I don’t know how she does it. My sister-in-law is one of those people who’s just effortlessly… cool. Together… You know what I mean? Fashionable, without trying too hard or looking at all fake. Fun, without being annoying. Ever youthful, despite having two young boys and a full-time job.
If she weren’t so lovely, I’d hate her.
Anyway, recently the family’s 2009 Audi A3 had become unreliable, so a replacement was needed. I find this more exciting than I should, because it means I get to play The Used Car Game, where someone gives you their budget and priorities and you go forth into the CarGurus used car listings and send them links to the cars that you’d recommend. I can waste days like this. It’s one of my favourite things.
This car needed to be big enough to get a couple of kid’s scooters - or at least one kid’s bike - in the back. It needed to be reliable (this was a greater priority than economy, as it wouldn’t be doing huge mileage on a routine basis). The budget was around £7,000-ish, tops. Ideally a bit less.
From the demographic of the buyer to the budget and priorities involved, I reckon my sister-in-law is about as average – and as representative of the masses – as it’s possible to be, when it comes to a used car buyer.
Now, despite The Used Car Game being a favourite pastime of mine, it is also a truth universally known among the automotive industry that the vast majority of buyers will start a car search with an idea of what they want – normally involving which brands they like, or which models they favour – and it’s generally fruitless to try and steer them away from those initial leanings.
I have lost count of how many times I’ve had a conversation that goes a bit like this...:
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Used car considerer: “I need a new car, but I’d love your advice as I’m really not sure. I do quite fancy a [insert desirable but unreliable or unrecommendable car here].”
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Me: Hmm. Well, they’re well known for eating their own turbos, they have granite for dampers, and I own shoeboxes that are more spacious inside. Are you sure you want to do that? How about a [insert a variety of alternatives here, all of which are better in every possible way]?
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Used car considerer: “Ah, that’s really useful, thanks! Can you send me some links to those?”
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Me: “Just try and stop me. I’ll be in your WhatsApps for days, even when you don’t want me there.”
A few weeks later…
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Used car considerer: “I bought a car! I know you said they’re not the most recommendable, and I really appreciated the 3,000 links to other cars that you said were categorically better in every way, but I’ve just always wanted one of these. And I found one in ‘I Didn’t Actually Want Your Professional Advice Anyway metallic grey’, which is the colour I wanted.”
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Me: “Great. You’ll love it. I’ll get you an extended warranty for Christmas.”
My sister-in-law isn’t interested in cars, but she knows that she wanted a mid-sized family car that wasn’t too big. We were in heartland family SUV territory, and the very first car that she mentioned she liked was the Kia Sportage. She also ‘kind of liked’ the Ford Kuga, and maybe the BMW X3.
What interested me was that, throughout all the alternatives I threw her way and that were discussed, she never once mentioned the VW Tiguan. Once upon a time, the Golf, Passat or Tiguan were the default desirable-but-sensible family cars. But when I suggested them she just kind of screwed up her face and said ‘yeah, maybe’, which we all know means ‘I’ll make polite noises for your sake, but I’m not doing that.’ It was the same result when I mentioned the Nissan Qashqai.
Now, as I’ve mentioned, every automotive oracle knows that nobody listens to us. They all just go and buy what they wanted before they asked for advice.
Sure enough, I reassured my sister-in-law that any of the cars she liked were perfectly good options, got lost for days in used car listings and sent far too many potential car options to her, and then she went and bought the used Kia Sportage that she’d wanted in the first place. It really is a highly recommendable used family car, to be fair, and hers is very nice: in white with a black interior. More than anything, she likes the look of it, she likes the way it drives and she feels happy to spend her time in it and be seen in it.
Cars are a statement and an emotional purchase, no matter how completely ordinary that car may be. We know this.
But isn’t it interesting that my sister-in-law, representative as she is of such a huge swathe of today’s used car buyers, rated Kia as more desirable than VW, and even Audi? She liked the Ford Kuga because she thinks it looks nice, but she wasn’t too fussed about it, and the BMW X3 meant going for higher mileage and/or age. Largely, it was the Kia’s ‘want one’ factor – more than its general dependability and hearty usefulness - that had grabbed her.
Anyway, it’s worth pointing out here that my sister-in-law is one person, and her general leanings aren’t indicative of everyone else’s.
It’s also worth noting that VW sold over 166,000 cars in the UK in 2024, remaining the most popular brand overall, while Kia sold 112,000. VW is hardly flailing, here.
But, Kia was the fourth most popular brand and, crucially, had gained a whopping additional market share of 4.16% over the year, while VW had gained 2.6%.
Interestingly, in the family car class exclusively, Kia sold 47,163 Sportages (wow!) and VW sold 25,837 Tiguans. The Sportage was, in fact, the second most popular new car in the UK last year, only slightly behind the Ford Puma.
I am honestly not sure if Kia’s rise in popularity is simply because of its incredible rate of progress with its products – and the marketing of them – over the last ten- to fifteen years. I certainly recommend them all the time, and sometimes people even listen to me (provided that they’d wanted a Kia anyway).
But Kia’s success may also be part of a wider change in buyer trends as we move into an era where car buyers simply feel less loyalty to long-standing European brands than their parents’ generation. I suspect that it is chiefly the former, and a bit of the latter.
I certainly came away from this latest round of The Used Car Game wondering if, more than ever, Kia may be becoming the new VW. Or perhaps it already is the new VW? Regardless, what I can tell you is that, if you’re a cool Mum, the Sportage is the thing to have.