Kia Sorento PHEV joins our fleet | Long-term test

Kia Sorento PHEV joins our fleet - A sign of the chimes

I took delivery of the updated Sorento as a swap for our suddenly out-of-date EV6, whose loan with us had been overtaken by the launch of the updated model in October.

There’s no chance of that happening with the Sorento, as it had its makeover in the spring.

Our most recent benchmark on long-term test ahead of the updated model was the full-hybrid version we ran from late last year until the spring.

This time we decided to go for the plug-in hybrid variant to see if this could be a valuable stepping stone for someone in the transition process to fully electric.

The front of the Sorento has undergone a transformation giving it the family look introduced with the EV9. Equipment grades revert from the previous Vision and Edition (entry level and higher, respectively) to 2, 3 and 4, and our 4 is vaguely equivalent to the Edition grade units predecessor but the upgrade has added a few extra items.

That means it comes with heated and ventilated front seats, heated outer second-row seats, an opening panoramic glass roof, as found in the previous Edition grade, but an enhanced head-up display and camera display for the rear view mirror. For the former, when in cruise control mode, it displays surrounding traffic as animated blocks relative to your position, and for the latter, should you be carrying a full complement of passengers.

The adaptive cruise control also features an automatic lane-change function, where indicating to change lanes prompts the car to carry out the manoeuvre itself if the various conditions are met. For this it keeps the indicator running for the whole duration of the exercise.

The suite of driver assistance systems provide audible alerts and various chimes that can be heard throughout a typical journey in the Sorento. Of course, new cars since April 2024 now sound an alarm should the car exceed the speed limit. This can be deactivated manually, but comes on by default when starting the car.

That’s fine. Exceeding the speed limit can be dangerous. But it depends on the camera to recognise the speed limit from reading and recognising road signs, which it does not always achieve with accuracy, making the alert doubly annoying if you know you are well within the true speed limit.

Then there's another chime when the speed limit changes. That would be fine if my vision was below the standard required for driving. But it isn’t, clearly, as have been the holder of a driving licence for longer than I care to remember, and I haven’t been told there’s any reason why my eyesight is not up to the job.

What I’m getting at here, and the Kia Sorento is not the only car to engage in this ultra-intensive nannying of the driver, is that many of these alerts would be just as effective as a subtle visual warning on the instrument display, or head-up display in the case of our Sorento.

As things stand, the cacophony of alerts and warnings only serve to irritate, and discourage the driver from leaving the systems running where they can be switched off.

No doubt it’s something I’ll get used to as the months progress behind the wheel.