New Kia Carnival Review: Your Limousine Is Back

Is the ₹64 lakh Kia Carnival an option for the Toyota Innova Hycross? Well, not anymore! It has gone way premium and is in its own orbit. Kia says it wants to start the innings with a pricey, fully loaded Carnival and this one is assembled using semi-knocked down kits meaning full import duty applies. But the co will consider a locally built one down the road, with fewer frills.

Kia Carnival Review: Design

There are a lot more SUVs than MPVs and we’ve driven the pre-facelift version too remember? You can watch and read that here. So the basic design remains the same but what has changed here are the new lights, new grille, new alloy wheels and the number plate is now housed lower in the tailgate.

There are only two colours on offer – Fusion Black and Glacier White Pearl – and that’s deliberately done as Kia says those are the colours that have the highest demand. But it’s a shame Kia didn’t bring the Astra Blue Siddharth drove, which looked really nice and is the global flagship colour.

Kia Carnival Review: Interior

What’s also nice is the cabin. Well-specced and very passenger-oriented. There are two 12.3-inch screens and the graphics are crisp and readable. The head-up display is massive at 11 inches and really helps you focus on the road. Then there’s three-zone climate control, power front seats, a dual-pane sunroof, connected car tech and more.

Kia Carnival Review: Second Row

The seats are comfortable and you get heating and cooling functions too. The ottoman also just makes it a more comfortable experience. After all, this is the fully loaded Limousine Plus variant. But why isn’t Kia offering the rear seat entertainment package? That would have taken the luxury quotient up a notch.

You only get captain seats in the second row. While the backrest and the ottoman are power-adjustable, to slide the seats front or back, you’d still have to use the lever on the sides.

Kia Carnival Review: Third Row

The third row is a nice plate to be in too. You get ample amounts of headroom and legroom is decent too. You can easily be comfortable back here on mid-to-long journeys, If the passengers in the front seat are accommodating enough to push their seats a bit ahead.

Kia Carnival Review: Safety

A very important aspect of the Carnival is how safe it claims to be. Standard safety equipment includes eight airbags, an anti-lock braking system, stability control, ISOFIX child seat mounts, 3-point seatbelts with reminders for all seats and 23 functions for ADAS like forward collision warning, lane departure warning, and lane vehicle departure alert among others. The safety assistance system works well, but then again we got very little time with the car.

Kia Carnival Review: Engine & Performance

There's only a diesel engine on offer, even though there's a petrol hybrid available globally and that could have made a difference in perception and maybe carried a similar price too. It's not something that you want to drive. It's massive. So overtaking manoeuvres not just because of the size of the Carnival but also because of that 8-speed auto, it's lazy. And it has to propel this behemoth, so it takes time. There's oodles of body roll and that's expected from a car this size, but then again it's not a sporty car, it's a cruiser and you'll be happy being a passenger in this one.

Kia Carnival Review: Rear Seat Comfort

And yes, the second row is brilliant as I have already said. You won’t care about the Carnival taking time to get a move on. You can just sit back and relax, and despite the third-row passengers being right over the rear axle, it’s really not uncomfortable back there. But squeezing in three adults in the last row will be painful, even though Kia insists that the third row is meant for three.

Kia Carnival Review: Verdict

The previous gen Carnival was priced at ₹30.39 lakh – 41.88 lakh and had more variants. It sold more than 14,500 units in India overall. So it’s a wait-and-watch game for Kia – for now, there are enough orders for the Carnival even at this price point. But let’s see where we are a year down the line.

The Carnival is a very capable car. A very comfortable people mover and while it's way pricier if you think Innova, it’s cheaper than say a Vellfire, right? And still more versatile than similarly priced cars from the premium brigade that are much smaller.