Kia’s Telluride X-Pro SX Prestige – TOO BIG TO FAIL

Kia’s Telluride X-Pro SX Prestige

TOO BIG TO FAIL

It’s been 30+ years since Kia’s first offroad foray – with its diminutive Sportage – in these United States. And my, Kia, how you’ve grown! At best a novelty in the mid-‘90s, that early Sportage was not quite cute, and would have been perceived as rough around the edges, if – of course – its organic shape had edges. But it was cheap when that descriptive still meant something positive, and while customers didn’t line up, it was – for the Korean subsidiary of Hyundai – a beachhead. Thirty years later, Kia’s revised Telluride might be regarded as absolutely beachin’… 

Unlike that first Sportage, Kia’s midsize Telluride, when introduced for the 2020 model year, hit the ground running. Designed at Kia’s U.S. design center in Irvine, CA, the initial Telluride would seem to have hit the sweet spot for consumers wanting space (it offered 3-row seating), pace (a 3.8 liter normally aspirated V6 was standard) and grace, with a nimble footprint combined with a supple suspension. And back in the day, it was affordable, something you could simply assume when visiting a Korean showroom.

Almost seven years later, the second-gen Telluride arrives with a 2027 designation, along with what seems to be the obligatory bigger footprint. The dimensional increases seem small when referenced: Wheelbase grows from 114.2 to 116.9, overall length increases to just over 199 inches from almost 197, while width and height stay the same. But the visual impression is more dramatic, akin to Liz Taylor morphing from the Cat (on a Hot Tin Roof) to Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. To be sure, the new Telluride ain’t no Martha, and its overall profile is immediately recognizable, but you could be forgiven if thinking body padding and prosthetics were used in the design studio. 

While the profile strikes a familiar chord, the front end looks to have come – like so many in recent years – from the good folks at Lego. Kia took what was apparently a blank sheet and delivered, well…a blank sheet. In our test vehicle’s X-Pro SX Prestige trim the all-black front fascia is essentially indistinguishable from similar efforts offered by corporate sibling Hyundai, or recent ‘designs’ from Subaru. And all of it pales when compared to the subtle design elements of the original. When seeing the 1st gen Telluride from the front, I smile. When seeing this follow-up, my jaw drops and eyebrows furrow, definitely not my best look. Nor is it Kia’s. 

Inside, the interior is brought up to date in a space that Kia describes as “both expansive and intimate; modern and yet harmonized with nature.” Regrettably, in the all-black treatment given our X-Pro SX Prestige, you’ll get the intimate immediately, while expansive requires you to fill it with your kiddo’s soccer team. It is slightly more spacious for both people and things, but those increases are – again – incremental. 

From behind the wheel I found the visibility virtually unobstructed, the infotainment screen reasonably intuitive, and the ventilation controls came with the immediacy you’d hope for on 100-degree daytime temps. In short, life was good.

Under the hood, our offroad-rated X-Pro was fitted with the Telluride’s new standard powertrain, which provides 274 horsepower and 311 lb-ft of torque. Compared with the previous V6, horsepower drops slightly while torque output grows largely. The drivetrain is responsive, with the team at Car and Driver arriving at 60 in 7.4 seconds. If there’s a complaint, it’s the all-terrain tires given you a tad more ‘all terrain’ than us refined types like for around-town cruising. But if your town is filled with potholes, the slight bump in road noise is easy to forgive. 

And while still talking off-road, I continue to be confused by the idea of taking 5,000 pounds of anything into the Boonies. For those of you with a ranch you want to traverse, or a winter cabin adjacent to a road that – in winter – is virtually no road, I get that all road/no road capability; the Telluride X-Pro’s 18-inch all-terrain rubber and 9.1 inches of ground clearance will serve you well. But if tackling the technical twisties you once did in a Wrangler, bring a spotter and a body man. Even with the addition of Kia’s Ground View Monitor4, you’ll probably need both. 

At the end of the day, there’s a lot to recommend Kia’s second take on the Telluride’s earlier homerun, even while pondering our X-Pro SX Prestige’s $57K window sticker. When betting on American consumers, it never hurts to go big…