Last month was a hectic month for us—by "us," I mean me and the Kia Sonet. With back-to-back shoots, long-distance travels, and a lot of work, we were fully engaged as we prepared for our prestigious awards night and anniversary issue. The Kia Sonet began its journey with rigorous evaluations during the jury round, as our charming SUV was contesting in the Facelift of the Year category. After that, it had to transport camera equipment at the awards and was featured in just about every shoot (as a support car). This meant some long-distance highway trips, giving me ample opportunity to try out nearly every feature on this SUV.
When the roads seem endless, and you’ve pushed through the strain of the last leg day, I often entrusted my duties to the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Don’t get me wrong; this is not because it’s a manual—it's not. It's not that I don’t like driving; I would die for it. It’s simply a limitation of a human being who constantly seeks ease and comfort. I placed my full trust in the Automatic High-Beam Assist; if only this feature were available on every oncoming vehicle as well. The Leading Vehicle Departure Assist lets me carelessly turn back to give my comebacks in every traffic jam. The combination of Lane Keep Assist and cruise control is the best pairing. The Kia Sonet even has a dedicated button to turn both systems on at once. Sitting in the driver’s seat, doing literally nothing, made me realise I was being cooled by ventilated seats, and my phone was also enjoying the same treatment in the wireless charger.
That said, the Kia Sonet is not without its quirks. The Lane Keep Assist loses focus on high-speed bends, which might be a limitation of the camera-based ADAS. Additionally, we were disheartened at the beginning of the trip to discover that there would be no Android Auto for the entire journey; the top variants of the Kia Sonet are not equipped with wireless Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, and none of us had the right cable. However, we only needed to visit fuel pumps rarely because, as someone once said, "a diesel is a diesel."
