Do you know of anyone that owns a Kia Sorento? Do you own/drive one yourself? I am looking into buying a larger vehicle for myself (and my growing family) and have been delving into the compact SUV market. I am looking for relatively good mileage (I know thats hard to get, but the Ford Escape hybrid is a major possibility, though I don’t believe in Version 1.0 of anything), comfort in long drives, and some aesthetics.
Every review and every customer comment that I have read points to the fact that the most popular compact SUVs from the most popular makers are very unreliable. The Ford Escape produces about 50 lemons out of a hundred cars, the Jeep Liberty is uncomfortable, is a gas guzzler and has various mechanical problems, the Saturn Vue simply sucks in every way, the Honda CR-V is stripped down, weak and with few features and a plasticky interior, I don’t like the Rav-4, I’m never buying a Hyundai again (so the Santa Fe is out of the question) and the Mazda is sucky.
This leaves me with very few choices. They include the Mitsubishi Montero (and one other that I did not look into), the Kia Sorento and a few other lesser known models. Out of these choices, I find that the Kia Sorento, by a large margin, is the highest rated among customers.
Does anyone have any other suggestions that I should be looking at?