Kia Ceed Sportswagon review

If you’re looking for a keenly priced, practical and well-equipped estate car, then the Kia Ceed Sportswagon is well worth considering. Compared with some equally practical but more imposing-looking SUVs, the Ceed Sportswagon feels more like a week in Center Parcs than a scorching seven days in Ibiza, but just like a staycation, you get quite a bit more bang for your buck

The Kia’s focus on value for money is especially obvious when you consider just how much equipment you get as standard. Even entry-level Ceed Sportswagons get an 8-inch touchscreen infotainment system with smartphone mirroring, and you get an assortment of posh-looking metal-effect trims dotted about the place, too.

There’s also the option to upgrade to a larger 10-inch touchscreen and you can get the Kia Ceed Sportswagon with a 12-inch digital driver’s display instead of conventional analogue dials. Sure, it’s not quite as crisp as the equally large screen you can get in a VW Golf Estate, but its configurable display is just the thing for making sure you don’t miss an upcoming direction from the sat-nav.

You get almost as many soft-squidgy materials as in the likes of the VW Golf Estate, but the Kia Ceed Sportswagon’s design is a little bland and doesn’t feel quite as well built as in the Volkswagen. Nevertheless, it’ll still be sturdy enough to withstand the rigours of family life.

It’s a nicer cabin to spend time in if you go for a high-spec model with 10-way electric adjustment for the front seats and electric lumbar adjustment to help stave off back ache on long motorway drives. You won’t have any trouble getting comfortable if you’re very tall, either, thanks to the Kia Ceed Sportswagon’s generous headroom.

If you regularly carry passengers, you’ll be pleased to hear that space in the back seats is just as generous. There’s a decent amount of room for three adults to sit side-by-side, too, but the VW Golf Estate serves up a smidge more space for their shoulders.

The Kia Ceed Sportwagon’s boot is big enough to take four suitcases or a large baby buggy and plenty of soft bags. There’s more than enough space for a huge weekly shop, and its wide, square opening and flat boot lip makes it a doddle to load heavy items. OK, so a Golf Estate has slightly more room than the Ceed Sportswagon and both are trumped by the Skoda Octavia Estate, but you won’t struggle for space in the Kia.

Need to carry some seriously bulky luggage? The back seats flip down in a three-way split so long items can poke through from the boot between two back-seat passengers. With all three back seats folded down out of the way, you get a completely flat load bay that’ll have no trouble swallowing a bike with both its wheels attached.

Kia has come a long way in a short period of time, and overall this Ceed Sportwagon is proof of that. It only lacks the comfort and interior quality of some other small estates

You can get the Kia Ceed Sportswagon with a range of petrol and diesel engines, and even as a plug-in hybrid. Pick the 1.0-litre petrol if you do little more than potter around town, but go for the perkier 1.4-litre model if you take in a broader mix of town and country roads.

If you regularly do lots of long journeys, the 1.6-litre diesel will be much more suitable. It’ll have enough poke to pull you, your friends and plenty of luggage up reasonably steep hills without feeling too strained and should return impressive fuel economy, too.

The 1.6-litre petrol plug-in hybrid makes a good choice if you have a relatively short commute and have somewhere to charge your car during the day. With its batteries brimmed, Kia claims the Sportswagon’s electric motor can drive for around 35 miles before it’ll need a helping hand from the petrol engine.

These hybrid models come with an automatic gearbox as standard, but you can also pay extra to get this unit fitted to other models in the Ceed Sportswagon range in place of the standard six-speed manual gearbox. The automatic seven-speed dual-clutch unit will give your left leg a rest and help take the edge off very long drives but can be a little jerky at very slow speeds.

Regardless of which engine and gearbox combination you go for, the Kia Ceed Sportswagon comes with plenty of high-tech safety kit including automatic emergency braking, cruise control and lane-keeping assist. It hasn’t been crash-tested by Euro NCAP yet but should prove to be one of the safest small estate cars on sale once it is.

So, the Kia Ceed Sportswagon doesn’t have the glitziest interior and isn’t quite as good as its alternatives to drive, but it is spacious, practical, well-equipped and cheap to run. Compare its prices with alternatives and you’ll see it’s also keenly priced, but to save even more, make sure you check out our Kia Ceed Sportswagon deals pages.