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By
EWAN KENNEDY
16 January 2006
Kia has chosen to confuse us with the name of its new people mover.
Calling it the Grand Carnival suggests it’s another variant on the
long-running Carnival, whereas the Grand Carnival is actually a
completely new model.
As its name suggests, this new Kia is a large
vehicle; at 5.13 metres it is longer than the Toyota LandCruiser
and only a whisker shorter than Holden’s limo-class Caprice.
This length may make for parking hassles kerb-side, but isn’t
likely to be a problem in off-street carparks.
In any case, the extensive length means there's
lots of space inside the Kia Grand Carnival, and space is what
buyers want from their people movers. There’s seating for eight
adults, two in front bucket seats; three in the second row, each
in their own bucket seat; and a further three in a bench seat at
the rear. All seats have good legroom and are of decent width, but
passengers in the rearmost seats will find themselves sitting with
their knees up as the floor is rather high.
The two passengers in the centre seats only get
lap-sash safety belts, everyone else has three-point belts.
Access to the rearmost seats isn’t too
difficult for those who are young and agile, others may find it a
struggle. It’s always smart to take along any potential
passengers as part of your pre-purchase inspection and road test.
Luggage space is excellent, even with all the
seats in use. The boot is so deep that we had a look under the
Grand Carnival to see if the boot floor wasn’t dragging on the
ground! When you are not using the rear seats they fold down into
that deep recess in the base of the boot, leaving a neat flat
floor as they do so. The three seats in the centre row double-fold
forwards to further increase load space and can be removed
completely without too much of a hassle.
One reason for the very low boot floor is the
location of the skinny, temporary spare tyre underneath the
vehicle, at the right-centre of the cabin floor. A full sized flat
tyre can’t be stored in that area, but Kia supplies a plastic
bag in which to store the flat. It can then be stashed away
somewhere inside the Grand Carnival.
Obviously you don’t expect to be able to
transport eight people, each with a large suitcase, you need a
dedicated bus for that, but the passenger/luggage compromise in
this big Kia people mover is exceptionally good.
Power is supplied by a twin-cam V6 engine that’s
the largest in any people mover in Australia. Displacing 3.8
litres and produces up to 184kW, more importantly, torque is a
handy 343Nm at a relatively low 3500rpm. Thanks to this modern
engine using variable valve timing the torque is nicely spread
throughout the range.
The engine drives the front wheels through a
tiptronic-type five speed automatic.
There's heaps of power and the engine has a
refined feel, particularly at cruising speeds, that makes it very
pleasant to live with. Fuel consumption during our brief initial
testing was reasonable at an average of 14 litres per hundred
kilometres. However, we feel that constant suburban use, which is
what people movers are usually all about, could see this
constantly on the wrong side of 15 litres per hundred.
Comfort is good, with the suspension coping with
most road surfaces with a reasonable degree of composure. Big
bumps and corrugations did trouble it at times. There's no left
footrest for the driver, probably because the Grand Carnival has
one of those irritating pedal parking brakes.
Handling of this two-tonne Kia people mover can
at best be described as adequate. At slow to moderate speeds it’s
fine but at anything higher it verges on being sloppy. It appears
safe enough as strong understeer would usually scrub off speed and
put the Grand Carnival back on track if you have misread a bend or
been forced to take avoiding action by another road user.
Build quality of the body is very good overall,
so it came as a surprise that there was a constant wind whistle in
the area of the driver’s door. The window appeared to be closed
all the way, the door wasn’t moving about on its rubber seals
and the sound didn’t seem to come from the door mirror, so that
irritating noise was a mystery.
We have saved the best for last. One thing that’s
not large in the new Kia Grand Carnival is the price tag – an
astonishingly low $36,990.
That price is certainly not for a stripped-down
special, the Grand Carnival comes with three-zone air
conditioning, a six-speaker CD stereo, cloth seats, power windows,
power mirrors and cruise control.
© Copyright
Marque Publishing Company
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