Kia Carnival

When it comes to moving big families, there are few better steeds than the Kia Carnival, as Justin Narayan finds out.

When we did this comparison in early 2021 the Kia beat Hyundai's SUV newcomer on the strength of its versatile interior and price advantage. Now, the MY22 Palisade has more equipment and costs $6000 less, so can it dethrone our Drive Car of the Year people-moving champion?

Our reigning people mover of the year - the Kia Carnival - has its work cut out to retain the crown in the face of all-new competition...

Sam Purcell puts the 2021 Kia Carnival Platinum through its paces as a family car. No surprises here, but it's incredibly good as one.

A special-edition of the Kia Carnival people mover is coming to Australia – to cut wait times for buyers stuck in the queue.

Prices across six Kia models have risen for the new year – with the Stinger sedan hit with the largest increase of all.

The popular Kia Carnival people mover is believed to be in line for hybrid power – and it may come to Australia, if it is made available to local buyers.

A faulty shift lock mechanism could allow the gear selector to be moved from 'Park' without holding the brakes.

Dear Drive... We are a family of six. Should we buy a large SUV or a people mover?

A guide to navigating the variants and options on offer with the 2022 Drive Car of the Year Best People Mover

If you are looking for a large car to haul your family around chances are a large SUV or people mover are on the list. Which is best for the job?

Three kids (plus their friends) and a mostly city-based lifestyle – which seven-seater is best?

Le'ts begin with a family background. So 5 kids, within 7 years. We had a Mercedes GL350 7 seater, but with the cost of ongoing maintenance and the kids climbing around inside it, we though it was time for a van for my wife. My daily driver is an 8 seater Landcruiser 200 series. But with such a small boot, it is not suited to a young family with a pram and the daily grind. We looked at the Mercedes Vans but too pricey, the Tarago but really wasnt as family friendly as either the Honda Ossey or then we saw a Kia. With the absolutely huge boot which fits a pram, our sons special needs walker, shopping and bags, we were quickly impressed. With a test drive and looking over the model variants were sold on the platimum with the automatic doors, LED head lights, heated and cooled seats. Even a heated steering wheel !!! We have removed the centre seat from the middle row to allow ease of access for the kids to the third row. My only regret is purchasing the petrol not the diesel model as it is thirsty in start and stop traffic of the school drop off. We now average 14L/100k, but initially was 18-20L/100, The only flaws are Kia argue each and every warranty item you ask to be fixed, some they just flat out say NO. A replacement key (we found ours in the end) was quoted at $1,000 as control the doors and boot. Also the head unit is tempremental and doesnt always do as you ask. We have in 2 years of ownership had the interior lights fail twice and a split CV boot. So no real issue what so ever. It does go through front tyres, but it is a heavy car. As a car person (five cars currently in my ownership) I truly enjoy driving our Kia Carnival as it does not feel like a van and is enjoyable. Other features my wife loves are : - The 360 degree cameras when parking - Sensor goes off when reversing out of the driveway if there is a car coming. - the boot; she can fit the five kids and a load from costco. - electric memory seats - automatic doors and boot; all can be controlled from the drivers seat. Some things we would like to see improved: - head unit; when it is turned off but changing out of reverse gear it turns on and loud. - fuel economy - cheaper spares

Last year, after reading and watching some reviews, I wanted to buy a Kia Stinger as ‘the nice car’ to accompany our 2010 Sorento in the garage. A personalized number plate was even bought for this plan. Unexpectedly, my wife suggested to upgrade the Sorento to a Carnival with very logical reasons. We regularly need 7 seats and lack of luggage space is a known problem when all seats are taken. I suspect it is also the main reason to most private buyers who ended up in this segment, when SUV is not quite right. We organized a test drive in a diesel SLI. Apart from being a larger vehicle, it felt similar to driving a Sorento. Both have identical 2.2L turbo diesel engine. The high commanding position is great. We can put unfolded pram behind the third row and still have enough space for a week’s groceries. When third row is folded down, an even larger space appears. It clearly became more difficult for me to keep the idea of buying a Stinger after this test drive. Practicality wins. In the 7 years of Sorento ownership, its AWD was rarely needed. Most of places we went to were manageable in 2WD mode. With this type of travel, Carnival ticks most of the boxes. Finally we decided to sell our Sorento and upsize to a Carnival without even waiting until Stinger is available for test drive at the showroom. We initially considered the top range Platinum petrol for something more quiet and luxurious than the previous diesel Sorento Si. However, we could convince ourselves that the best pick is the base-model S diesel for nine reasons listed below. 1. It is cheaper to buy, cheaper to insure. 2. Sufficiently equipped for day-to-day duties. 3. Registration cost for 4 cylinder diesel is cheaper than V6 petrol in Queensland. 4. Hubcaps means less disappointment when wheels scrape the kerb. 5. Closing the boot and sliding door manually without electronic aid is a kind of exercise. 6. The clear windows can be tinted later at local shop for relatively small extra cost. 7. We can shoulder check and assign our trustworthy passengers to shout when there is a car coming, in lieu of blind spot sensor and rear cross-traffic alert. 8. Hauling young kids with all their routines, any model can get messy anyway. We need to let them eat in the car between activities, tolerate grass from sport fields, expect sand from the beach, and so on. 9. Easier-to-clean leather seat vs cloth seat is probably the main benefit on the upper model, but the price difference could be spent on a holiday. Those thoughts worked well as we ended up with the S. We are happier with extra space in Carnival compared to SUV-ness of Sorento. The middle seat on the second row was removed to create an aisle for easy walk to the last row. Unfortunately the window seats cannot be removed to make a 2-seater van or few other configurations. We miss the morning complaints from whoever came last to the car and had to enter the third row through the boot, jumping over the backrest due to car seats in the middle row. Our car looks very similar to many other, including one at school and rental cars. One of our kids had an experience of opening the door of wrong Carnival during school pick-up time, Oops! To differentiate ours from others we added roof cross bars. May be one day we will put kayak, roof pod, or bike on the roof. The personalized number plate bought for a Stinger ended up there too. Well, now it looks a bit different from other silver Carnivals. Faulty head unit was the only problem we had in the first year. It was replaced under warranty after a couple of attempts to fix it. The part was not readily available so we waited two months until the new unit fitted. Driving without working head unit was inconvenient. Reverse camera in big car like this is essential. Even the small screen is very useful when reversing as it comes with guiding lines and proximity sensor. By the way, not long after this warranty claim, one of the sales team gave us a full tank of diesel as a nice gesture. I also want to report that it did not take long until the plastic hubcaps scraped the kerb during parallel parking. We just accepted it without feeling too bad. Now I will share a story from recent school holiday. We went on a long road trip from North Queensland to Great Ocean Road through the cities and snowfields. It was the longest family road trip we ever had. Fortunately, three of us could share the drive. All seven of us and our luggage fit nicely inside the car. Unfortunately later on, some of us had to sacrifice the leg room as we kept loading up the car after visiting shopping centres. The heavily loaded car went well throughout the trip. We did not have any problem, as expected, being fairly new. It does not feel too slow or underpowered when climbing. There is enough power to overtake road trains and other cars on the highway conveniently. I felt Carnival’s headlight setting is better than Sorento for night driving on dark highway. Base model S does not come with fog lights. I didn’t think it was important as it is rarely needed where we live. Everything was fine until we had to drive through the thick fog on a few occasions during this trip. Fog lights would certainly be nice thing to have. We had a small issue when going to snowfields as this is my first experience of using snow chain. It was not needed on the first snowfield but required on the second as we drove up when it was snowing. On the way back, I did not follow the correct chain removal instruction, only realized the mistake after the chain was unlatched and stuck behind the front wheel. Spending about 15 minutes releasing the chain in the cold and low light was not fun. Definitely learned a lesson that day. I wished Carnival is an AWD so no need to use chain. Bluetooth connectivity is reliable for making calls and music streaming. Absence of GPS was fixed by an old android phone mounted on the dashboard. Google map navigation worked well most of the time, except in Sydney city when we got lost a few times. We are not used to driving between tall buildings on complicated multi-lane roads, tunnels, and all the things that disrupt GPS reception. I am not sure if built-in satnav, Apple CarPlay, or Android Auto will perform better in this situation. Good thing about road trip is we could see more places than traveling by plane. Unlike Sorento, Carnival is only fitted with space saver spare tyre. Going through unsealed road on a heavily loaded Carnival made me nervous sometimes. It would be more comforting to drive far on gravel with a full size spare. As a result of unplanned side trips, we ended up spending a few nights with campers and motorhomes at rest areas. Lucky for us, we could sleep in the car through the night after a tiring day. Might be something to do with the space and seat comfort. Before sunrise, with kids still asleep in the car, we often moved from rest area to nearby beach parks. It is nice to see morning glory on our beautiful beaches. We brought along basic cooking kit to prepare camper-style meals too, as there is room for that. I don’t have any Combi experience, but I think this trip may be close enough. The hardest time for one of our son was on Great Ocean Road. He sat on the third row. The combination of winding road and body roll gave him motion sickness. Moving him to second row did not help much either. We had to stop several times to avoid unwanted spill inside the car. He made comment that it would be better to do this route in a Toyota 86 instead (he watched Initial-D too many times). I think he is right, but 7 of us will not fit there. When unloading the car, we were surprised at how much items were travelling with us. I estimated the weight carried by the car to be around 700-750kg in this trip. Not to mention those little stuffs jammed between seats, getting sticky in the cup holders, and hidden from untrained eyes. Cleaning a Carnival is not a quick procedure. The odometer had increased by 8875 km in two weeks. By collecting all fuel receipts during this trip, I know exactly that $1,072 were spent on 701 litres of diesel. At 7.9L/100 km fully loaded, nobody can complain about fuel economy. So far our car had done 41,730km and burnt 3,728L of diesel. That is an average of 8.9L/100km, mostly on regional city driving. I am glad we did not buy petrol version. If you are considering to get one but don’t want to spend too much, wait for ex-rental in used car market. They are cheaper to buy and might have part of factory warranty left in them. This review is getting too long now and I should stop here. Cheers to all Carnival owners out there. I believe you made a good decision, particularly if you are getting 2018 model with 8-speed transmission, AEB, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, Apple CarPlay/ Android Auto, and larger screen even in base model. Sigh…. I should have waited one year.

I know what you are thinking, what made him buy a people mover. Yes I may have had a vasectomy but they are still attached! No my life isn't over, just 3 boys that can't be next to each other for any lengthy period of time. This was a decision made with the head and not with the heart. We had our Jeep Grand Cheeroke which was a heart decision purchase and a great car to drive, aside from the fuel economy, but starting having some expensive pieces break just out of warranty. So we went shopping for 7 seats as 3 across the back in the GC with 2 of them still in car seats was squishy and not much fun on longer drives with the fighting and associated behaviour. The wife really liked driving the Jeep so looked at all the larger 7 seat SUV's but we were finding with all of them that with the 2 x kids seats fitted you couldn't fold the 40% seat to access the 3rd row without removing it. We even went to the lengths of buying 2 x new seats that were the skinniest we could find and tested them in the CX-9 and Prado but still no go as these were the favourites. What is the point of having 7 seats if you cant use them easily. Enter the Kia Carnival, the "soccer mum's" car! We went into Kia to look at the Sorento but secretly I wanted to show her the Carnival too. Now whilst I didn't mind it looks wise as it has a certain SUV shape about this model, the wife didn't want the "soccer mum's" car image and was not very keen. The test drive was what sealed the deal, it was the quietest drive we have ever done with all three boys separated, it was almost one of those proud and emotional parent moments you see on Facebook. We drove both the petrol and diesel and whilst the petrol has a lot of power and is very smooth, the diesel was the pick as the power was great, smooth delivery through the 6 speed auto and it's great on fuel. Next decision was model and colour, purse strings said Si model but I just couldn't get past the "beige" cloth interior, this is a family car after all. The SLi and Platinum also had the front and rear parking sensors which I thought was great particularly for a car of this size. The wife really liked the convenience of the power sliding doors and boot for the school pickup in the "Stop, Drop & Go" area so she didn't have to get out of the car. I couldn't get past the chrome wheels on the Platinum, they just looked out of place on a car like this and they had a Silver SLi in stock that looked really nice, particularly once we tinted the front windows dark. 20 months on and fuel economy is averaging around 8lt/100km with mainly 60kph but it does have a short run at 100 kph which is good for the diesels DPF. Apart from the usual servicing there has been nothing go wrong, all is working and doing what it is designed to do. Infotainment is basic, it does have inbuilt Sat Nav which is handy, no Apple Carplay or Android though we have never had this before so don't know what we are missing out on. The Bluetooth music streaming works great every time and the phone connects every start and stays connected, unlike my Hilux. The leather seats are not showing any signs of wear and the abuse the boys throw at them hasn't shown up, at this stage anyway. We removed the centre seat in the second row so it is a "walkthrough" 7 seater which is so convenient and also means the 2 kids seats are in the second row kept apart and makes it easy to put them in. The ten year old is by himself at the back, king of the kids! We have used it as an 8 seater a few times for parents nights out and family trips and it was still a comfortable drive for everyone, I was really impressed by the diesel as it still performed like it was just me in the car. The only thing I have added to this car has been a daytime running light module to the lights so the LED parkers now operate like DRL's. When we purchased the car they said they were DRL's which I liked for visibility on the road for other drivers but in reading the manual once home I found they were parkers and not DRL's. I purchased a module that sits in the headlight assembly from South Korea and fitted it myself and now they function the same as DRL's, I haven't seen any other Carnival's driving around with this mod. Overall we are really happy with the Carnival. I would like to see more of the new safety features across the model range in the future like AEB, not just the Platinum model and the added convenience of radar cruise control would be good. Aso the DRL's should be standard from factory, I am sure it wouldn't be hard for them to organise it. I think updated models will also probably have the Apple Carplay etc to keep up with the current expectations we place on the car manufacturers. Once you get past the "soccer mum's" car tag it is great as a family car. We have the piece of mind of the 7 year warranty should we need it and low running costs. Yes we can't go anywhere we could have in an SUV or 4X4 wagon but we don't need to, that is what my 4X4 Hilux dual cab is for.

Our family hauler gets a workout. It’s jusr clocked 15000km, in the 9 months since we purchased it. The shortlist was originally the Kia Sorento GT-Line, Mazda CX-9 and Nissan Pathfinder Ti. I had a hunch though, so I suggested to my wife that we take a Carnival for a decent drive. The dealer was great and loaned us a car for the weekend. We drove it to all the regular places it would need to be parked, and all the narrow streets we could think of. And, it laid any doubts about it being ‘too big’ to rest. At very similar money to the 5+2 SUV’s we’d been seriously considering, the Carnival just packs so much more value. We run it with the middle-centre seat removed, in 7-seat configuration. It works a treat. We currently have the youngest two in the back row, using the isofix points for the baby seat. The boosters for the older kids work well with the belts and seat heights. The eldest of our three likes the Captain’s Chair set up in the middle row, and she has access to her own aircon controls. A key point with the flexible interior - in wet weather, you simply enter the vehicle with the kids, get them strapped in, and then jump back out and into the drivers seat. There’s so much space it’s not funny. I’ve recently been starting the car to crank up the aircon, then getting in the back to strap everyone in. Makes a huge difference from standing outside in the heat or the rain. Being the Platinum model, it’s got plenty of luxury and techno features. The push-button electric doors and tailgate. The air conditioned and heated seats. Blind spot and rear traffic monitoring, lane departure warning systems, radar-adaptive cruise control and auto headlights. The greatest bit of gear though, without doubt, is the 4-way camera system. It makes parking a breeze and offers great peace of mind when you’re worried about kids and other vulnerable road users being around. Kia could do a better job of calibrating some of the tech, as it’s very trigger-happy with the lane departure warning system. The radar cruise / AEB also struggles to interpret forward traffic situations. These aren’t serious concerns though, more annoyances when they kick in prematurely. The drive train is solid if not spectacular. We’re regularly getting 7.5-8.0 litres per 100 km, which for a loaded-up vehicle weighing well over 2 tonnes is pretty damn good. The diesel gets a bit noisy under load but it is more than capable of pushing the thing along in all conditions. Could it be improved? I’d like to drive one with the new 8-Speed Auto as fitted to the latest Sorento. Beyond that, an AWD version would be amazing, but the compromises on cabin space necessitated by adding drive to the rear wheels would make such a design a pipe dream. We love the car.