Living with the 2021 Kia Stinger GT

• Introduction: Standing Out
• Month 2: Inside Job
• Month 3: Peeling Out
• Month 4: Hello, Good Thanks
• Month 5: Over and Out - Farewell

Introduction: Standing Out

Newman’s new Kia Stinger GT is hard to miss

I have been known to lose cars in carparks. Not going shopping or anything hare-brained like that, but the long-term airport parking is a killer. Obviously it hasn’t been a particular problem in recent times, but nevertheless as the world returns to normal it’s a comfort that a lime green Mustang has been replaced by something equally vivid.

I haven’t seen anything quite as orange as ‘my’ new Kia Stinger GT since dear Donny T was a regular fixture on the evening news, but I find the sight of this Neon Orange Kia much more appealing.

The Stinger GT has always been a good looking car in my opinion, albeit better suited to some colours than others, but the facelift applied as part of its recent mid-life update has ratcheted up its desirability.

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The changes have been relatively subtle, but the new slimmer-spoked wheel design suits the car well and the full-length LED strip at the rear will fool plenty into thinking they are following an Audi A7 at night.

Although the GT needs all the help it can get; since its introduction in 2017 just 6350 examples have been sold (as of the end of February 2021) though sales have been pleasingly steady, the three full years accounting for 1957, 1773 and 1778 sales from 2018-2020 respectively.

It’s a mark of how buyers have abandoned the large, rear-wheel drive performance segment that these figures are considered reasonable. By way of comparison, Kia sold more than 20,000 Carnivals. Granted, quite a few of those will be fleet sales, but around four times as many people want a Kia with eight seats than with a twin-turbocharged V6 and rear-wheel drive.

Kia is not discouraged. According to Thomas Schemera, head of product division at Hyundai Motor Group: “The Stinger remains the standard-bearer for the Kia brand. It remains our most driver-focused car and is capable of covering great distances in comfort and style.”

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"The Stinger GT has always been a good looking car"

The range has shrunk slightly from six variants to four, both the unchained 182kW/353Nm 2.0-litre four-cylinder and 274kW/510Nm 3.3-litre V6 models available in an entry-level ’S’ and fully loaded GT-Line (I4T) and GT (V6TT) specification. The latter scores an extra 2kW thanks to the introduction as standard of an electronically actuated bi-modal exhaust.

Nine colours are available across the range, with a 10th – Aurora Black Pearl – limited to the top-spec variants at a cost of $695. Prices have lifted slightly, the GT now $63,260 or $66,690 driveaway. Kia’s excellent seven-year, umlimited-kilometre warranty applies and a seven-year capped price servicing program is also available at a cost of $4243 over the seven years, though the services themselves range in price from $350 for the first and $952 for the seventh. Servicing intervals are 12 months or 10,000km, whichever occurs first.

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Kia has pushed all its active safety chips in with the new Stinger. As well as the usual auto-emergency braking (AEB), active cruise control, blind spot warning etc. there is now cyclist detection and junction assist, which detects oncoming traffic when turning, improved lane keeping assist with road edge detection, lane follow assist to keep the vehicle centred, blind spot collision avoidance, rear cross-traffic assist and a blind-spot view monitor, which shows the side of the car in the 7.0-inch TFT digital instrument display when the indicator is activated.

Safe exit warning also uses a sound and display to warn if a vehicle is approaching when exiting the car, but whether this cornucopia of systems is subtly helpful or intrusive remains to be discovered.

Inside there’s a larger 10.25-inch infotainment touchscreen with smartphone mirroring and multi-connection Bluetooth, allowing one device to be used for music and another for phone calls, 64 mood lighting colours, remote engine start using the new smart key, a frameless rear-vision mirror, power tailgate that can be set to four different heights while the eight-way adjustable front seats are covered in Nappa leather and heated/cooled.

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Mechanically it’s basically all as before, but there’s plenty of good stuff including Brembo brakes (350mm front discs and four-piston calipers with 340mm rear discs and two-potters), adaptive dampers and a limited-slip diff, but there’s been a tyre upgrade to Michelin Pilot Sport 4s.

However, these tyres are the reason that I haven’t had much time behind the wheel, as a shop mix-up left the car with three Pilot Sport 4s and one 4 S. With that rectified, next month it’s time to drive. – SN

Things we love

• Rear-drive fun
• Bold colour
• V6 twin-turbo

Not so much

• Wrong tyres
• Lack of kays
• Conspicuous

Back to top ^

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Update One: Inside Job

Does the Stinger tick the daily-driver box?

with last month’s mix-up rectified, plenty of kilometres have passed beneath the now-matching tyres of the Stinger GT. None of them have been particularly exciting, but that’s the point of a long-term test, to live with a car day-to-day, and Kia’s sports sedan-cum-hatch has passed, though not necessarily with flying colours.

Let’s start with the good stuff first. I’m a big fan of the new 10.25-inch infotainment touchscreen. It’s a bit of a stretch if you’re choosing functions on the left-hand side of the screen, but the fact it can split the display and use two-thirds for smartphone mirroring and the remaining third to show a car function is helpful.

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The on-board sat-nav is also very good, even when it’s not being used. Let me explain. The map is three-dimensional and the screen resolution is good enough that street names are displayed clearly, which really helps and allows you to find a destination without necessarily going to the effort of inputting the exact address.

But wait, there’s more. The driver’s seat can be set very low and the position is widely adjustable for all shapes and sizes. I’m still making minute adjustments, partly because the electrically adjustable steering column comes out a long way which means the seat can be reclined more than in most cars.

The seats are heated and ventilated and both features have been utilised in consecutive weekends thanks to Melbourne’s up-and-down autumnal temperatures. Heated seats are surprisingly difficult to get right – Honda’s, for instance, are like sitting on a BBQ grille – but the Stinger’s max setting is beautifully toasty.

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Another neat feature was discovered by accident. With arms full of dog the tailgate suddenly opened of its own accord; I assumed it must have the foot-operated remote opening that’s increasingly commonplace, but further experimentation – consisting of waving my leg around behind the Stinger like an attempt at a drunken chicken dance – proved futile.

Digging into what is possibly the world’s thickest instruction manual revealed that the leg-wiggling isn’t necessary; simply stand behind the locked car for three seconds or so and the tailgate will open on its own, which is a very handy feature if your arms are full of shopping (or dog). The 406-litre boot isn’t as big as you might expect, but dropping down the 60:40-split rear seats is the work of a moment to expand the capacity to a cavernous 1114 litres.

Now for not so much a complaint as an observation. The trouble with Kia’s rapid ascension is that within a model cycle its previous best can look a little second-hand. When the Stinger first landed it was rightly lauded as a significant step forward for Kia interior design, with its improved surfaces and premium touches like the Mercedes-esque trio of circular vents in the centre of the dash. Trouble is, sit inside the latest Sorento or Carnival – let alone the forthcoming electric EV6 – and you’ll see that Kia continues to take massive strides forward in both design and material quality.

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On the move ride comfort is good but not great, the suspension struggling to cope with choppier surfaces and feeding this back to the occupants. The auto ’box can be slightly lurchy, particularly on upshifts, though this is really a nitpick, but there’s always plenty of grunt on tap – this is a fast car.

Display some restraint, however, and the 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6 is impressively economical, this month’s 9.87L/100km average including one tank at 9.0L/100km and highway running saw figures in the mid-8s. That’s impressive.

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The biggest bugbear by far, something that’s been commented on by everyone who drives the Stinger, is the lane-keep assist. It’s extremely aggressive and easily triggered, which technically means it’s doing its job but the calibration isn’t conducive to how most cars are driven. It’s turned off at the start of every journey (because it annoyingly turns on each time, which is presumably a requirement of various regulations) which defeats the purpose of having it.

A larger issue is the fact that enthusiasts like you or I understand the technology and therefore what’s happening, but what does the average driver think when the steering wheel starts wrestling with them and steering the car with a mind of its own? A fairly significant cause for alarm, I would’ve thought. Next month we’ll up the tempo and throw the Stinger around some corners. Stay tuned. – SN

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Update Three: Peeling Out

With four matching tyres, Newman does his best to destroy the rears

I’ve been seeing Kia Stingers everywhere. As far as I’m aware there’s not a term for this phenomenon, though there should be as it undoubtedly exists. Whenever a car enters your life that particular model suddenly becomes particularly prevalent; I reckon I’ve probably seen maybe a dozen Stingers over the past few years, perhaps a couple more, but ever since I’ve had this long-termer you’d swear it was one of Australia’s best-selling cars. It’s not.

It might be part of some clever manufacturer scheme. Once you’ve bought a car (or blagged a free one in this case) the manufacturer sends out a fleet of similar variants to follow you around and make you feel special, like you’ve become part of some sort of club. So far there’s only been one acknowledgement from a fellow Stinger driver, though, a middle-aged gentleman raising a finger of recognition, thankfully not the middle one.

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Anyhow, I digress. The Stinger’s USP is its rear-wheel drive layout. Theoretically, it should be the perfect candidate for satiating Aussies’ thirst for a practical, powerful machine that subscribes to the ‘two turnin’, two burnin’ mantra. To test this hypothesis we have the Bryant Park hillclimb circuit (Haunted Hills) which should tell us everything we need to know about the Stinger’s behaviour at the limit.

Why not Winton or such? To be honest, the Stinger GT is not a track car. Nor was it designed to be, so that’s fine, but given the brakes aren’t overly fond of circuit work there’s no point toasting them to find out what we already know! Being slower, tighter and twistier, Haunted Hills is much closer in character to a typical road and also easier on the gear.

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To have any fun at all in a Stinger you need to select Sport mode, the car signalling its approval by having the driver’s seat give you a hug as it tightens the active bolsters. Sport mode allows the deactivation of the stability control, which is necessary for Kia’s sport sedan/hot hatch (it’s technically a five-door…) to show its true colours, as in other modes it’s very restrictive.

The Stinger has a custom mode that allows the driver to mix ’n’ match different settings, but because the stability control is linked to Sport chassis instead of Sport engine you might as well select the do-it-all Sport mode. This also livens up the throttle response, adds some unwelcome weight to the steering – though in reality it’s not too bad – and firms up the adaptive dampers quite significantly.

I set off for a lap time because, well, why not? The end result is a 1min4.4sec lap which is pretty handy. An HSV Clubsport Track Edition managed a very similar time a few years back, though more recently it’s about a second quicker than the base GR Yaris. Given Haunted Hills is heavily biased towards handling over power, that’s a pretty good result.

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Power is certainly something the V6-powered Stinger isn’t short of. When the massive hit of twin-turbo torque arrives it’ll vaporise its rear tyres at will, which is hilarious fun, though certainly not the fastest way. Happily, when you do want to drive neatly the facelifted GT is now more happy to accommodate.

The original V6 could be a wild and wayward ride, with a looser rear end than a twerking Tik Tok addict. It’s an inherent trait, but it was exacerbated by the Continental Conti 5P tyres, which were an older design and struggled to contain the power and weight of the Stinger.

Kia cheekily replaced the Contis with Michelins for the original press launch, but happily Pilot Sport 4s have made their way onto the standard-fit list for updated V6 Stingers. The sportier ‘S’ specification would be even better, but let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. The Michelins give the car a more stable, trustworthy base and grip no longer just disappears.

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Selecting Sport for the dampers makes them extremely stiff; even on the smooth circuit surface the Stinger hops and skips over small imperfections, but overall it controls body movements well enough.

Small tweaks haven’t turned the big five-door Kia into a natural track athlete but they have undoubtedly improved its composure and it’s plenty of fun in an environment such as this, especially for those who have traditionally coveted powerful rear-wheel drives.

Next month a long road trip is on the agenda, which may provide a chance to think up a term for the Stinger’s sudden proliferation. - SN

Things we love:

1. Bulk grunt
2. Rear-driveness
3. More grip

Things we rue:

1. Non 'S' tyres
2. Brakes just ok
3. Too-firm damping

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Update Four: Hello, Good Thanks

Ubiquitous question gains a rather apt response

“So, what’s it like?” It’s been a common question during my time with the Kia Stinger and it’s easily answered.

“It’s good…” I say, but it’s a reply that is usually met with a somewhat crestfallen look – it seems the enquirer is usually expecting something better than ‘good’.

There’s nothing wrong with good, for the Stinger has plenty of attractive qualities, but what’s holding it back from being excellent or even truly great? Stay tuned.

Last month’s brief circuit outing was instructive in examining how the Stinger behaves at the limit, but it’s not a car intended for track use so its road manners are far more important. I covered off its everyday abilities in update two, but some longer trips on more interesting roads have played to the Stinger’s strengths in some regards and exposed its weaknesses in others.

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In its standard Comfort mode Kia’s hi-po sedan-hatch does a fine job of picking up the baton dropped by our now-departed Aussie performance cars like the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore. It’s able to dispatch long drives in a relaxing manner, the adaptive dampers successfully soaking up most bumps in a controlled fashion, the widely adjustable ergonomics providing a comfortable driving position and the twin-turbo V6 happy to tick along in eighth gear or dispatch overtaking manoeuvres in short order when kicked down to third or fourth.

The engine is the heart of the Stinger. It would be nice if it had a little more aural personality; despite the fitment of the sports exhaust, full-throttle results in plenty of induction whoosh but not much in the way of actual noise, from the inside at least. Spectators are treated to a bit more smooth bent-six growl. Nevertheless, when those 510 Newtons hit – available from just 1300rpm! – and forcefully push you down the road you can’t help but smile.

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This is a fast, fast car, especially as 255-section rear tyres aren’t particularly wide for something with this much power. At any speed up to around 80km/h the rear end will squirm under hard acceleration, which is a key part of the appeal of cars like these. It seems Kia has updated the gearbox software, too, as the eight-speed auto will now hold gears when flicked into manual mode using the paddles.

Pre-facelift it would upshift at the limiter but now it won’t shift unless you tell it to. Excellent.

Where things get a little shaky is in the bends. As mentioned in last month’s update, the fitment of Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres has improved the Stinger’s handling both in terms of outright grip and predictability, but they are in a sense masking some of the GT’s inherent dynamic shortcomings.

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There are plenty of positives – quick, accurate steering controlling an obedient front end, an adjustable chassis and the traction of a limited-slip diff – but overall it lacks cohesion, particularly if you start to push the limits of what it can do. It’s one thing to say the Stinger can be a handful when driven hard, with a propensity to roll into fairly sudden oversteer, but it’s taken a while to put my finger on what’s holding the car back dynamically at more moderate speeds.

Just recently, a light bulb went off: despite the Stinger’s independent multi-link rear end, it feels like it has a live axle. The rear end feels quite clumsy, especially when asked to deal with multiple inputs, such as hard cornering and hard acceleration.

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Hence the ‘good not great’ assessment. It’s fundamentally an enjoyable car to drive, particularly if you’re someone who stops at the seven-tenths mark rather than pushing to nine-tenths, but it could do with just a little more polish.

My personal benchmark for affordable four-door dynamics is the Holden VF II Commodore Redline and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a performance sedan from a global manufacturer like Kia to match if not exceed this level. As it stands, there’s a little more work to do.

Next month, a wrap up of the Stinger GT experience. – SN

Things we love:

1. 7/10ths balance
2. Manual mode
3. Torque galore

Things we rue:

1. Limit handling
2. Lacks cohesion
3. Engine noise

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Update Five: Over and Out

Newman fails to gel with Kia’s performance halo

Ask and ye shall receive. A big tip of the ol’ hat to reader Rob Wills, who wrote in to inform me that the phenomenon of seeing Kia Stingers everywhere after I’d taken possession of this long-termer does indeed have a name.

It’s called the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon, or frequency illusion, a form of cognitive bias that makes you notice something more often once you become aware of it. Every day’s a school day.

On that note, what have I learned about the Kia Stinger GT over the past four months? Well, everything, really, and I will do my best to summarise those findings for you here! A simple pros and cons list is probably the easiest way to do so and let’s start with the good stuff.

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The heart of the Stinger GT is the engine. You can buy a Stinger with a 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder, but for me the powerful 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6 is just such an inherent part of the car’s appeal.

Figures of 274kW and 510Nm might not rock the socks as they once did but the powerband is just ridiculous – peak torque from 1300rpm, peak power at 6500rpm – so the Kia always feels plenty brisk, especially given it wears just 255mm-wide rear tyres. Sticking with the drivetrain, the eight-speed auto now has a proper manual mode which is a big plus and the limited-slip diff improves traction and the handling predictability.

Speaking of handling, the facelifted Stinger has taken a step forward in that regard with the fitment of Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres, which provide more grip (in the dry at least, the previous Continentals were very good in the wet), greater progression at the limit and better resistance to wear, too. The quick steering – a shade over two turns lock to lock – is accurate and provides a feeling of agility, too.

I never grew tired of looking back at the Stinger. No doubt the Neon Orange paint helped but the midlife nip and tuck has enhanced its looks to my eyes. Inside there is every conceivable feature and all were used frequently: heated steering wheel, wireless phone charging, heated and ventilated seats, hands-free tailgate, strip lighting with 64 different colours. It might sound all a bit silly, but sometimes all it takes is changing the ambient lighting from orange to green to blue to freshen up a long day.

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Now for some cons, in reverse order. The new 10.25-inch infotainment screen works well but sometimes doesn’t work at all. On multiple occasions the system would be ‘on’ – music playing and so forth – but the screen would be black and unresponsive. A simple ‘hard restart’ – which means you have to stop, turn off the car and open a door – fixed the issue every time.

On the road the overzealous lane-keep assist was a constant irritant and quickly turned off at the start of every drive, though an online commenter wisely and accurately noted the sensitivity of the system can be altered. I still maintain it needs better calibration, however. The secondary ride could also be a little better, the car fidgeting slightly on poorer surfaces. It’s not bad at all – the ride is generally well sorted – but it would be less of an issue if the Stinger was a razor-sharp handler. But it’s not.

As noted in the ‘pros’ there is plenty to like but so too are there shortcomings. The Stinger has a certain over-powered charm, but ‘4 S’ tyres wouldn’t go astray, nor would wider rubber, particularly at the rear. It’s this end that lets go first which can make for exciting progress if you’re attempting to drive at pace in wet conditions.

When grip runs out it still does so fairly rapidly. Excellence isn’t far away but more dynamic cohesion is required. Doing that without sacrificing the car’s grand-touring credentials is possibly the challenge, as the Sport damping is very stiff.

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Finally, while there’s nothing wrong with the way the Stinger goes it could do more to shout about it. The previously optional sports exhaust adds an extra 2kW but sadly little noise. There’s actually a decent, if muted, note from outside but from behind the wheel there’s a lot of induction roar and not much else. Granted, a forced-induction V6 is never going to give a V12 a run for its money, but a little more music would be appreciated.

All in all, the range-topping Stinger is an impressive car that’s well worth investigating if you’re a fan of powerful rear-wheel drives. However, its shortcomings meant I never quite clicked with it like you do with the greats. – SN

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