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2019 Kia Sportage Facelift Revealed in Full at the Nurburgring

What has Kia done? The Sportage crossover just went out for some Nurburgring tests, but it forgot all the camouflage at home!
2019 Kia Sportage Facelift Revealed in Full at the Nurburgring 27 photos
Photo: SB-Medien
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Nearly everything looks production ready, except or that little scratch on the front bumper. Let's start with the headlights, as the new units grabbed the ice cube effect from the old fog lights. The result is something that looks a lot like the new Ceed hatch and Forte sedan.

There's a new bumper too, with a strip of chrome going down the middle and a new-look fake intake design surrounding the fog lights. We'd also like to point out the grille while keeping in mind that this is a GT-Line body kit.

Not much has changed around the back. The Sportage gets a new taillight graphic that most people will miss. The bumper has been subtly revised, while the dual exhaust tips now sit flush with the diffuser element. New wheels have also been added.

The interior seems to be mostly the same as before. There white leather and Qi charger are something you can already have. However, the infotainment screen is new, and small revisions have been made to the air vents.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the engine range, though. Toyota dropped the diesel engine from the new RAV4 in Europe while Nissan plans to do something similar faced with declining demand.

Kia just announced it plans to launch the EcoDynamics+ diesel mild hybrid on the Sportage in 2018. The system will have a 48V electric motor and a new mild-hybrid starter-generator unit. The current model is offered with a 1.7 CRDi producing 115 HP, as well as 136 and 185 HP versions of the 2.0-liter.

Given that Hyundai just dropped the 1.6 T-GDI from the Tucson sister CUV, we wouldn't be surprised is the same thing happens during the Sportage's facelift. Also, the DCT might be replaced by a 6-speed automatic.
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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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