Kia Ceed Sportswagon review

Lots of hatchbacks have an equivalent estate car variant but can you name one with two estates based on it? Here's a clue... the Kia Ceed Sportswagon.

Yes, the Ceed Sportswagon – along with the Kia ProCeed – is one of two big-boot versions of the Kia Ceed. The Sportswagon is the more upright and traditional estate while the ProCeed is curvier at the back.

Here we're looking at the Sportswagon (Ceed SW for short), which has a very simple range: there's one petrol engine and two trims. What’s more, its list price is less than that of nearly all its rivals, including the Ford Focus Estate, Skoda Octavia Estate, Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer and VW Golf Estate.

So is the Kia Ceed Sportswagon just cheap and cheerful or does it have what it takes to come out on top? Read on to find out how we rate it against the best estate cars...

No matter which Kia Ceed Sportswagon you go for, you’ll find a 1.5-litre turbocharged three-cylinder petrol engine (badged 1.5 T-GDI) under the bonnet. That’s good news, because with 138bhp it has more than enough oomph for everyday driving.

Aside from some initial hesitation at low revs, it’s effective once you’ve wound it up, officially getting from 0-60mph in 9.7 seconds with the standard six-speed manual gearbox. That’s quicker than the entry-level Ford Focus Estate and around the same as the entry-level VW Golf Estate.

If you want something more responsive, the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports has a hybrid system that helps it get off the line with more vigour. 

Instead of a manual, there's the option of a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox – although that reduces performance slightly (0-60mph officially takes 9.9 seconds in an automatic Sportswagon).

If comfort is your top priority, you might want to strike the Ceed Sportswagon off your estate car shopping list.

It’s not that it will rattle your fillings out – in fact, it actually copes pretty well at lower speeds with patched-up urban streets and pesky speed bumps. Unfortunately, though, it feels rather restless on a motorway compared with more compliant rivals.

The Corolla Touring Sports and Golf Estate both take the sting out of imperfections and maintain their composure at higher speeds better than the Ceed SW.

Quick steering gives the Sportswagon a lively turn-in to corners, which gets you thinking it's a pretty well-sorted car. Up to a point, that's the case.

When you push harder, you'll find the steering is nicely weighted, and although it doesn't have the sense of feel of the Focus Estate's steering, it's a confidence-inspiring car and easy enough to place accurately in bends.

While the Ceed SW flows well along a country road at seven-tenths pace, if you enter a corner fast, it leans a bit and isn't particularly well tied down at the rear. As a result, it has to rely quite heavily on its electronic safety aids, and making an emergency lane change can feel a tad alarming.

Wind noise is well controlled, but you have to put up with quite a bit of tyre roar at higher speeds, particularly from the rear of the car.

The 1.5 T-GDI engine is a smooth operator for the most part, proving quiet at a cruise. The only time it ever really makes itself known is if you work it hard. 

Gearbox wise, the manual could be slicker compared with the delightful shift action in the Focus Estate, but it’ll be perfectly fine for most. The optional automatic is impressively smooth during normal driving, but it’s hesitant to change down when you floor the accelerator.

"While the Ceed Sportswagon is a fine motorway cruiser over my long commute, it just isn’t quite as comfortable as its rivals, and the road noise does get quite tiring." – Dan Jones, Senior Reviewer

Every Kia Ceed Sportswagon has a good range of adjustment for the driver's seat and steering wheel, and they line up well with the pedals so you’re not forced to sit crooked. If you upgrade to 3 trim, you’ll also get electrically adjustable lumbar support to help fend off backache on long drives.

These days more and more cars (the VW Golf Estate included) have all the main functions on infotainment touchscreens. The Sportswagon is one of the exceptions, with separate buttons and knobs for its air conditioning – an approach we prefer because it makes it much easier to tweak the settings on the move.

The analogue dials are clear, and are complemented by a digital screen operated using buttons on the steering wheel.

The Ceed Sportswagon's relatively slim windscreen pillars ensure it’s easy to see out at junctions but over-the-shoulder visibility is quite restricted. You’ll be grateful that a rear-view camera is fitted as standard to help with reversing. Strangely, you don’t get parking sensors, even as an option.

All models get electrically adjustable and heated door mirrors, a front wiper de-icer and automatic lights, so you shouldn’t have any problems seeing out at night or when it gets cold. 

Entry-level Ceed SWs come with halogen headlights, while 3 trim comes with brighter LED ones. You can’t have matrix LED headlights, as you can with the Skoda Octavia Estate and the Golf Estate, but they are much more expensive.

Every Ceed Sportswagon comes with a 10.3in infotainment touchscreen that’s packed with features, including DAB radio, Bluetooth, built-in sat-nav, and Android Auto and Apple CarPlay smartphone mirroring (so you can use your phone's apps on the screen).

The infotainment system has been around for a while but it still stands up against most systems in the estate car class. Sure, the graphics don’t look as swish as the Golf’s but they’re clear enough and the menus are straight-forward. Our only real demerit is that the system is pretty slow, taking a moment to respond to your prods.

The Ceed SW's interior looks rather drab, particularly if you go for entry-level 2 spec, which misses out on the chrome and piano-black trims you get higher up the range.

It’s hard to fault the standard of assembly because everything feels well screwed together. The Sportswagon has well-damped controls and lots of squishy plastics, and feels classier than the Ford Focus Estate and Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer. 

"I think it’s quite impressive that the Ceed Sportswagon’s ageing infotainment system still pretty much holds its own next to newer systems. Sure, the graphics aren’t as snazzy and it isn’t quite as fast, but it’s really intuitive." – Dan Jones, Senior Reviewer

You’ll have enough space in the front of the Kia Ceed Sportswagon. The driver’s seat drops low enough to give you plenty of leg room and head room to spare.

What’s more, the interior is wide so you won’t find you’re rubbing shoulders with your front-seat passenger.

The front door bins are a reasonable size, plus there are two cupholders and some useful cubbies for wallets and phones, including a decent-sized one below the standard front armrest.

There's enough head room for a couple of six-footers in the back of the Sportswagon. Leg room is tighter than in some rivals, though, including the Ford Focus Estate, Skoda Octavia Estate and Toyota Corolla Touring Sports.

More positively, the rear bench seat itself is well shaped, while a near-flat floor makes life more comfortable for someone sitting in the middle than in many of its rivals, which often have big humps to straddle.

Access to the rear is good, with wide door openings, but rear storage is limited to small door bins and pockets on the backs of the front seats. All trims get a rear armrest, which has cup holders integrated, adding convenience for your rear-seat passengers.

The rear seatbacks in the Ceed SW fold pretty much flat, but only split and fold in the 60/40 arrangement. That’s pretty standard, and matches the Focus and Golf, but isn’t as versatile as the 40/20/40 seats that you’ll find in the Peugeot 308 SW. 

The thing is, unlike those rivals with 60/40 seats, the Ceed Sportswagon also misses out on a handy ski hatch, which allows you to feed long items through from the boot without losing an outer seat.

The official boot capacities might give you the impression that the Ceed Sportswagon (625 litres) is not much more practical than the more slinky-looking Kia ProCeed (594 litres).

In reality, the Sportswagon's higher roofline and larger boot opening makes it easier to load it up to the roof, plus you get loads of useful under-floor storage and there’s no tailgate lip to heave luggage over.

All in all you get more space than you do in the Focus Estate and VW Golf Estate but the Skoda Octavia Estate boot is much bigger. 

"In the past you could have top-spec Ceed Sportswagons with 40/20/40 split-folding rear seats, and it’s a real shame they’re no longer available. I think that versatility would go a long way in an estate like this." – Dan Jones, Senior Reviewer

Kia is no longer the budget brand it once was, but the Kia Ceed Sportswagon is still very well priced compared to other estate cars. An entry-level Sportswagon will cost you slightly less than a Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer and lots less than a Ford Focus Estate, a Skoda Octavia Estate or a VW Golf Estate.

Thanks to the lower price tag of the Ceed SW and the competitive predicted depreciation, those buying on PCP finance should be able to expect reasonable monthly payments. You can check the latest prices on our new Kia deals page.

Even better, your fuel bills should be kept low, with the Sportswagon promising 49.6mpg. Just bear in mind that rivals with hybrid assistance will be even more efficient, including the Focus 1.0 Ecoboost (53.3mpg) and the Corolla Touring Sports (62.7mpg). Those rivals also produce less CO2, making them better choices as company cars.

No Ceed Sportswagon is poorly equipped, so the entry-level 2 trim is a good choice. With it you get automatic headlights, air conditioning, cruise control, 16in alloy wheels and a leather-wrapped steering wheel. 

If you can, it's worth spending a little extra and going for 3 trim because it gives you more kit and costs around the same as entry-level estate car rivals. Upgrading adds 17in alloys, rain-sensing windscreen wipers, heated front seats, dual-zone air conditioning and better safety tech.

Kia has a fine reliability record and finished 11th out of the 31 manufacturers featured in our 2024 What Car? Reliability Survey.

We don’t have data for the Ceed SW but the regular Kia Ceed finished in the top half of 29 cars in the family car section of the survey.

Even if you do have a problem, the fantastic Kia seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty is one of the longest currently available on a new car. Only Toyota beats it, offering a 10-year warranty providing you regularly service at an approved centre.

The experts at Euro NCAP awarded the Kia Ceed the full five stars when they tested it for safety. That was back in 2019, though, so it’s hard to compare with rivals tested in more recent years and under more stringent testing.

Either way, the Sportswagon comes with plenty of standard safety kit, including automatic emergency braking (AEB), lane-keeping assistance, high-beam assist and a driver attention monitor. The 3 version with an automatic gearbox gets an upgraded AEB system with pedestrian and cyclist detection, although that's also standard on most of the Sportswagon's rivals.

On top of that, security experts Thatcham found the Ceed to be relatively easy to break into and steal, despite having a standard alarm and immobiliser.

"The Ceed Sportswagon’s petrol engine might be efficient but I think it’s a shame you can no longer have the diesel engine because it was really good over long distances." – Dan Jones, Senior Reviewer

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