3

Glamping on the roof of a Kia Sorento is better than it sounds

 1 year ago
source link: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/10/glamping-on-the-roof-of-a-kia-sorento-is-better-than-it-sounds/
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
neoserver,ios ssh client

in tents —

Glamping on the roof of a Kia Sorento is better than it sounds

Throw a Roofnest on top of a car and you’ve got yourself a weekend away.

Tim Stevens - 10/11/2022, 2:58 PM

The Roofnest tent is quick to deploy and keeps you off the ground.
Enlarge / The Roofnest tent is quick to deploy and keeps you off the ground.
Tim Stevens

I've had a fascination with rooftop tents ever since I first saw one years ago, probably perched up on some overlander SUV with knobby tires and a pristine shovel strapped on the side. Something about the idea of motoring off to some remote place, flipping open the tent, and watching the stars overhead seemed like my idea of one heck of an adventure.

So when an opportunity presented itself to spend a weekend with a 2022 Kia Sorento X-Line with a Roofnest Condor bolted on the rack, I jumped at it. After all, it was going to take some serious convincing for me to think about dropping $3,395 for one of these things. That's an awful lot of camping.

The Condor tent is midrange in terms of size and pricing among the 12 models that Roofnest currently offers. It sleeps two to three people and measures 60×83 inches (1,524×2,108 mm) when opened.

When the Roofnest is stowed, it just looks like a black box on your roof rack.
Enlarge / When the Roofnest is stowed, it just looks like a black box on your roof rack.
Tim Stevens

And the Kia? Well, it's probably not what comes to mind when you think about overlanding, but don't be so quick to discount it. The new Sorento is great. It looks fantastic, like every other Kia in production today, and it backs those aesthetics up with stellar on-road manners and a comfortable, well-equipped cabin.

It's even a respectable off-roader. Its 2.5-liter, four-cylinder turbo engine makes 281 horsepower and 311 pound-feet, directed through an eight-speed transmission mated to an all-wheel-drive system with a clutch-type center differential. That's bolstered by a bevy of limited-grip drive modes that ensure it will get farther off the asphalt than its civilized looks might imply. (There’s even a hybrid version we reviewed that gets 37 mpg, but perhaps a bit less than that with a tent strapped to its roof.)

Advertisement

The Sorento you see here is a top-shelf X-Line SX-Prestige, costing $45,120 after a $1,175 destination charge. That includes $445 for the Wolf Gray paint, about the only real option here.

With familiarity, you should be able to erect the Roofnest in under 10 minutes.
Enlarge / With familiarity, you should be able to erect the Roofnest in under 10 minutes.
Tim Stevens

Before my wife and I packed up, I was immediately struck by one disadvantage of rooftop tenting: the inability to use your roof rack for anything else. We are avid kayakers, and our chosen campsite was right on a beautiful lake. We'd have loved to bring our boats along, but with the box bolted securely on the rack, there was no room. (Roofnest does offer another series, the Sparrow, with a second rack on top of the tent for boats that weigh less than 100 lbs (45 kg) combined. Ours don’t, sadly.)

The Sorento is EPA-rated for 27 mpg (8.77 L/100 km) on the highway and 22 mpg (10.69 L/100 km) in the city, and as my wife and I headed way up to the Adirondacks in search of adventure, I wondered how close we'd get to that figure with the Roofnest on top. It was collapsed, of course, but it was still a pretty big impediment in the wind.

The drive was close to seven hours round trip, about three-quarters spent droning on the highway, and the Sorento averaged 21.8 mpg (10.78 L/100 km). That's just lower than the 24 mpg (9.8 L/100 km) combined EPA rating. So to start, you're looking at a roughly 10–15 percent reduction in fuel economy with a Roofnest on top—certainly better than you'd get with a trailer.

Page: 1 2 3 Next →


report

Recommend

About Joyk


Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK