Kia Stonic vs Fiat 500X

What's the difference?

Once over the little thrill of driving a car we weren't supposed to get (okay, it wasn't that thrilling), a few things became clear. You can now buy a compact SUV with a good long warranty, a bit of Kia flair and a roomy cabin, at least for its size.

It drives really well even if the transmission was a bit reluctant to do what I wanted. It's easy to park and will live very happily in the city while carrying reasonable numbers of people and their things. It may not be as bang up to date as some of its competitors, and the GT-Line's value is borderline, but it delivers plenty in its small package to a rapacious SUV market.

The 500X is a fun-looking alternative to the various options available from everyone else and is - overall - better to drive than its Renegade twin. 

It packs a very good safety package which you can't ignore but does lose points on the warranty and servicing regime. But it's also built to take four adults in comfort, which not every car in the segment can boast.

The Stonic clearly looks like it is related to the Rio, but also bears a strong resemblance to the Seltos. Underneath is the very familiar small hatch Rio but Kia says every panel is different. 

The panels might be, but have a look at the rear door and the way the glass meets the C-pillar and you can tell it's a Rio. 

Which is fine, of course, because I think the Stonic looks really good in GT-Line form, with the bigger wheels, some well-judged cladding and some nice sculpting on the body. 

If you plump for the two-tone paint job (which I think looks great), you will go without the sunroof. Also the sun-safe option, but I know some are fans of a hole in the roof.

The cabin is by-the-numbers Kia, which is to say it's well laid-out and looks good, but won't be troubling a beret-sporting art critic for superlatives. 

Unlike the exterior, it's straight out of the Rio, which does have its downsides, which we'll discuss further.

Look, I like the 500X, but I know why people don't. It's clearly a 500X in the way a Mini Countryman is a Mini. It looks like a 500, but get closer and you see the difference. It's chubby like a $10 weekend market Bhudda statue and has great big googly eyes like Mr Magoo. I find this endearing, my wife does not. The looks aren't the only thing she doesn't like.

The cabin is a bit more restrained and I quite like the band of colour stretching across the dash. The 500X is meant to be a bit more grown up than the 500, so there's a proper dash, more sensible design choices but it still has the big buttons, perfect for the meaty fingers of people who won't be buying this car.

For a car this size, it's reasonably roomy. I can sit behind my driving position in the rear seat and while violin playing is off the agenda, it's not claustrophobic.

Front seat passengers have plenty of storage to play with, including a split storage box underneath the console for phone and wallet-chucking. 

You also get two cupholders, even with the space-robbing conventional handbrake (I like a standard handbrake, though, so I didn't mind too much).

Each front door has a pocket for a decent-sized bottle, but not so rears. And your back seat passengers won't have an armrest or cupholders, either.

Boot space is an impressive 352 litres (VDA) with the seats up and 1155 litres with the seats down, although you don't get a flat floor with the seats folded and you do have a drop to the boot floor over the loading lip. Nothing terrifying, but the more you know...

At just 4.25 metres, the 500X isn't big, but makes the most of what it's got. The boot impresses at 350 litres and with the seats down, I think you could reasonably expect to triple that figure, though Fiat doesn't have an official number that I can find. For added Italian feel, you can tip the passenger seat forward to get really long things in, like a Billy bookshelf flat pack from Ikea.

Rear seat passengers sit high and upright meaning leg and kneeroom are maximised and with that tall roof, you won't scrape your head. 

The doors each have a small bottle holder for a total of four and Fiat has got serious about cupholders - the 500X now has four.

I drove the Pop Star, which is the second of the now-two model "regular" range, the other being the, er, Pop. I drove a Special Edition in 2018 and it's not clear if it is Special as there's also an Amalfi Special edition. Anyway.

The $30,990 (plus on-road costs) Pop Star has 17-inch alloys, six-speaker Beats-branded stereo, dual-zone climate control, reversing camera, keyless entry and start, active cruise control, sat nav, auto headlights and wipers, leather shifter and steering wheel and a space-saver spare.

The Beats-branded stereo speakers are supplied with noise from FCA's UConnect on a 7.0-inch touchscreen. The same system is in a Maserati, don't you know. Offering Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, UConnect loses points by shrinking the Apple interface into a lurid red frame. Android Auto properly fills the screen, for some reason which is ironic given Apple owns the Beats brand.

The GT-Line is the only one of the three in the range to score Kia's rorty 1.0-litre, three-cylinder turbo, good for 74kW and 172Nm to haul its 1200kg weight. 

A seven-speed dual-clutch transmission drives the front wheels and you'll hit 100km/h in about 10 seconds.

Fiat's rather excellent 1.4-litre turbo MultiAir does duty under the stubby bonnet, making 103kW and 230Nm. Rather less excellent is the six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, which sends power through the front wheels only.

It's rated to tow a 1200kg braked trailer and 600kg unbraked.

Kia's government-mandated fuel economy testing yielded an official combined-cycle figure of 5.4L/100km. 

As I have found over the years with this engine, that's a fairly optimistic number, my week with the Stonic delivering 8.4L/100km in an almost even mix of highway and suburban running.

The Stonic has that rarest of things in a Korean car - stop-start, which helps rein in fuel usage around town. Happily, you'll be filling the 45 litre tank with standard unleaded.

Fiat rather optimistically suggest you'll get a combined cycle figure of 5.7L/100km but try as I might, I couldn't do better than 11.2L/100km. What's worse, it demands 98RON fuel, so it's not the cheapest car to run. This figure us consistent with past weeks in the 500X and no, I wasn't thrashing it.

I must admit to being slightly puzzled by the Stonic. I've already driven the Rio GT-Line and there is one thing that is the same between the two cars and that's the seven-speed dual clutch's awkward behaviour in traffic. 

The car I had was not at all keen to respond to the movement of my right foot on the accelerator, with my wife and I developing an in-joke about having to make a verbal suggestion about which gear to choose. 

It also rolled back more than I'd like on slopes when starting from a standstill.

The other things I didn't like were the front seats. Straight out of the Rio, they are wide but not very supportive on longer trips, such as the one we took up into the Blue Mountains (a roughly 250km round trip from our home in Sydney). 

Complaints about the seats are certainly mine, but I checked in with colleague Richard Berry, who didn't have the same hesitant transmission struggle, so it could just have been a drama with the car I drove. 

The rest of the Stonic experience is really good. The 1.0-litre turbo is definitely the one to go for if you can stretch to it. The numbers don't seem big, but it's got decent punch in the gears and cheerfully climbed the Blue Mountains quietly and without hunting up and down the gears. 

Around the city it also means it's easy to thread through the traffic, with good response from low revs when the transmission is playing well.

The steering is really nice, too, with just the right weight and speed to make city-wrangling easy. The extra ride height and softer suspension also make for a very comfortable ride around town without taking away from the body control. In fact, it's quite a bit of fun.

Again, I shouldn't like the 500X but I really don't mind it. It's flawed, which might be why.

The dual-clutch transmission is dumber than a box of loose cogs, lurching from start and looking the other way when you expect it to shift. We know the engine is a good one and I think part of the reason it's so thirsty is the confused way the transmission goes about its business. I'd love to drive a manual to see what it's like.

The 500X initially feels worse than its Jeep Renegade sibling-under-the-skin, which is quite an achievement. Part of that is to do with the ride, which is very choppy below 60km/h. The first 500X I drove wallowed about but this one is a bit tauter, which would be good if you weren't punished with this bounciness.

The seats themselves comfortable and the interior is a good place to hang out. It's reasonably quiet, too, which is at odds with the old-school silliness of its conduct. It feels like Labrador let out of after day kept inside.

And that's where the car I shouldn't like is a car I do like - I really like that it feels like you're on Roman cobblestones, the type that make your knees hurt when you walk on them for a day. The steering wheel is too fat and is at a weird angle, but you kind of square up to it and drive the car like your life depends on it. You have to take it by the scruff, correct the shifts with the paddles and show it who's boss.

Obviously, that's not for everyone. If you drive it really gently, it's a very different experience, but that means going slowly everywhere, which is no fun at all and not at all Italian.

Out of the box, you get seven airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, forward collision warning, high and low speed AEB, active cruise control, rollover stability, lane departure warning, lane keep assist, blind spot sensor and rear cross traffic alert. That's not bad for a $30,000 car full stop, let alone a Fiat.

There are two ISOFIX points and three top-tether anchors for baby seats. 

The 500X scored a five-star ANCAP rating in December 2016.

Kia offers a seven-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, which is only shaded by Mitsubishi's caveat-filled, 10-year/200,000km warranty. 

The Stonic demands a return to the dealer ever 12 months or 10,000km, which is kind of irritating as the non-turbo models are 12 months/15,000km. 

As ever, Kia offers a capped-price servicing regime but the numbers aren't yet available on the website (yet).

Lucky for you, we've got them. Prices bounce around a bit and are as low as $283 and as high as $704 with the first seven years/seven services costing $3299, averaging out at $471 per visit. 

Over the five years, it's $260 more than the 1.4-litre but you're servicing more often if you drive more than 10,000km per year.

Fiat offers a three-year/150,000km warranty, along with roadside assist for the same period. It's not great as more manufacturers shift to five years. 

Service intervals arrive once a year or 15,000km. There is no fixed or capped-price servicing program for the 500X.