Used test: Audi S5 Sportback vs Kia Stinger GT S
These two performance cars offer both style and substance, but which one makes the best used buy? We have the answer...
What are they like inside?
Both cars come with an electrically adjustable driver’s seat (and steering column in the Stinger) and four-way adjustable lumbar support. However, the S5’s seat is mounted too high for a sporty GT; the lower-slung driving position in the Stinger feels more appropriate.
Logical dashboard layouts make these cars easy to get to grips with. The Stinger didn’t offer the S5’s option of digital instrument dials when new , which look great and relay important information clearly, but its analogue dials sandwich a 7.0in screen that does a similar job.
It’s relatively easy to see forward out of both cars, but not so much rearwards due to their sloping rooflines. To alleviate any parking woes, each comes with front and rear parking sensors, and the Stinger augments these with a 360deg camera.
Where the S5 clearly wins is on interior quality. The Stinger looks fetching enough inside – with brushed aluminium, gloss-black panels and soft nappa leather seats – but compared with the S5, its switches don’t click so exactly, its plastics don’t have the same lustrous sheen and in places it doesn’t feel so robustly forged.
Leg room in the front of both cars is generous, and while neither of these low-roofed fastbacks offers quite the head room of the best executive saloons, they aren’t exactly cramped.
Although neither offers generous rear space, both have enough room for a couple of tall passengers. The steeper rake of the S5’s roofline means head room is tighter, while the Stinger has slightly less leg room and foot space under its front seats.
Both have good luggage space, too, accessed easily via their hatchback tailgates. Being deeper and consistently wider, the S5’s boot swallowed seven carry-on suitcases to the Stinger’s six. More room is available if you drop their split-folding rear seats; it’s a 60/40 arrangement in the Stinger and a more useful 40/20/40 in the S5.
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