Toyota RAV4 vs Kia Sorento

What's the difference?

The Toyota RAV4, particularly in Cruiser Hybrid spec, is a sensible, comfortable family 2WD wagon with plenty of standard features onboard.

It's nice enough to drive on-road without ever being over-the-top dynamic and offers a sensible amount of practicality and functionality for the price.

It feels a tad underdone, especially as rivals in this section of the market are improving all the time, but if you're patient enough to wait for Toyota's supply to catch up with customer demand, the RAV4 Cruiser 2WD Hybrid might just be spot-on for you.

The Kia Sorento S diesel AWD is a solid buy option in the lower-spec realm of the market. This AWD SUV is not spectacular but it manages to be competitive and, as a seven-seater with updated technology and some good features, it does have ample potential as a daily-driving family mover.

However, if you want more safety tech and more premium accoutrements, you’re likely better off forking out the extra $10,000 or so and getting a top-spec Sorento GT-Line instead.

Beyond its distinctive RAV4 grille, 18-inch black gloss alloys and that rather striking Saturn Blue paint, this medium-sized SUV remains inoffensive enough.

For those of you who love measurements, the Toyota RAV4 Cruiser 2WD Hybrid is 4615mm long (with a 2690mm wheelbase), 1865mm wide, and 1690mm high. It has a listed kerb weight of 1700kg.

The Sorento’s exterior is stunningly inoffensive. So, for anyone looking for an SUV that won’t make passers-by dry retch that’s all boxes ticked, I reckon.

The cabin feels family-friendly and functional. It's a basic but well designed space, although there’s no getting past the fact this is at the cheaper end of the Sorento line-up as its cloth seats and expanses of hard plastic remind you.

That said, chrome-like touches and faux hand-stitching go some way towards balancing out that impression.

The low-slung dashboard with integrated 12.3-inch touchscreen dominates the front of the cabin in a good way.

It's a clean and comfortable cabin with a solid attempt at a premium look and feel, but it all feels a bit dated and under-done, even with leather accented interior trim and plenty of soft-touch surfaces.

There's the usual amount of RAV4 storage, which is more than adequate and, for charging your devices, there are three USB ports up front and two for the rear seat passengers.

The 10.5-inch touchscreen multimedia system and driver display are bright, clear and generally easy to use, although the media unit's operating system can at times be a bit of a labyrinth to work through.

Buttons, dials and grippy textured controls are easy to locate and operate.

All seats are okay without being great, but up front they are power-adjustable every which way, so there's that.

The rear seat is roomy enough in all directions for even those whose nickname is 'Stretch', 'Big Unit' or simply 'Tall Bastard'. The fold-down armrest has cupholders.

For kids, that seat row has three top-tether points and ISOFIX anchors in the outboard positions.

In terms of packability, the rear cargo area has a listed 580 litres of space, but with that rear seat stowed away there's a listed 1690 litres.

That area has a cargo blind, four tie-down points, a 12V socket and a removeable floor liner.

This Sorento is 4815mm long (with a 2815mm wheelbase), 1700mm high and 1900mm wide.

As mentioned earlier, the interior is quite basic and simply designed, but with a low-key classiness about it. 

The driver’s seat is six-way manually-adjustable with a pump-action for height, so pin-pointing your preferred position is a welcome minor workout unto itself.

The front seats are adequately comfortable without being too plush – that’s fine with me – and from there driver and passenger have ready access to plenty of storage and cupholders (including two in the front, four in the second row and two in the rear seat) and charging options (including two USB charge points in the front console and one 12V power outlet behind the centre console and one in the cargo area).

My teenagers weren’t impressed at all with the fact they had to plug their smartphones into charge points at the front. Oh, the torture!

The 12.3-inch digital multimedia system has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, both wired or wireless, and it’s an easy-to-use set-up with a crisp screen.

Air-con is a manual-controls affair, second-row passengers get air vents only (on the rear of the centre console), and third-row passengers don’t get vents or fan controls.

The second row is reasonably comfortable with room enough for head, shoulders and legs to be on the right side of comfy.

It sports a bottle holder in each of the doors, and there’s a centre armrest in the second row with cupholders for the El Grande cups of whatever almond-infused crappuccino your obnoxious screenagers are currently addicted to. 

The second row is in a 60/40 configuration, which slides, reclines and folds down flat.

The third row is in a 50/50 configuration, a split-fold flat set-up, and it's the realm of mini humans – or you could put adults back there for any trip lasting longer than 10 minutes and you’ll be hated for life.

For those interested in packing potential space, the rear cargo area offers a listed 179 litres of storage capacity; a listed 608 litres in the rear cargo area when the third row is folded away; and 1996 litres when the second and third rows are packed away.

My test vehicle this time is the Kia Sorento S diesel AWD, which sits at the bottom of the four-variant Sorento line-up (S, Sport, Sport+ and GT-Line). There is a petrol version, but the Kia Sorento S diesel AWD has a price of $53,680 plus on-road costs.

Standard features include a 12.3-inch digital multimedia touchscreen (with wired/wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto), a basic digital driver cluster with 4.0-inch multi-function LCD display, AEB, blind spot collision avoidance assist, rear cross-traffic collision avoidance assist, 17-inch alloys (plus a full-sized spare), LED headlights, daytime running lights and fog lights.

It has cloth seats, six-way manually-adjustable driver’s seat, manual air-conditioning, second-row passengers get air vents only (on the rear of the centre console), and third-row passengers don’t get vents or fan controls.

Exterior paint choices include 'Clear White', as well as premium paint choices (all at an additional cost) such as 'Silky Silver' (on our test vehicle), 'Steel Grey', 'Mineral Blue', 'Gravity Blue', 'Aurora Black', 'Snow White Pearl', 'Volcanic Sand Brown' and 'Cityscape Green'.

The Toyota RAV4 Cruiser 2WD hybrid has a 2.5-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine and electric motor set-up with a 1.6kWh (6.5Ah) nickel-metal hydride battery system.

Combined system output for power is 160kW and the torque output (combustion engine figure only) is 221Nm at 3600rpm.

This RAV4 has a continuously variable transmission (CVT) and it's pretty cluey when it comes to always being in the revs and ratios sweet spot.

It also has an EV mode for driving only on battery power to reduce fuel consumption and emissions, and several driving modes including 'Eco', 'Normal' and 'Sport'.

The drive settings are designed to produce optimal ride and handling via maximised engine performance and tuning, steering and throttle response, best suited to the terrain and conditions.

This Sorento has a 2.2-litre, four-cylinder common-rail diesel engine, producing 148kW at 3800rpm and 440Nm at 1750-2750rpm and that’s matched to an eight-speed dual-clutch auto transmission.

This is a generally clever and effective combination, but there is noticeable lag to acceleration from a standing start, no matter how hard you stomp the right foot.

It has all-wheel drive (part-time with lock mode) and driving modes that include on- and off-road options.

The Toyota RAV4 Cruiser 2WD Hybrid has listed fuel consumption of 4.7L/100km (on a combined cycle).

I recorded 5.9L/100km on our test, but, as a mate so kindly pointed out, I drive like an old gentleman.

The RAV4 has a 55-litre fuel tank, so going by that on-test fuel-consumption figure, you could reasonably expect to get a driving range of about 930km out of a full tank.

Official fuel consumption for the 2.8-litre four-cylinder Sorento S diesel is 6.0L/100km on a combined cycle. 

Actual fuel consumption on this test, from pump to pump, was 6.6L/100km. 

This Sorento has a 67-litre fuel tank so – going by that fuel consumption figure – you should be able to get a driving range of about 1015km from a full tank.

The RAV4 is very quiet* and generally rather nice to drive. So, as a daily driver, it's on the right side of impressive.

* Except when it's not, keep reading.

It has smooth acceleration and quickly settles into an easy groove at higher speeds.

Steering retains a welcome precision, visibility is good all around, and the RAV4 always feels settled on any surface.

It does ride and handle well on the blacktop and it's not too shabby on gravel and dirt surfaces, though it skips around on rougher, more irregular sections, due to its firm suspension and road-biased tyres.

The CVT is smooth and efficient in terms of being the optimal auto. It's not dynamic but it's certainly reliably consistent.

This hybrid switches between the engine and electric motor seamlessly and battery charge is easily regenerated through the vehicle's forward motion when little to no throttle is being used to maintain momentum (as in downhills or while otherwise coasting), or the vehicle is slowing to a stop.

NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) levels are mostly subdued except when you give the RAV4 some heavy right boot to spur it into immediate action. There's also some mild wind-rush noise around the big wing mirrors when you hit the open road.

As I've said before, the owners of city-focussed SUVs would be surprised by just how capable their vehicles are when driven sensibly, even the 2WDs.

You can undertake your own scaleable adventure in a 2WD vehicle but, of course, any trip off of a sealed surface in a 2WD will have to be very light-duty off-roading. So, nothing more difficult than a well-maintained dirt or gravel track surface in dry weather.

Towing capacity is 480kg – unbraked and braked – so you won't see a RAV4 skull-dragging a horse float any time soon.

As I mentioned earlier, this SUV can feel a tad lardy at times, especially from take-off, but it exhibits slightly livelier characteristics soon enough. Just don’t climb into the driver’s seat expecting a dynamic experience.

Steering has a nice balance to it and the Sorento never feels gargantuan so navigating through busy city and suburban streets is on the correct side of easy.

Ride is a bit firm, but the all-pervasive mindful peace you experience from being in such a hushed cabin tends to mostly negate any minor discomfort you may otherwise feel from clipping every lump and bump on the road.

On-road driving modes are 'Comfort', 'Sport', 'Eco' and 'Smart' and off-road modes are 'Sand', 'Mud' and 'Snow'. All of these adjust engine outputs, throttle control and transmission behaviour to best suit the terrain and driving conditions.

Niggle: The driver-assist tech is a bit abrupt and intrusive. I’ve found this to be the case in Hyundai SUVs, too.

The traffic sign recognition, in particular, is clunky, reacting to signs that don't apply at that time of day, for example school signs, or it reacts to signs that don't actually apply to that section of road. So it's regularly chopping and changing between what speeds you should be at and what speeds you shouldn't. 

This Sorento is an AWD with 176mm of ground clearance so I tested it on muddy grass, firm sand and gravel tracks. Nothing outrageous, but mildly challenging enough to make sure the all-wheel drive system can do what’s expected. And it does, seamlessly.

These off-road drive modes are, of course, no substitute for 4WD, but they are fine for when conditions become a little bit slippery. For example, if there’s been a drizzle of rain on the bitumen or the dirt track becomes a bit muddy.

This Sorento has a maximum towing capacity of 750kg (unbraked trailer) and 2000kg (braked).

The Kia Sorento has the maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating from testing in 2020.

Standard safety gear include seven airbags*, AEB (with car, pedestrian, cyclist and junction turning assist, from 5.0km/h to 85km/h; car detection up to 75km/h), as well as forward collision warning, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, lane departure alert, front/reverse parking sensors and more.

*Note: the curtain airbags only cover the first and second rows.

Because this is the entry-level Sorento it misses out on such handy tech as the side parking sensors, 360-degree around-view monitor and blind spot view monitor that are found in higher spec variants.

The Sorento has five top-tether child restraint anchorage points and four ISOFIX child seat mounts (two in the second row and two in the third row).

The Toyota RAV4 Cruiser 2WD Hybrid has a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty. Get all your work done at a certified Toyota mechanic and you're in line of powertrain coverage under warranty for seven years.

Servicing is set at 12 month/15,000km intervals and capped price servicing keeps costs to $260 a pop for the first five years or 75,000km.

A seven-year/unlimited km warranty applies to the Sorento line-up.

Servicing intervals are scheduled for every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs soonest.

Capped-price servicing covers seven-years/105,000km and at the time of writing ranges between a low of $370 and a high of $817 per service over that period. Total cost is $3787 for an annual average of $541, which isn't particularly cheap.