Kia ProCeed review

Despite its sleek shape, the Kia Proceed is pretty roomy inside. There’s ample space in the front seats for you to get comfy if you’re tall and there’s plenty of adjustment to help you find the perfect seating position. Both front seats come with height adjustment as standard and you get adjustable lumbar support to help reduce the risk of backache on long drives.

The seats themselves are nice and supportive – especially in GT Line S and GT cars which get more padding than the standard GT Line models. Top-spec GT Line S models come with electric seat adjustment, too. Whichever model you pick, you get heated front seats as standard and a heated steering wheel to ward off numb fingers on cold winter mornings.

There isn’t quite as much headroom as you get in the standard Ceed – you can thank the Proceed’s slinky sloping roofline for that – but there’s still enough space for tall adults to get comfy. Kneeroom’s generous enough for them to sit behind an equally lofty driver and there’s just enough space under the front seats for them to slide their feet.

GT Line S and Lunar Edition models come with a panoramic glass roof as standard, but it doesn’t make the back seats feel any more airy or spacious. In fact, the mechanism for retracting the roof blind cuts into back-seat headroom and tall drivers will need to lower their seat to avoid brushing their hair on the roof.

There isn’t a great deal of support for back-seat passengers’ legs either, and the black roof lining and small rear windows mean the Kia Proceed feels more claustrophobic than the standard Ceed. There isn’t quite enough shoulder room for three adults to sit side-by-side comfortably and the central seat is raised uncomfortably above the outer two, but three kids will have plenty of space to stretch out.

Speaking of kids, you’ll find it relatively easy to fit a child seat in the back of the Kia Proceed. The back doors open nearly perpendicularly to the rest of the car so there’s loads of space to lift in a large child seat and the Isofix anchor points are easy to access behind some handy folding covers. You will have to stoop down quite low to strap in a child if you’re tall, however.

The Kia Proceed comes with a decent number of handy storage spaces to help you keep its cabin looking neat and tidy. There’s room to squeeze a one-litre bottle in each of the four doors and there’s space under the central armrest for a few drinks cans.

The glovebox isn’t huge, but you get a large storage tray under the dashboard that’ll easily hold a few phones – handy because it’s just above two USB ports and a 12V socket. You’ll find another phone-sized tray underneath these which can be had with a wireless charging pad in GT Line S models.

You also get a pair of large cupholders in the centre console and two more built into the folding rear armrest.

The Kia Proceed’s 594-litre boot is more than 30% larger than the loadbay you get in the standard Ceed and a quarter more spacious than the Hyundai i30 Fastback’s boot.

Unlike the Honda Civic Saloon, the Kia Proceed’s boot opens like a conventional hatchback so it’s easier to load large items. There’s a slight load lip over which you’ll have to lift your luggage but the Kia Proceed’s wide, square load bay means there’s room for plenty of oddly shaped items. The opening is lower than in the Kia Ceed Sportswagon’s too, so it’s easier to lift in particularly heavy boxes.

A baby buggy will fit under the load cover and there’s space left over for two large suitcases. There’s masses of underfloor storage, too – all separated into neat individual trays with their own easy-to-lift covers. There’s also a dedicated space to store the load cover out of the way if you need to remove it and you can lift out the central storage section to access the spare wheel without the need to remove all the other trays.

The Kia Proceed’s sloping windscreen limits the height of luggage you can carry, but you can fold the back seats down in a two-way (60:40) split if you need to carry lots of very bulky items. Pick a GT Line S car and you get a three-way 40:20:40 split that lets you carry two passengers in the back and some long luggage poking through from the boot at once. These high-spec cars also come with handy levers in the boot that automatically flip the back seats down without you having to reach forward to pull the latches by the headrests.

The back seats fold completely flat whichever model you pick, so it’s dead easy to slide very heavy luggage right up behind the front seats. There’s space to carry a bike without removing its wheels too, and you get a range of shopping hooks and tether points to keep everything nice and secure.