Given the glowing reports and warm praise regularly lavished on Korean car maker Kia for its most recent run of new and revised models, it may come as something of a surprise to find there are still some less contemporarily crowd-pleasing models lurking in the current line-up. The Kia Carens MPV is one such example, a halfway house between the slowly improving previous generation of cars and its latest crowd-pleasers.
The current Carens was a ground-up replacement for the previous generation car of the same name back in 2006, and since then, not a great deal has changed. It’s available as a five or seven-seater, and with a choice of either petrol or the latest CRDi diesel engines. There’s a 130bhp, 116lb ft 1.6-litre petrol engine available only in the cheapest, entry-level ‘1’ five-seater, which comes with a five-speed gearbox and a claimed 39.2mpg and 174g/km of CO2 emissions on the combined cycle.
But it’s perhaps best overlooked in favour of the 1.6-litre CRDi diesel, which is also available in the five-seater ‘1’ or as the only powerplant of choice in the two seven-seat versions, called ‘2’ or, for the top trim level, ‘3’.
The oil-burner produces 126bhp and a more useful 192lb ft from 1900-2750rpm, with combined economy of 49.6mpg and 149g/km of CO2. All the diesels get a manual six-speed ’box. Take it or leave it.
But while the CRDi engine is a perfectly acceptable performer (0-60mph in 12.1sec and a top speed of 111mph are unremarkable but par for the course), the Carens is also instantly forgettable to drive. Ride and handling are no match for the current crop of MPV class leaders, and while it doesn't exactly grate, neither does it provide any sense of enjoyment. What it does do, at least as a practical and flexible seven-seater, is acceptably meet the MPV brief of no-fuss transport that's easy to drive, affordably priced and cheap to run, if, it has to be said, a little on the dull side.
