars do obstruct visibility and at one set of traffic lights, the only way I knew I had a green arrow was because the bloke behind me was leaning on his horn. But there are small port-hole windows integrated into the A-pillars that help with visibility.

The Rondo has the maximum five-star ANCAP rating. There's nothing in the way of advanced safety equipment – that means no AEB, blindspot or rear cross traffic warning. But there is the expected traction and stability control, plus ABS.

In the second row you'll find three top tether anchor points and two ISOFIX points for child seats.

Ford’s five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty applies to the Trail.

Servicing is set down for every 12 months or 30,000km and capped-price servicing is offered. Four scheduled services will set you back $2000 (including a brake fluid change at year three) which isn't over the top for a vehicle of this type.

Ford Australia has about 195 independent Ford dealers in Australia, with many located in metropolitan or suburban areas.

The Rondo is covered by Kia's seven year/unlimited kilometre warranty. There's capped price servicing for seven years, too. Servicing is recommended every 12 months or 15,000km and is capped at $299 for the first service, $375 for the second, $361 for the third, $398 for the fourth, $336 for the fifth, $470 for the sixth and $357 for the seventh.