Kia Ceed Sportswagon practicality & boot space

• Large, comfortable interior
• Huge and practical boot
• Square shape is more practical than related ProCeed

The Ceed Sportswagon is certainly slinkier than its predecessor, but it’s still a good boxy shape – which makes it an immensely practical vehicle that still sits on quite a small footprint.

Its platform isn’t the widest, so sitting three adults abreast in the back is a little bit of a squeeze. But two will be very comfortable and they won’t be left wanting for leg or headroom, either. A Skoda Octavia Estate provides more room, but the Ceed Sportswagon is on par with a Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer or Volkswagen Golf Estate.

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There are Isofix points in both outer rear seats to make fitting child seats even easier. Large windows give a good view out and should help prevent carsickness in little ones, too.

It’s a bit dark and gloomy in the rear, however. That’s due mainly to the unrelentingly black materials used, but also because Kia doesn’t offer a panoramic glass roof on the Sportswagon as it does on the regular Ceed and ProCeed.

Boot

At 625 litres, the Ceed Sportswagon’s boot rivals its main competitors – the 605-litre Volkswagen Golf Estate, 608-litre Ford Focus Estate and 540-litre Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer. It’s not just a large space, though – it’s a very clever and well-thought out one.

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There’s a big storage compartment under the floor to keep items hidden away or from moving around the boot, plus two smaller lidded compartments just behind the wheelarches – great for small items such as high-visibility vests, first aid kits, or other small bits and pieces you want to keep handy.

The seats also tumble flat effortlessly and lie flush with the boot floor, and when folded there’s 1,694-litres of space. Absolutely perfect for a trip to the flat-pack furniture store, dumping garden waste at the tip or simply moving big items such as fridges.

Hybrid system eats into space

Pick the Ceed Sportswagon PHEV and the bootspace drops to 437 litres. We know what you're thinking: the Ceed Hatchback isn't far off that figure - in terms of boot volume with the seats in place the estate's size advantage is trimmed to an extra 42 litres. That's because the hybrid system's battery takes up room, something that matters less when the seats are down, where the plug-in estate boasts 1,506 litres.

Also because the battery pack is installed towards the rear seats, you still get those handy underfloor storage compartments.

Safety

• Four-star safety score
• Rises to five with additional safety pack
• Crash protection scores high

The Ceed Sportswagon hasn’t been tested on its own, rather as part of the Ceed range. It scored a decent if unimpressive four-star rating.

This was raised to five stars with the addition of the advanced driver assistance pack, which brings adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, automatic parking assistance and pedestrian detection for the autonomous emergency braking. It’s the last of these that gains Kia the extra star, as it brings the score for the ‘Safety Assist’ category up to the appropriate level.