![]() ![]() But it's a sorted road car, on the whole. Yes, albeit one that feels far more at home living up to the 'GT' part of its name than trying to ram its Nürburgring honing down your throat. It always auto upchanges at the (fake) redline, and if you accidentally trigger the lockdown button you might as well stick the hazards on while the transmission fumbles for the shortest gear possible.īut it's credible? An actual sports saloon, not a cruise liner with red brake calipers? The changes, manual or automated, just aren't that quick, and because you're denied a true manual mode, it'll get properly flustered if your paddleshift override disagrees with its opinion of what gear to pick next. The V6 is more on the Audi S4 end of the charisma scale than up there with the raucous C43, but it delivers power with a broad, stout linearity, and the eight gear ratios are chosen cleverly. It feels no bigger or more cumbersome than a 4 Series. On the road, the Stinger doesn't just hide its weight, it also shrinks usefully. The Brembo brakes aren't brimming with precision, but they're abuse-absorbing, and if you're going to hustle the Stinger, it's reassuring to know the stoppers aren't made from the chocolate wafers BMW M Sport discs are. It floats a little if you're bounding over crests, but the suspension tidies up the movements professionally and there's a lot less body roll than you'd expect for such a sizeable barge. There's a pleasant balance to the chassis, which manages the critical trick of hiding its weight without detaching you from what's going on at the wheels. It steers accurately, and the variable ratio set-up isn't so stupidly quick that the front tyres get caught out every time you pour it into a corner. Settled into Sport Mode, the Stinger sets about pleasantly surprising you. It's supposed to be a sports saloon anyway, and the character change between modes is nowhere near as bipolar as, say, a Mercedes-AMG C43. I spent pretty much all my time in Sport, putting up with the gloopier weight of the steering to have the fizzier powertrain and tighter body control. ![]() Sport Plus keeps all of that on and switches the traction control off. If you have a sporty driving style, you might as well twist the knob towards Sport, which adds fake noise, stiffer suspension and slightly heavier steering. 'Smart' supposedly adapts to your driving style. Eco dulls the throttle and gives the gearbox narcolepsy. Kia's very proud of the many settings you can choose from, but there's not a massive amount of difference between the five mood swings.Ĭomfort is the standard default. The Stinger suffers from a phenomenon we shall call Mode Overload. ![]()
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