Kia XCeed Review (2019-present)

What is the Kia XCeed?

The XCeed was launched in 2019 and facelifted in 2022, and is halfway between a conventional hatchback and an SUV. It shares a platform with the Kia Ceed hatchback and the ProCeed Sportswagon (estate), but dresses it in more rugged body panels. The design successfully resolves the competing demands of different body styles, with its long bonnet, set-back cabin, swooping roof, and plastic body mouldings, which give it an air of off-roader ruggedness. It’s a good look, especially with the honeycomb ‘tiger nose’ grille and the body-coloured bumpers.

Kia has learned that buyers want the higher-quality cabins found in European models and adapted accordingly, so the XCeed has soft-touch plastics that lend it an air of a more expensive car, though it’s still no Audi or BMW. The dashboard is neat, well laid out, and oriented towards the driver.

How practical is it?

The XCeed is spacious enough up front and the slightly elevated driving position creates better forward visibility than in the regular Ceed hatchback. It’s less generous in the back; the sloping roofline compromises headroom for taller adults and legroom isn’t abundant, but children will have no issues, and there’s a flat floor, which the occupant of the rear middle seat will appreciate.

The boot capacity of 426 litres is among the best in the class, limited though that class is. It’s 40-50 litres more than the Ford Focus Active and the Toyota C-HR, and only beaten by the Volkswagen T-Roc – but even then, with the seats down, the XCeed’s 1,378 litres trump the VW. Note, that for the plug-in hybrid XCeed, the boot space drops to a less useful 291 litres in order to accommodate the lithium-ion battery.

What's it like to drive?

The XCeed’s strength is its ride because it’s comfortable even on the larger 18-inch alloy wheels. There’s some firmness at low speed, but body control is good, and it’ll stride along a bumpy road in a reassuringly composed fashion. It’s a very easy car to drive, too, thanks to its slightly raised driving position and smooth, light steering. It can’t match the Ford Focus Active for engagement and accuracy, but again, comfort and ease are its strong points.

Much like the standard Ceed hatchback, the XCeed is proof that Kia can now build cars that are not only smart, well-built, and good value, but also satisfying from behind the wheel because, save for a bit of tyre noise at speed, it’s a well-rounded rounded and capable car.

At launch, the flagship engine was a 138bhp 1.4-litre turbo petrol mated to either a six-speed manual gearbox or a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. It’s very quiet and reasonably swift – 0–60mph takes 9.2 seconds in the automatic. Kia also offered a 118bhp 1.0-litre, three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine or a 1.4-litre diesel with 114- or 134bhp, all of which come with a six-speed manual gearbox. The 1.0-litre has more turbo lag than the 1.4 petrol that we've described above, as well as a notchy gear change and an abrupt clutch action that can make the drivetrain snatch when pulling away. It’s still far from a bad car to drive, though, and the acceleration is punchier once the turbo is in its stride (0-60mph takes 10.9 seconds).

When the XCeed was facelifted the engine range was trimmed to just two. The first is a 1.5-litre turbo petrol with 158bhp, which can get from 0-62mph time to 8.7 seconds. It's available with a six-speed manual gearbox, or a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. Both are good, although in manual cars you need to drive around a slight deadzone in the engine's power delivery just above tickover, which can make it easy to stall.

The other drivetrain is a plug-in hybrid, which combines a 1.6-litre non-turbocharged petrol engine with an 8.9kWh battery pack and 44.5kW electric motor. This gives 139bhp, 0-62mph in 10.6 seconds, and the ability to drive up to 29.8 miles on EV range. Recharging the battery takes around 2 hours from a home wallbox.

Technology, equipment & infotainment

At launch there were three trim levels, called 2 and 3 and First Edition. There’s no 1 trim offered in the UK because Kia wanted to position the XCeed as a slightly more upmarket Ceed variant.

Even the cheapest 2 cars have an impressive level of equipment, which includes LED lights, a raft of safety features including autonomous emergency braking, lane keeping assist, and speed limit warnings, and the ability to control your smartphone from the infotainment system using Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Depending on the trim level, the touchscreen infotainment display is either eight or 10.25 inches. Speaking of infotainment, it's worth noting that we rate Kia's systems as some of the best in the business, with logical menus, clear graphics, and plenty of features.

For the facelift, GT-Line and GT-Line S models were introduced, with sportier styling and, on GT-Line S models, a fully digital instrument cluster.

For a diesel, you'll need to buy used rather than new. The engine is Kia's 1.6-litre CRDi unit, which is available with either 113bhp or 133bhp. Official fuel economy for both is an 53.3mpg and, while drivers can get pretty close to this figure in real-world conditions, it doesn’t come close to rivals such as the Peugeot 3008 or Ford Focus Active, with the latter citing as much as 80.7mpg, although we’d be surprised if you’d see that outside of a test environment.

Of the pre-facelift petrol engines, smaller of the two is a three-cylinder 1.0-litre T-GDi with 118bhp, which returns just 45.6mpg (44.1mpg in 3 trim). The 1.4-litre T-GDi produces 138bhp and a fuel economy figure of 42.8mpg (40.9mpg with the seven-speed DCT dual-clutch automatic transmission). Again, these figures are surpassed by some rivals with a comparable 1.0-litre Focus Active able to officially achieve 58.9mpg, with a 148bhp 1.5-litre model, despite having more power, returning 53.3mpg.

The 1.5-litre unit returns 44-46mpg depending on gearbox and trim specification, which is similar to the earlier 1.4-litre unit but with a useful boost in performance.

Plug-in hybrid XCeeds have official fuel consumption figures of 201mpg and CO2 emissions as low as 32g/km. However, that assumes you do a lot of miles on electric only power, and you need to bear in mind that the XCeed PHEV costs a lot more to buy than the conventional petrol models, so in many cases only really makes sense if you run it as a company car.

Kia’s reputation for reliability is impressive. It came seventh out of 32 car companies in the 2022 What Car? reliability survey and, if the 2022 Auto Express Driver Power survey is anything to go by, the XCeed is the most dependable car of its time, because it came first out of 75 cars. A trawl of owner forums revealed very few issues, with the most serious being rainwater getting into a sill.

If something does go wrong, then Kia’s industry-leading seven-year/100,000-mile warranty – which is transferrable when the car is sold – is serious peace of mind.

Servicing intervals are every 20,000 miles (10,000 miles if your XCeed has a T-GDi engine) or once a year, whichever comes first. Kia has a series of service plans known as Kia Care, which are reasonably priced, spread the cost of regular maintenance and MoTs, and protect against inflationary price rises.