Rent Kia Sportage 2023 in Dubai

The Kia Sportage 2023 is the car that finally gave this nameplate a design people notice, with a split headlight front end, sharper creases along the flanks, and a cabin that swapped dated dials for twin curved screens. It rents in Dubai as a straightforward five-seat SUV, built for school runs, mall parking and a Sheikh Zayed Road commute rather than anything more adventurous. We deliver it to your door in one to two hours, no counter and no queue. What this page settles is whether the redesign backs up its looks with real space and comfort, and where a smaller or bigger SUV would suit you better.

What's under the bonnet, and how it drives

This generation of Sportage sells with more than one engine in the region, including a 1.6-litre turbo on the higher AWD grades. The car we rent here is the 2.0-litre naturally aspirated petrol, front-wheel drive, paired with a six-speed automatic. Output sits around 156 hp and 192 Nm, which is enough for confident city driving and a comfortable cruise on the highway, but it's not a car that surges off the line. Loaded with four people and cases for an airport run, you'll want to plan an overtake rather than snatch one.

That's the right trade-off for a rental. The 2.0 is the simpler, cheaper engine to run, it doesn't ask for premium fuel, and it drives with none of the turbo lag or gearbox hesitation that shows up in some downsized engines around town. Around Dubai's roundabouts and stop-start traffic it feels composed, and on Sheikh Zayed Road it sits happily at the limit without straining. It won't chase a sports SUV off the line, and it doesn't need to.

Space, boot and the daily use

The boot is where the redesign earns its keep. At roughly 591 litres with the seats up, it takes two large cases and a couple of soft bags for a DXB or DWC pickup without anyone folding a seat, which is more than a Creta or a Sportage's own predecessor offered. Drop the rear bench and there's enough floor for flatpack furniture or a week of grocery runs for a big household.

The back seat holds two adults properly, three at a squeeze for a short mall trip. Front seat space is generous too, and the dashboard's twin-screen layout, whatever you think of the styling, makes the cabin feel like a genuine step up from the outgoing car rather than a facelift. At 4.5 metres long and 1.87 wide, parking is closer to a Tucson than a compact crossover, so a tight tower bay in Marina or a cramped basement level in JLT wants a look at the mirrors before you commit to a space. Ground clearance of 170 mm handles the sharper speed bumps around villa compounds and steep mall ramps without a scrape, though this is a front-wheel-drive SUV on road tyres, and it stays there. Save Hatta tracks and soft sand for a proper 4x4.

Running cost, heat and the cabin

Fuel economy on the 2.0 sits around 7.5 litres per 100 km on the official combined figure, and closer to 9 or 10 once you factor in Dubai's stop-start traffic and the AC running most of the day. With a 54-litre tank, that puts real-world range somewhere around 500 to 550 km before you need a refill, so most weeks mean one visit to the pump. This car's policy is 250 km a day, which covers ordinary city use without a second thought, and any distance past that is charged at AED 0.5 per km, which is gentle as extra-mileage rates go if a longer drive to Abu Dhabi or Al Ain is on the cards. Salik tolls and any RTA fines are the renter's responsibility, and you'll need to be at least 21 to take the keys, lower than the 25 some rental desks still hold to.

The cabin cools fast for a car this size. The vents pull hard once you're moving, and a Sportage that's been sitting in an open lot at 45 degrees settles to comfortable within a few minutes on the road. It doesn't have rear vents on every grade, so check before you assume the back seat gets its own airflow on a long family trip, and park in shade where you can rather than relying on the AC to do all the work from a cold start.

Who should rent it, and who should size up or down

Rent the Sportage 2023 if you want the newest-looking compact SUV on the road, with a boot and back seat that genuinely fit a family's week, at running costs that stay reasonable next to a bigger crossover. It's the right call for a couple or a small family doing city driving, school runs and the occasional airport pickup, and the styling and cabin feel newer than the rental rate suggests.

Size down if it's just you or a couple with light errands and a tight budget. A Picanto or a Creta does that job for less rent and less fuel, and threads through parking with less thought. Size up if you're regularly carrying six or seven people, since this is a five-seater and no amount of folding changes that, or if the week includes real off-road driving, because the front-wheel-drive 2.0 belongs on tarmac, not sand.