Even before it goes on sale, the experts at Euro NCAP have crashed tested the new car and rated Kia Sorento safety highly, giving it five stars.

Specifically it scored 90 percent for adult protection, 83 percent for child safety, 71 percent for its on-board safety aids and 67 percent for pedestrian protection.

High strength steel has been used extensively in the Kia’s construction allowing it to withstand impacts well – all seven passengers are well protected from whiplash injury and all-round airbags further keep everyone on board cushioned.

For those who transport younger children around, note that the outer two seats on the middle row are where the ISOFIX child seat mounting points are located.

Pedestrians benefit from an active bonnet mounting, popping it up and away from the harder parts of the engine in the event of a collision.

The latest Kia Sorento can also be specified with a suite of contemporary safety equipment such as dynamic headlights which direct the illumination in the direction of travel when cornering, blind spot monitoring, birds-eye view cameras for parking and a very effective adaptive cruise control system. Ensuring you’re even more visible at night time the lights both front and rear contain bright LED elements too.

These are all fitted on top of the safety systems we have come to expect such as electronic stability control, traction control and anti-lock brakes to name a few.

Larger than the outgoing model, with flexibility-boosting features added too, it’s no wonder customers appreciate the high levels of Kia Sorento practicality.

Like most seven-seaters, when all the positions are occupied, boot space isn’t great – in the Sorento’s case it’s 142 litres.

Fold them quickly and easily back into the floor (they split 50/50 if you require six seats) and the boot volume expands to 605 litres, a 74-litre increase over the outgoing model, and larger than the Santa Fe (516 litres) and X-Trail (550 litres).

The way the middle row folds has also been improved. Firstly, there are levers in the boot to fold them over in addition to the ones on the seats themselves. As the backrests tumble forwards the seat cushion drops just enough to give a flat load bay, perfect for heavy and difficult to move items.

Even more beneficial is the 40/20/40 splitting of the middle row of seats, replacing the previous 60/40 arrangement. This added flexibility allows four larger seats to remain in use while very long loads are carried within the Sorento.

Fold all of the big Kia’s rear seats down and the total loadspace on offer is 1,662 litres, representing a 137-litre improvement, and a little larger than Hyundai’s Santa Fe at 1,615 litres. Both are eclipsed by the Nissan X-Trail’s cavernous 1,982-litre capacity, though.

One gripe with the outgoing Sorento was that you needed to possess gymnast levels of suppleness to get into the back row of seats by clambering over the folded middle row ones. Not so with the latest model, where the middle row seats now lean and slide forwards, aiding ingress and egress significantly.