Kia SUV Range

It all depends on how you define long and bulky. But no seven-seater is going to be exactly small, is it? That’s because, to accommodate the third row of seats necessary to seat seven a vehicle physically has to be a certain length and there’s just no getting around that.

But I take your point; a lot of the seven-seat SUVs out there do seem pretty big. Again, however, that’s not a bad thing if you plan to fill all three rows of seats and still have some room left for luggage. The smaller seven-seaters aren’t all that good at this as the third row gobbles up the luggage space, making these cars best for those who only need seven seats on an occasional basis. If that’s your situation there are lots of mid-sized seven seaters around, but they’re pretty much all SUVs.

And while it goes against your preference for a smaller vehicle, the very best seven-seaters aren’t SUVs. They’re usually people-mover vans such as the Ford Tourneo, Kia Carnival and VW ID. Buzz. In fact, some of these even seat eight. They’re also a lot better for accessing the rearmost row of seats and they’ll still have lots of luggage space even with all seats occupied. And, yes, they look big, but that’s physics for you.

In the meantime, you could look at slightly less bulky options including the Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorento, Mazda CX-80 and Toyota Kluger. There’s also been speculation recently that Subaru’s seven-seat Tribeca might make a return to the Australian market.

It doesn’t sound right, does it. And why would Kia even include a low-beam light indicator if it wasn’t to show that the low-beam lights were, in fact, on?

You should be able to figure it out by looking at the owner’s manual for your car. I managed to find such a thing online for your model Sportage, and it shows only a high-beam indicator light and a lights-on warning which covers both parking lights and low-beam. That suggests that your dealer is correct.

The other question, however, is what you’re looking at that makes you think it’s a low-beam warning light. The answer could be that there are two high-beam indicator lights, one for the manual high-beam operation and another for the automatic high-beam if your vehicle has that fitted. Perhaps it’s the fog-light indicator you’re seeing. Again, your owner’s manual should spell it out for you.

It’s true that the Nissan Qashqai has had a couple of safety recalls, but they didn’t affect 2025 models, so you should be okay there. But it’s worth mentioning that the Kia Seltos from the same era has also had its share of recalls and problems, including an engine glitch that saw a lot of examples needing new engines (which Kia did its best to put right). Again, though, by the time 2025 had rolled around, the problems were largely a thing of the past. Or should be.

Some Nissan owners have complained about failures of the brand’s CVT transmissions. But the reality is that these are both very new vehicles and, provided they’ve been serviced properly to this point, will also have a lot of factory warranty remaining.

Which means it really comes down to which of the two offers the space and features you need and which one you prefer to drive (which means checking things like the rear vision and anything else that is likely to annoy you). Take both for a decent test run, check the service record and go from there.