Kia’s first attempt at a minivan was a commercial success. Just two years after its launch, it became the best-selling minivan in Australia. In the US, it quickly outsold established but second-tier vans like the Mazda MPV and Nissan Quest. So how did Kia, a neophyte when it came to people carriers, manage to achieve this kind of instant success? It wasn’t because the Carnival/Sedona was particularly good. No, Kia achieved rapid sales growth the old-fashioned way: by offering lots of metal for the money, and very little money at that.
Inside and out, the Carnival looked like your typical minivan, not altogether dissimilar from something like a Ford Windstar. Its North American moniker, Sedona, therefore seemed entirely appropriate. Where the contemporary but unrelated Hyundai Trajet minivan looked more at home on the streets of Brussels or Birmingham, the Sedona looked right at home in Houston or St. Louis or, yes, Sedona. For simplicity’s sake – and because the Carnival name is a bit naff – let’s refer to the car as the Sedona for the rest of this article.
The Sedona used two different V6 engines, depending on the market. North American models had Hyundai’s 3.5 Sigma V6 with 195 hp and 218 ft-lbs. With this engine, the Sedona guzzled fuel at a rate of 15/20 mpg, a poor showing considering more powerful rivals from Ford and Chrysler could do 2-3 mpg better in both the city and on the highway. With the 3.5, the Sedona hit 60 mph in just under 10 seconds.
pre-facelift Carnival
The V6 used in other markets was none other than Rover’s KV6 2.5 V6, producing 177 hp and 162 ft-lbs. Although a smooth engine, the 2.5 lacked low-end torque and struggled to move the Sedona, reaching 60 mph in around 13 seconds. It was also prone to headgasket failures, Kia replacing entire engines under warranty.
With the 2001 facelift, Kia made a 2.9 turbodiesel available in some markets such as Europe. It was noisy but it had superior fuel economy to the V6s and, with 142 hp and 229 ft-lbs, had more low-end grunt.
Regardless of the market, Kia undercut all rivals. In the UK, it was priced smack-bang in the middle of most compact MPVs’ price ranges. With a launch price of £14,000, it undercut comparably-sized rivals like the Fiat Ulysse, Mazda MPV and Seat Alhambra by a significant £3000 although buyers had to shell out £2000 for air-conditioning. In Australia, it fell under the magic $30,000 barrier and undercut the next cheapest seven-seater, the smaller Mitsubishi Nimbus, by a whopping $7k. Again, Kia was a little sneaky – that base model had a manual transmission, something few minivan buyers wanted. You had to shell out $3k to get the four-speed automatic, which also came with a driver’s airbag and a CD player. Despite their relative (albeit diminishing) obscurity, Kia did have an incentive to sweeten the deal, however: a great warranty.
Although spacious, the Sedona’s interior lacked the versatility of some rivals. Though it had two sliding doors, neither the second nor third rows tumbled forward although they did slide on tracks. The rear most bench could be lifted out but only if you bent with your knees as it was bloody heavy; it also didn’t fold flat into the floor. Second-row windows were also fixed.
There were more demerits. The Sedona lacked a power tailgate or power sliding doors. More crucially, side airbags were completely missing from the options list. As mentioned, the Australian-market Carnival didn’t even have a driver’s airbag standard although Kia rectified this egregious error after a year. Side airbags never appeared, however, nor did traction control. Anti-lock brakes were also an option; on a related note, all Sedonas had rear drum brakes.
How did the Sedona drive? Well, it drove. It was a minivan so one couldn’t expect miracles. The ride was relatively smooth although the live axle at the back meant it sometimes clomped over bumps. Handling was ponderous and steering lacked feel.
The Sedona was also a real porker. At 4862 pounds, it weighed a whopping 800 pounds more than a Ford Windstar, a thousand pounds more than the mid-size Kia Credos/Clarus sedan with which it shared some components, and 300 pounds than even a long-wheelbase Chrysler Town & Country with all-wheel-drive. Did that extra weight translate into extra space? Not really. The Sedona had scarcely more interior volume than a short-wheelbase GM U-Body minivan. As with the contemporary Amanti, Kia seemed to struggle at keeping weight down. Car & Driver posited the thick frame rails contributed to the hefty curb weight.
For whatever reason, Kia took their sweet time getting the Sedona over to the North American market. That was perplexing considering the US in particular was a huge market for minivans; in Europe, compact MPVs were vastly more popular than those of the Sedona’s size, while Australia and New Zealand were never big on minivans. The Sedona finally arrived in the US and Canada in 2002. There, it slotted between short-wheelbase and long-wheelbase GM and Chrysler minivans. With a base price of $19000, it undercut the cheapest short-wheelbase Chevrolet Venture by $2k. Dodge could sell you a short-wheelbase, seven-seat Caravan for $19k but it lacked power accessories and had only a four-cylinder engine.
The value play was strong with Kia. It didn’t beat rivals at anything except warranty coverage. It lacked safety features that were becoming more and more important in this segment. Its fuel economy ranged from mediocre to abysmal. The next generation of Sedona was considerably lighter, more powerful, more fuel-efficient and better-to-drive. But with the first generation, Kia got their foot in the door by introducing something that looked like a regular minivan, drove like one, sat as many people as one, and didn’t do anything astonishingly bad. Most importantly, it was priced to sell. How easy it is to build a minivan.
Related Reading:
“How Hard Can It Be To Make A Minivan?”, the series that inspired the title of this article
1990 Oldsmobile Silhouette (Part 3)
And Kia quickly figures out what GM and Ford never could. Wonderful.
I’ve got a second generation Sedona, and absolutely love it. At 134k it’s been trouble free, comfortable on long trips. and hauls all my reenactment/sutlery gear without problem. Only complaint is that there is no way in hell I’m getting better than 22mph on long trips.
Unfortunately, it’ll probably be the last Sedona. Mainly because on the third generation you can’t remove the middle seats without major surgery. And considering the second row of seats of my current one went into the storage barn within half an hour of bringing it home, and won’t be put back until the day it goes for trade-in appraisal, the non-removable second row is a deal killer.
Wow, I get mileage quite a bit better than that on mine. Is yours the 3.5 or the older 3.8? That may be the difference, because 25-26 is the upper limit on mine. In every kind of driving it routinely does 2-3 mpg better than my 99 T&C with the 3.3, and is a helluvalot faster.
Our generation seems to be longer lived than these early ones, but I have yet to understand what killed the old ones. Perhaps it was “cheap car owner syndrome”. My former mechanic used to say that Kias were good cars, but many folks would maintain them poorly and dump them at the end of the 100k warranty, leaving the next guy with some expensive deferred maintenance.
And if there is anyone whose lifestyle would accommodate an hour with some wrenches to take the seats out it would seem to be yours. For someone like me who uses the van both ways on a fairly frequent basis, that would be a deal breaker. But if I planned on only one use (seats in or seats out) the thing’s other attributes might outweigh that.
I may be wrong but I was under the impression that the current Sedona’s center row seats come out by removing four bolts each. That doesn’t sound difficult. (Yes, not as easy as it could be but if it’s a one time thing…)
I’m quite sure that was confirmed that when Jim wrote up a rental review. I think someone commented that it was not all that hard. But maybe it wasn’t shown in manual, or something like that?
YES! That’s where I saw it, thanks for the reminder. Maybe the version with the fancy BarcaLounger recliner seats is more complex but the regular seats? I’ve never seen a seat that’s overly difficult to remove.
It is funny how Kia got this thing so right from the get-go, something neither Ford nor GM (nor a whole bunch of others) ever managed.
I remember reading a road test that remarked about that curb weight. I remember it because my 1994 Ford Club Wagon weighed almost exactly the same as this “little” Sedona. The other thing I must say is that this is one of the best looking minivans of its era. There is something very right about the van’s lines, something that gave it the look of something solid.
I recall these being reasonably common in my area but they all seem to have disappeared. I have wondered what took them off the roads. I have noticed that they will eventually rust, but not as badly as the GM U vans or Windstars.
In fact, I think I may have rented one once. The experience was not memorable at all, but then again that may be at least partly praiseworthy as I did short time in several other minivans that were memorable for all the wrong reasons. My sole remaining impression of it is that I was pleasantly surprised by how well it was trimmed and how competent it was on the road.
For a first shot, this was a solid effort by Kia. But weighing as much as a ’94 Ford Club Wagon (i.e., full-size van) with fuel economy not much better? I don’t know, given those parameters, I don’t see where the Sedona could be considered much of an improvement. The only things that weigh in the Kia’s favor are that big warranty, and smaller size makes for better maneuverability. But, frankly, given the choice between just those two, I’d take a full-sizer.
And with the latest version, not being able to remove the (admittedly very nice) second row seats? Even though they fold up against the first row seats, it dramatically cuts down on cargo carrying ability. I don’t get that one, at all. I mean, c’mon, how hard is it to engineer some quick-release seat-latch mechanisms?
Maybe it had to do with the weight of the seats. The latest Pacifica’s non-Stow n’Go, removable seats weigh in at 66 pounds, and not much fun to lift (the Sienna and Odyssey are likely similar). I’m going to guess that the Sedona’s seats weigh a bunch more, and that’s the reason they don’t come out.
It reminds me of the Nissan Quest. I don’t think any of the seats were removable in that one, either, but they all folded down so, even though it was high, at least you got a flat load floor that extended all the way to the back of the front seats. Seems like the last GM minivans tried the same trick, and they failed miserably.
“…they (the rear seats) all folded down so, even though it was high, at least you got a flat load floor that extended all the way to the back of the front seats.” With a little ingenuity (& a board/table or 2), you can actually accomplish this with many of the older-style minivans from the ’90s & earlier. I did it with my ’96 Aerostar once or twice when handling manger scene props at my church; anything that didn’t fit up there just went on the floor or in the Nissan Trailer. Unfortunately this is the only picture ever taken of its interior.
I don’t know why the picture didn’t load earlier, but here it is:
I sold Kias from 2004-2016. This generation of Sedonas was indeed known for it’s excessive weight, which we were told was due to having to meet US crash tests, but it sounds like these were heavy in every market. I sold two to a large (in all measurements) Samoan family who couldn’t get 20k miles out of a set of pads and rotors. And gas mileage was dreadful as well, as you can imagine with a 193hp V6 tugging around well over 5,000 pounds when loaded (or significantly more) Kia didn’t do well with electrical systems back in the day either, with headlights and other bulbs sometime lasting only 6 moths to a year. All that being said, the reliability was good, the styling clean for the day, and you couldn’t beat the price of the warranty.
Saving weight costs money that Kia chose not to spend. It was a long time before their line;s fuel economy started to get competitive.
Even today, Hyundai/Kia products are often a little heavier than rivals and a little less fuel-efficient. But they’re engineered a helluva lot better than this old Sedona.
This appeared in North America around the time Kia/Hyundai really got their act together quality wise and have very, very slowly crawled their way to credibility. Kia and Hyundai really have written the manual on how to rebuild a brand after they had less than zero credibility, the combination of the warranty, lots of features at a low price, and really vast leaps in quality have made them vehicles that you have to go look at when car shopping rather than the Great Valu brands. I remember the C/D detailed analysis of this car and why it weighed so much more: for one thing, much of Korea is still third world country in terms of roads so their vehicles tend to be more robust than vehicles from countries with more developed road networks, and then Kia/Hyundai’s manufacturing isn’t as sophisticated. A lot of suspension/frame rails/other parts which would have been stamped, light alloys are cast iron on this car. A really credible effort from Kia/Hyundai that marked a turn around.
much of Korea is still third world country in terms of roads
I beg to differ. When were you last there? 1973? Ever?
A lot of suspension/frame rails/other parts which would have been stamped, light alloys are cast iron on this car.
My BS meter just pegged. I’d love to have you point out those “cast iron” parts. The simple reality is that modern cars are as light as they are due to very advanced use of high-strength steel in key parts of the body and the optimization of conventional steel in the rest. This is a sophisticated process that Kia was not yet prepared to pull off. So they played it safe and used more/heavier steel (not cast iron!)
It just goes to show how much technology goes into making today’s complex vehicles as light as they are.
And it just now occurs to me that this overweight old Sedona only outweighs yesterday’s Buick Cascada convertible by 1000 pounds.
I seem to remember one of the car magazines noting the cast iron lower control arms (or something similar) on these vans. I did a quick Google search, but I cannot find the specific article that I may or may not be mis-remembering.
It stood out to me as I could not remember the last time I’d heard of a car with cast iron suspension parts. And, for some reason, I imagined them looking a little like the decorative rails that folks used to have surrounding their yards and etc…
I know about Korea and Korean roads from what a housemate couple tells me. Her parents have a farm where they raise the Korean equivalent of Kobe beef and other crops and she goes back regularly. He used to live there for a bit also. This farm is somewhere near where the Olympics we’re recently held and they sold some of the land but when she was a child in the late 80s/early 90s they were so poor all her teeth fell out from Malnutrition and she had tickets. Thats what she says, and yes, they talk about the roads and other things in Korea.
Like I said c/d did a pretty thorough underbody analysis pointing out which parts were made of something very heavy and cruder compared with other modern cars, thus making it much heavier.
I just heard a reporter in South Korea for a manufacturer’s range and future model demo make the point that after the GFC most automakers subdued their model development whereas the South Koreans ploughed on. His analogy was that while the rest of world advanced a single generation in models, over the same period the South Koreans advanced two generations. Haven’t looked too deeply into it, but worth mentioning here.
“…lots of metal for the money, and very little money at that.”
Good point, and still holds true. I bought a 2018 Sedona last year — in all, I found it very similar to the Toyota Sienna, but cost thousands less. We paid $22,000 for a brand new Sedona… during our car-shopping, we’d looked at used (comparably-equipped) Toyotas with 20,000 miles that cost more.
My only real complaint is the bulky center console, but to save $5,000, I’ll deal with it.
Shortly after we bought the Sedona, I asked a co-worker (mom of 3, Town & County driver, and prime minivan demographic) to guess what kind of minivan I bought. After about 7 or 8 guesses, she gave up. I bet that’s common… Kia still doesn’t have good name recognition.
Overall, I’m very impressed by the Kia so far, and I agree with SavageATL above that Hyundai/Kia have done a great job rebuilding their brand(s).
I was wondering the other day how you and your Sedona are getting along. I feel kind of like the guy who set you up on a blind date and feels responsible for the outcome. 🙂
I finally popped for a thermostat replacement a month or so ago and solved about the only problem I have had with mine. My mechanic keeps telling me that they have one of my generation that comes into their shop with over 300K on it. With no transmission replacement, something not many modern minivans can say.
“I feel kind of like the guy who set you up on a blind date and feels responsible for the outcome.”
I read that to my wife and she said “So that’s how we wound up with a Sedona…”
But have no fear, I like it the Sedona — we’ve driven it about 3,500 mi. by now and it’s awfully similar-feeling to our 2010 Odyssey, which is a good thing. Like I mentioned, the console is my only significant annoyance.
Now while I like the Sedona, my wife loves it. She says the driving position is much more comfortable for her than our Odyssey, or any other car she’s driven recently. At 5’1″, and says that on most cars, the seat doesn’t lower enough for shorter people. But a happy wife is a happy me, so thanks for the blind date.
We haven’t taken a long trip in it yet, but after we do, I’ll report back.
f I had a blind date that looked like a Sedona, there would be NO date 2
It seems you made a good buy. Of the vans out there, the Sedona is the most appealing to me. Looks sporty. And I like the shifter in the console.
I shopped all the minivans a couple of years ago, even the quest, and ended up with a Pacifica. The Pacifica now has 65000 miles on it and has had the stop start battery short out, which damaged the main battery, and a lot of flat tyres but no other problems. I really preferred the Sedona over the sienna; the sienna felt loose and junky. I would have bought a Sedona had the dealer been willing to come down further on one which had been sitting around untouched for a year, but it had power features I didn’t want and wasn’t willing to pay for and they would have had to undercut the Pacifica since it was a year older. But it was a very nice car and much nicer than the sienna.
That gray 2002 may be the first modified minivan I have ever seen with a hood scoop.
I was always told the heaviest part of my Dodge Caravan was the glass. You’d need a lot of glass to get to 4800 lbs however. Heavy frame rails eh? I would think that would make for a heavier ride feel.
All turbo diesel models came with a hood scoop.
Seems like a nice van. I’m surprised by the weight. I wonder if the hefty frame rails mentioned translate into a better side-impact crash rating, or if it’s just a less sophisticated design than the competition. I will consider one of these when I replace one of my heaps in the fleet.
— Unless Lt. Dan gives me his one of his Grand Prixs. Either one, I’m not picky.
My memory is of contemporary crash tests giving these a pretty dire crash rating at the time – to the point that I actually warned a couple of friends off them. A quick search has failed to back those memories up though, and I doubt that much of the opposition would have been much better tbh. Indeed, Australia’s real-world ‘howsafeisyourcar’ crash test data gives them a 4-star rating.
They’ve all but disappeared off Australian roads though, almost certainly due to failing head gaskets – they’ve long passed the point where fixing or replacing engines is economically viable.
The car in the lead picture appears to have been abandoned, probably a victim of the engine failure common in these things. On trading, a common question was – has the engine been replaced? No, this one has been excellent, was sometimes the reply. Unfortunately the value was normally less than one that had a replacement engine as it was likely to explode at any moment. Even the current models are hard to shift as a used car. Generally bought by rental companies and off loaded after 18 months or so.
KJ in Oz
Like most Kias of this era, the Sedona was a very primitive offering, looking extremely bland and dated inside and out when it was released… something rather true as the Sedona came to the U.S. five years after it initially went on sale.
Versus competitors, the original Sedona was a mundane “we can make a minivan too” offering, lacking any noteworthy quality. My only personal experience with it is when my mom very reluctantly received one as a dealer loaner when she was having work done on her Toyota Highlander circa 2005.
Boch Toyota and Boch Kia apparently shared loaners and they felt the Sedona was the closest match in terms of what loaners were available. Mom hated it and complained about it every second of the entire day she had it. She also was infuriated at the fuel economy, having to put gas in it to refill it to same level after minimal driving.
All I can remember about this car is this ad…
I was mildly surprised to see these things still toodling around Malaysia as the Naza Ria.
These had the bloody Rover KV6 engine? Now that I did not know. So there’s a part of South Korea that shall be forever England. Actually, there are auto graveyards all over Australia of the same status, because, as saabseller implies above, these had a simply appalling reputation. They didn’t just suffer head gasket failures: the entire units eventually blew on every single last one. Owners, who were inevitably a bit a bit large in the tribe and consequently small in the wallet, detested them, especially as getting them repaired did not fix the problem (and was especially galling as it often involved having to sell a child to pay for it).
I reckon the recovery of Kia from the widely known debacle of this car in Aus should be taught in university marketing courses. For sure, they built a much better mousetrap in the next gen, as several CC’ers can attest, but the marketing side must’ve been awfully clever. My main memory is that they heavily sponsored the Australian Open (tennis), which I remember thinking a cheek for a new brand with an already-bad name, but the year-by-year persistence paid off. (Tennis gets saturation coverage here over summer, he yawned). They were part of the landscape of respectable purchases within 7 or 8 years, and still are.
Yeah, the idea of the KV6 in a people-carrier — particularly one this heavy unladen — kind of makes my teeth ache.
My folks bought an 05 Sedona in August 05 from a dealership in Syracuse. The dealership was not terribly pleased with my folks as they declined all the add ons that would have padded the dealership’s pockets including upgrading to a fancier Sedona or even an SUV. My folks even had the dealership remove the red, white, and blue pinstripes on the car that ended just before the tailgate with a little American Flag which saved my folks a few dollars, but further annoyed the dealership. The dealership had to reimburse my folks about a month later for key fobs that they promised, but never delivered.
I preferred my folks’ 95 Voyager to the Sedona for several reasons. The Sedona has lifeless steering that reminded me of the racing games at an arcade, felt like you sat on the seat instead of in it while driving, and the gas pedal was touchy with wheel spin being easy to accomplish especially when learning to drive. At least the Voyager had some resistance on its gas pedal so you could rest your foot there. Plus, the Sedona is noisy at high speeds with the windows down unlike the Voyager. It can be hard to find a comfortable position in the Sedona which is why cruise control is great for long trips since the layout of the seat to pedals even caused my dad some discomfort. For me, I sat closer to the steering wheel in city traffic so I could reach the pedals easier, but occasionally had to move the seat back to ease the pain on my hip. Yup, even my folks noticed the Sedona was a bit of a gas guzzler just like Consumer Reports said.
The 2.9 turbodiesel model (with the hood scoop to accommodate the intercooler IIRC) was sold since the beginning (late 1999) in Europe. In Italy they were all diesel, the V6 was impossible to sell, anyway they sold well thanks to very competitive and affordable pricing, even snapping the best selling crown in the large MPV category for a few months. Still see a few of them (one in my street).