The Kia Carens is a familiar sight on the road. With Kia offering a plethora of powertrain choices to pick and choose from, this MPV has become a significant competitor to the established elephant. We used it as a run-around for a few days in the 1.5L Turbo Petrol guise to how dynamic is its actual personality in this most powerful of the trims.
At the start, it can be said that it is almost very positively over-engineered for the segment. It is very spacious, has loads of electronics and conveniences to play around with, and is quite well-built for families and group travel.
Looks Bold & Modern
Carens always had a futuristic design. Looks are subjective and while you may not call it beautiful, it is very well proportioned in its dimensions. The signature ‘tiger-nose’ grille has a digital twist that makes it look aggressive. All the chrome elements are high quality and shine once you clean them with some quality wax.
The sharp R16 dual-tone crystal-cut alloy wheels add more rakishness to the sporty design. With a length of 4,540 mm and a 2,780 mm wheelbase, the Carens ensures plenty of room without feeling bulky. The rear too has a polished appeal. The fit and finish levels are to be commended, as the Carens feel properly well put together. The interior quality levels are among the best in the segment.
Thoughtful Amenities Inside
Inside, the Carens is clearly designed for family needs. The cabin offers adaptable seating configurations with options for six or seven seats, and the carmaker has integrated features aimed at improving passenger comfort. This seven-seat configuration has a nice table cum gadget-mount behind the front passenger seat and a well-designed smart air purifier behind the driver seat.
The second row of seats gets a lot of space and the large windows add to the overall openness in the cabin. You also get integrated blinds which is a nice touch. The second-row seats come with a one-touch tumble feature, making access to the third row more straightforward.
Even the third row of seats are comfortable enough for medium sized passengers with their own air conditioning vents and cup holders. The backrest angle is also adjustable on all seats adding to individual comfort. Additional points for equipping all power window switches with auto one-touch up and down, democratise this please, Kia India.
For all the tech savvy of you, there is a 64-colour ambient mood lighting and a Bose 8-speaker sound system for an elevated cabin experience. A 10.2-inch HD touchscreen navigation system with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay compatibility serves as the focal point of the dashboard, keeping entertainment and navigation accessible. Now although the speaker setup is brilliant, it is also very much biased towards the front of the cabin. You can fade it towards the rear, but will lose the depth of sound.
For the driving enthusiasts amongst you, the Carens includes paddle shifters, multi-drive modes (Normal, Eco, and Sport), and a 10.25-inch full digital colour cluster. The cluster has a selection of layouts to choose from. The needle setup looks brilliant harks back to the time when needles were cool, or you can select the dreary digital setup if you please. But again the needles are excellent and can change graphics according to the drive mode selected, or just select the sport and leave it at that. With features like remote climate control and engine start-stop functions through Kia Connect, drivers can manage various aspects of the car through their smartphone.
Turbo Power With Practical Capabilities
The Carens model we drove is powered by Kia’s Smartstream 1.5L T-GDi engine, which delivers a maximum of 158 bhp at 5,500 rpm and 253 Nm of meaty torque from 1,500 to 3,500 rpm. It is hard to get your head around numbers like these, but this setup has some serious poke. The turbo petrol shoves you in the seats as it grunts through the 7-speed dual-clutch transmission (DCT) seamlessly indeed. The drive modes have a marked difference when it comes to the response from the powertrain.
You start off in ‘Normal’ which is perfect for everyday use, quick enough to react to your inputs. ‘Eco’ makes everything go passive, slow to respond and utilising as much as of lower—end torque without many gear changes. The ‘Sport’ mode makes everything aggressive and the transmission holds gears for whichever track day you’re taking your seven-seat MPV to. We realise this is the basic definition of how driving modes work, but it has to be mentioned how these sharply affect the efficiency of this particular powertrain setup. The start/stop and ECU maps can stretch the efficiency from eight kmpl to 11 kmpl, depending on your inputs.
The NVH levels are par excellence in the Carens in this segment. It is eerily quiet in the cabin on smooth roads. It smoothens road undulations as long as they are not Chicxulub levels, where the suspension does feel stiff to manage all that performance as you throw the Carens around quick bends with all its heft. Therein lies the problem, it’s not what you call a sporty handling MPV, but then none of them are and this one is the closest to being decent. It definitely has a good ride quality being smooth and composed even with all the passengers on board, which incidentally we were able to test because of all the Diwali errands. The third row folds flat making room for a good amount of cargo, and the under tray stowage in the boot is a great help as well.
Comprehensive Suite Of Safety
Kia has equipped the Carens with a robust set of safety features albeit without any ADAS capabilities yet, positioning it as one of the safer options in the MPV class. Standard features include six airbags, ESC (Electronic Stability Control), VSM (Vehicle Stability Management), HAC (Hill Assist Control), DBC (Downhill Brake Control), and ABS with EBD. The inclusion of all-wheel disc brakes adds to its braking efficiency, which is extremely handy as we see cars becoming quicker. Additionally, the Highline Tyre Pressure Monitoring System and front and rear parking sensors add another layer of assurance.
Overall, the Kia Carens 1.5L Turbo Petrol checks many boxes for families looking for a spacious, stylish, well-built, surprisingly fast and feature-rich MPV. Its strengths lie in its comprehensive safety features, spacious cabin, and convenient amenities tailored to family needs. While the 1.5L turbo engine provides more than adequate performance and its pairing with the 7DCT makes it very responsive, the fuel consumption does suffer. Also, note that the diesel and naturally aspirated petrol powertrain options comfortably solve that problem, and are also lower priced than this GDi. But if you want the electric feeling of a petrol turbo, you will have to sacrifice fuel efficiency in the pursuit. Carens is more focused on delivering a comfortable and stable ride for 6-7 passengers whilst being quick at its heels, which it does very well indeed.
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