Kia Sorento review - Reliability & safety

The previous model of the Kia Sorento came top in our 2020 Driver Power survey, and the new model has already come close to repeating its performance, with a second place in 2023. Unfortunately it didn’t feature in our 2024 survey. The Sorento is also loaded with new technology, including some clever safety features designed to reduce the risk of collisions.

Kia Sorento reliability

The latest Sorento was the top performer out of a host of Kia models that appeared in our 2023 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey. It scored highly across the board, posting a 16th-place finish for reliability and build quality out of the 75 included models. It also came top for exterior design along with infotainment and connectivity, while making it onto the podium for safety features.

Kia customers as a whole are a happy bunch. In general, the brand received solid marks for value for money, practicality, infotainment and reliability and it placed sixth overall in terms of customer satisfaction. It’s also worth mentioning the brand’s long-standing competitive warranty. If anything goes wrong with your Kia in the first seven years of its life up to 100,000 miles then it’s covered, and rival manufacturers are only recently starting to catch up with comparable warranties.

Safety

Two prior Kia Sorento models have been awarded five stars in Euro NCAP crash tests, in 2009 and 2014. Perhaps it should be little surprise, then, that the latest version managed the same, despite the tests becoming more stringent in 2020.

The car is fitted with a raft of safety features, allowing it to detect and automatically brake if a potential collision with a pedestrian, cyclist or vehicle is anticipated. It can also scan for moving traffic as you go to pull out of a junction, and keep an eye on traffic as you cruise along the motorway, alerting the driver of vehicles in their blind spot.