Kia Venga Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Kia Venga range
Prices: £11,495 - £15,395 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 2-3
Emissions: 117-155g/km
Performance: [1.4 CRDi] top speed 114 mph / 0-60mph 14s
Fuel Consumption: [1.4 CRDi] 62.8mpg (combined)
Safety: Six airbags, ABS, active head restraints.
Dimensions: length/width/heightmm 4068/1765/1600

VENGA OUT TO WIN IN EUROPE

Our Rating: 6.6 / 10

Kia continues its march upmarket with the Venga MPV. Steve Walker reports.

Korean Kia is intent on giving its products a European flavour and the Venga supermini MPV is one of its more successful efforts to date. A foursquare stance and neat detailing ensures it doesn’t fall into the frumpy trap that captures many MPV products, plus there’s a good engine range and some clever design touches inside. Stop-start technology will generate headlines and Kia’s warranty should continue to please owners.

Kia was once content producing Korean vehicles but of late it’s been at pains to emphasise how ‘European’ its products are. What does that mean? Well, Kia will always be Korean in the sense that it’s a company From Korea but in automotive terms, Korean cars came to be known as simple, cheap and somewhat dull alternatives to pricier mainstream models. The Kia of today wants to distance itself from the shaved costs and squeezed margins at the budget end of the car market and compete on level terms with the big players. To this end, models like the Kia Venga supermini-MPV are about as European as a car from Korea is likely to get.

The Venga is designed and built in Europe which is a good step towards its stated aim of appearing as European as possible. Exactly what constitutes ‘European’ in Kia’s eyes is open to conjecture but the Venga is up against a number of cars from big name brands in the supermini MPV market sector and Kia will be looking for its effort to compete with them on criteria like build quality, driving dynamics and design. In the past, we’d have expected a car with the Kia badge to be a little below par in these key areas but to redeem itself with a low price and lots of equipment. That’s no longer enough and the Venga will need the quality to stand toe to toe with Vauxhall’s Meriva, Renault’s Modus, Nissan’s Note, Citroën’s C3 Picasso and others.

There’s a good choice of engines including a common-rail diesel that’s likely to sell in good numbers. Kia is pinning big hopes on this oil-burner and its optimism is not without justification. The 1.4 CRDi unit is part of Kia’s ‘U2’ generation of diesel engines utilising particulate filters and exhaust gas recirculation to achieve clean running to go with their punchy performance.

The 1.4-litre CRDi is available with 89bhp and generates 220Nm of torque between 1,750 and 2,750rpm. The alternatives to diesel power are a couple of petrol engines, again a 1.4 and a 1.6. Respectively, these generate 89 an

The supermini MPV presents car designers with a difficult problem. Superminis are small and MPVs are practical but achieving both smallness and practicality together in the same car is quite a challenge. To get the maximum from its modest dimensions, the Venga employs a long wheelbase that pushes its four wheels right out to the corners of the vehicle. Despite being only 4,068mm in length, the Venga has a wheelbase that’s just 35mm down on the cee’d five-door, a car that’s a good 200mm longer in total.

As well as maximising the amount of space that the interior designers have to play with, the Venga’s wheel-at-each-corner stance helps give the car a purposeful, bottom-heavy look out on the road. The bodywork tapers out towards the base of the vehicle and the side window line rises, curling up sharply at the rear. With the distinctive Kia grille and the high-mounted headlights, it goes to make the car a more distinctive sight than we’ve become used to in the small MPV sector.

Looking the part is all well and good but it’s inside where any vehicle touting itself as an MPV must stand or fall. The Venga’s cabin is certainly roomy with as much legroom as the cee’d five-door and a boot that substantially trumps that car’s at 440-litres. Kia has put particular thought into how owners will accommodate their luggage and the boot area can be extended to 570 litres by sliding the rear seat forward or through the two-tier boot floor even before you get involved in folding the rear seats down. When you are forced to employ Kia’s Fold & Dive seating system, the 60:40 split rear seats drop to create a flat load floor with a 1,552mm load length and a 1,253 litre capacity.

1, 2 and 3 trim levels are available on the Venga with the entry-level 1 featuring basics like electric windows, a CD stereo, the Fold & Dive seating system and a centre armrest. The car comes in a single five-door bodystyle with six-speed gearboxes for the more powerful diesels and five-speed versions for th