A second bite at the cherry

I’m often asked if it’s really possible to come up with an informed judgement on a new car after just an hour or two behind the wheel. The answer is broadly yes; having driven such a wide range of vehicles, you can use your senses to know what’s ahead of the competition, on a par or below standard. But sometimes a second bite at the cherry – and a second person – will reveal new issues that it would have been very hard to find out the first time round. The Kia Sportage that I’m driving over the festive period is an excellent example of that. With my wife, two children and a grandparent to get in the car, it was inevitable the former was going to have to sit in the rear with the kids. Within a few miles she was complaining of feeling queasy, something which never normally happens. Turns out that an adult sat in the middle of the Sportage’s rear bench seat is so high up they can’t see the road ahead, because the top of the windscreen is blocking it. That’s why my wife was feeling sick. We pulled over, swapped her to one of the window seats, put a child in the middle, and all was fine. These are the things that you never find out on a test drive, but which are vital to the real-world users who are actually going to spend their own money on these cars.