Kia Stonic review

The Stonic’s interior is competent and pragmatic – everything is basically fine. The seats are comfortable, you’d quite like a bit more room in the back, but you don’t have adults in the back that often anyway. The plastics are hard and scratchy in places, but that makes them a bit more durable, you suppose.

Kia has designed it to be intuitive and easy to operate, there are some nice buttons on the steering wheel and no one is interested in pushing any boundaries. The yellow exterior paint option is probably the wildest thing about the Stonic, it’s the car equivalent of ‘I shouldn’t have a second glass of wine but go on then’.

A reminder that people buy these cars for the pictures of windsurfing in the brochures, but really need something that’ll fit a couple of weekend bags for the airport run or get them to the shops.

You have to remind yourself that being in an *ahem* SUV doesn’t necessarily make it the more practical option, these cars trick you with their stylish ways into forgetting you’re in a supermini-sized crossover, not a giant 4x4. The 352/1,155 litre bootspace with seats up and then folded is marginally larger than the Rio’s 325/980 litres, but in practice the difference doesn’t make for a lifechanging improvement in utility, and it’s certainly not enough for the car to have graduated to a viable family option. Likewise, the perceived spaciousness of the cabin doesn’t necessarily translate into actual space, but there are useful cubbies and places to lose your belongings that you don’t find in the Rio.

As ever, Kia makes up for any shortcomings in material quality with a decent kit list – all cars get an 8.0-inch infotainment screen with Apple and Android connectivity, rear USB plugs, cruise control, rear parking sensors and aircon. As you climb the price list there’s a parking camera, keyless go, LED projector headlights as well as heated seats and steering wheel. All but the entry car also get access to Kia’s connected services, which offer TomTom-based satnav and the ability to find where you’ve parked your car on your phone. Useful if you don’t go for the yellow paint.