Kia Sonet in Udupi Test drive and Review comments

Kia Sonet is a compact SUV launched by Kia during Aug 2020. Sonet is largely replica of Hyundai Venue, Kia's parent company.

Sonet's price ranges from 8 to 16.5 lakhs on road in Udupi. Sonet is selling in large numbers thanks to its attractive features and fresh looks. Sonet's global NCAP rating is not known yet.

I visited ARM Kia near Udupi recently to check out the Sonet. My intention was to experience the 1 litre turbo and 1.2 liter NA petrol engines and feel the difference. However ARM Kia had only diesel MT on test drive. Couldn't test drive the IMT earlier.

After I took a test drive, checked pricing and did some enquiries, below are my findings and review comments.

1. Kia models have almost 3 months waiting period. Kia's Udupi dealer says they have 500 bookings pending to be delivered. Tata motors have 2 months, Hyundai 2-3 weeks.

2. Sonet's cheapest variant are techline petrol with 1.2 liter naturally aspiring engine. Techline petrol costs between 8.5 to 10.6 lakhs on road, available only in HTE, HTK and HTK plus variants. These low price variants miss out on various features such as sunroof, premium speakers, TPMS, dual tone option, HelloKia app support, alloy wheels and several others.

3. Fully loaded variants is GTX Plus- available in 1 litre turbo petrol, 6 speed MT, IMT, 6 speed AT, 1.5 Diesel, sunroof, dual tone and loads of other features. GTX Plus variants cost 14.5 to 16.5 lakhs on road in Udupi.

4. Booking amount is 25000. Some 2% price increase is expected in 2021

I had a tough time deciding between 7.5 lakhs Tiago XZ vs some mid variant of Sonet in 11-13 lakh range. Didn't feel like coughing up so much extra. Let me see.