Like the adage goes, all acceptable things allegation appear to an end. And our abiding 2020 Kia Telluride S was absolutely a acceptable thing.
What’s that you say? You’d like a little added advice to accept my simple, accessible conclusion? Fine.
Our three-row Kia came to us a winner. Throughout my 10-year MotorTrend tenure, I’ve apparent the sometimes accelerated advance of the SUV of the Year field. The antagonism is consistently adamantine to win and hotly contested, yet the Kia Telluride won the 2020 SUV of the Year accolade with about ease. It has additionally won every allegory analysis it has taken allotment in since. Like Ron Burgundy, the Telluride is affectionate of a big deal.
So what is Kia’s blueprint for absolute Telluride dominance? Why was it such a amusement to alive with for a year? Well, it looks great, drives and rides well, and is applied and adequate to boot. Like I said, simple and easy.
More than with any antecedent analysis agent I accept spent a year driving, bodies complimented the Telluride constantly. Gas stations, parking lots, campgrounds—it seemed like everywhere I went, accession would appear up to me and allocution about how acceptable the Telluride looked. Some of them had no abstraction it was a Kia and were absolutely abashed back they begin out it was. And I agree. The Telluride is handsome, as best avant-garde Kia articles are. It pulls off the appropriate bulk of asperous boxiness while active in aloof abundant adventurous burghal administration to address to a advanced ambit of people.
Considering best of my time with the Telluride fell during the pandemic, the 20,583 afar we put on the odometer is impressive. With no circadian commutes and few vacationing opportunities, abounding abiding cartage in the accomplished year accept spent added time sitting than we’d like. Our Telluride, however, became a go-to for MotorTrend staffers attractive to booty continued alley trips with their ancestors bubbles. Its three rows of basement and abounding burden amplitude were absolutely factors in its popularity, but it’s additionally aloof a nice agent to drive continued distances. The seats are comfortable, and it’s both quiet and abundantly economical. Over our 20,000 afar we had an empiric ammunition abridgement of 21.2 mpg. That’s not bad because our antecedent abiding VW Atlas, a absolute competitor, managed alone 20.3 mpg over the year I spent abaft the wheel, but it still fell abbreviate of the 23 mpg EPA appraisement for accumulated driving.
Outside of the Telluride’s adequacy as a alley tripper, it’s nice to drive in general. Allotment of my claimed avenue to the appointment takes me forth the bank through a “slide zone,” area the alive apple has created abrupt drops and tight, off-camber turns. I aloof alarm it “the roller-coaster road.” One decidedly affecting bead leads to an actual tight, acclivous left-hand turn. Cartage like the Atlas will bead bottomward the aboriginal hill, abbreviate the suspension, and array of pogo and animation alongside as you accomplish the acclivous left. The auto never leave the ground, but it additionally doesn’t feel like you’re absolutely in ascendancy through the abounding turn.
Driving forth this amplitude of alley in the Telluride is a altered experience. Sure, the antecedent bead compresses the springs, but as you acceleration up the added ancillary against the turn, the abeyance movement has already been controlled. There is no side-to-side, back-to-front movement. It feels solid and unflappable.
So that covers the looks acceptable and drives able-bodied sections. What about practicality? It’s a three-row SUV, so it’s applied by absence in abounding ways. The Telluride adeptness not be the chic baton in all-embracing size, but best of the time I acclimated it as a ample two-row SUV with a ton of rear burden room. A few MotorTrend agents associates did borrow it for its third-row capabilities and appear the sliding additional row and collapsed third row fabricated for a actual adequate rear seat. I enjoyed the sliding second-row bench and rear ceiling-mounted vents, which helped accumulate my dog air-conditioned and adequate during continued outings.
The Telluride never accomplished any automated issues, and the alone blow it saw was a brace of weeks in a anatomy boutique afterwards actuality sideswiped on the freeway. In absolute we spent $120 on approved maintenance, which included the accustomed inspection, air filter, oil change, and annoy rotation. That betters around all aggressive three-row SUVs we’ve had in our abiding fleet: The above Atlas amount $167.69 for two services, a 2017 Mazda CX-9 amount $322.35, and a 2016 Honda Pilot rang up $378.35 in accepted maintenance. Alone a 2019 Subaru Ascent came out advanced on this front—that actuality because all casework were covered chargeless of allegation by Subaru—but the Ascent additionally spent a lot of time in and out of the boutique for a host of added repairs.
Certainly, our year abaft the caster can’t be all rainbows and unicorns, though, right? Of advance not. But a lot of our gripes were minimal. We absolutely should accept ordered our Telluride with the alternative $2,000 all-wheel-drive system. Would we accept enjoyed active the high-spec SX adaptation added than our bashful S archetypal for the year? Of course, but the simple accession of AWD to our Telluride would accept bigger the active acquaintance and the adeptness to put the ability bottomward back needed. All-wheel drive would accept additionally added aplomb during the few occasions back we collection on unmaintained clay roads.
The alone added discharge came back my wife and I towed a baby biking bivouac on a camping trip. For the 2020 archetypal year, Kia alone installed a four-pin bivouac adapter alike admitting it has a 5,000-pound tow rating. Kia alike showed it towing a horse bivouac in advertisements. The automaker has rectified that, and newer Tellurides use the added accepted seven-blade connector.
One affair you adeptness apprehension if you’ve glanced at the blueprint that kicked off this story: IntelliChoice letters a 96 percent trade-in amount afterwards three years and 42,000 miles. That’s an aberrant figure. That doesn’t absolutely beggarly the Telluride has aberrant abiding value, though. Rather, that’s a absorption of what the bazaar looks like appropriate now for acclimated vehicles. Will the big Kia absolutely acknowledgment about the absoluteness of its aboriginal acquirement amount back three years are up? Probably not. But it’s anyone’s assumption back dent shortages and added accumulation alternation disruptions will cease creating calamity on the market.
All that brings us to the allotment of the adventure area I get to say I told you so. The Kia Telluride is a class-leading, great-driving, good-looking, and adequate three-row SUV. It took home our Golden Calipers two years ago, and it hasn’t slowed bottomward a bit since. The alone absolute affair we found—the abridgement of AWD—is calmly rectified via a analytic priced option, should your demands crave ability to all four wheels. And alike if its accurate balance amount ends up actuality far beneath the accepted 96 percent figure, we’re action you won’t appetite to accord it up afterwards three years, anyway. The Telluride absolutely is a abundant vehicle, and we’re sad to see this acceptable affair appear to an end.
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