Kia News

The Ford Ranger is undergoing an evolution that will see Australia’s best-selling vehicle grow in size as well as scope, as it fends off the coming Toyota HiLux facelift and all-new rivals like the Kia Tasman, MG U9 and next-gen Nissan Navara. These are new niche programs and models that should shore up the current T6.2 architecture’s viability into the next decade for Australia.

The days of five-year warranties being competitive for mainstream brands are behind us, let alone the three-year warranties some brands persist with.Pioneered by Kia’s seven-year warranty a decade ago, the move towards decade-long warranties continues with newcomer brands looking to make a name for themselves, while some brands look to keep customers with servicing-conditional extended warranties.But now that Kia’s seven-year warranty is no longer the industry leader - despite still being unlimited-kilometre where others aren’t - will the South Korean brand extend its warranty to remain keep up?Kia Australia CEO Damien Meredith told CarsGuide there are no plans to increase the once-leading seven-year warranty to match rival brands that offer a decade of warranty like MG, Mitsubishi and Nissan.None of those are unlimited-kilometre warranties, and the latter two are conditional to customers servicing their cars with the brands’ dealers. Kia’s seven-year warranty is both unlimited-kilometre and unconditional when it comes to servicing.While Kia’s warranty has by no means fallen behind the average, it’s been around for about a decade and the market has changed significantly in that time.“Over that period of time when we introduced the seven-year warranty, on the first of November, 2014, it was bought in for a lot of reasons but specifically it was to give people permission to look at our brand,” Meredith says.“It did a great job. In 2015, the number one reason for buying a Kia was the warranty.“The latest figures I saw, it’s not even top three, it’s fourth. So it’s changed, and it’s not as important to Kia purchasers as it was ten years ago.”Instead, the factors customers put above its warranty when buying a new car are brand or manufacturer, style, and driving performance.“It used to be an opener on the showroom floor, now it's more of a closer,” adds Kia Australia General Manager of Marketing Dean Norbiato.“As opposed to ‘we’ve got a seven-year warranty, look at us’, it’s now everything else. The brand, the quality, the trust in the brand, and then the seven-year warranty finishes it off.”Kia’s reaffirmed position on its seven-year warranty comes at the same time as reports emerge of Hyundai’s apparent plan to increase its warranty to eight years, up from its current five-year offer.An insider source told CarsGuide the brand is considering the move, which could feasibly be in response to sales not meeting expectations.If it goes ahead, it would leapfrog its sibling brand by a year. Furthermore, if it remains unlimited-kilometre and unconditional, it will be one of the strongest warranties in the industry.Honda currently offers an eight-year unlimited kilometre warranty, the only one to do so, making it the highest-duration warranty not limited by driving distance.GWM, Skoda and KGM SsangYong all offer seven-year unlimited kilometre warranties alongside Kia, while most of the industry offers five-year warranties. Many premium and European brands still offer three-year warranties.

More Kia hybrids on the way!

In its CEO Investor Day report this week, Kia has confirmed its plans to introduce an electric ute to join the Tasman.

The Ford Ranger might have found itself back on top of Australia’s sales charts in March, but a dig into the numbers reveal cracks in the sales ambitions of the Ranger, Toyota HiLux and Isuzu D-Max.

The Kia Tasman ute hasn’t even arrived yet, but the outcry over its looks has been huge, with people saying it’s not just the ugliest car they have ever seen but the ugliest thing they’ve seen ever, like in their entire lives.

Will Kia finish on the podium in the 2025 sales charts?

Kia has shown off a more rugged concept version of its incoming Kia Tasman ute at the Seoul Mobility Show in South Korea.

Kia Tasman SUV on the cards, but not currently in the pipeline.

Kia has announced modest price increases for some of its most popular cars, ranging from $100 to $200 depending on the model.For 2025, the Kia Picanto will remain Australia’s most affordable car, despite a $100 price rise lifting the model’s entry price to $18,390, before on-road costs.With an estimated national drive-away price of $21,340, that still puts the small hatch $2650 clear of Australia’s next cheapest vehicle, the Chery Tiggo 4 Pro, which is a small SUV.A further $100 rise across the range sees the top-spec GT-Line with an automatic transmission now headline the range at $21,790, before on-road costs, or $24,140, drive-away.The price adjustments are slightly more substantial for the Kia Stonic crossover, the brand’s second-most-affordable model in Australia.It now starts at $25,660, before on-road costs, for the entry-level S, $200 more than it did last year. Prices peak at $31,980 for the GT-Line.Kia has enacted the same price changes for the Seltos small SUV, which now starts at $30,050, before on-roads, for the S FWD, rising to $45,470 for the top-spec GT-Line AWD.Finally, the upper-mid-sized Sorento, Kia’s most popular model of the bunch, now starts at $53,500, before on-roads, for the petrol S 2WD. Prices for variants with an internal combustion engine now peak at $68,790 for the diesel GT-Line AWD.The price rise follows a seasonal $150 range-wide price rise for the segment-dominating Kia Carnival people mover in January.No model updates or additional spec inclusions have been made across the Kia range in return.