New Kia Sportage vs Seat Ateca

The contenders

Kia Sportage 1.6 T-GDi Pure

List price £30,885
Best price £27,500

Our reigning Family SUV of the Year gets an updated interior, as well as a new entry-level petrol engine and trim level

Seat Ateca 1.5 TSI 150 FR Black Edition

List price £36,940
Best price £27,690

The Ateca has always been a spacious and practical choice that’s great to drive. In top-spec trim, it’s very well equipped, too

Last summer, it was nearly impossible to ignore KPop Demon Hunters’ meteoric rise in popularity to become the most-watched film of all time on Netflix, with more than 200 million streams. As a result, it didn’t take long for social media to be flooded with covers of the catchy songs. Of course, the quality of those covers varied greatly, but the key to success was knowing exactly how much to edit something that was already considered brilliant. 

It’s a similar issue faced by car makers when they facelift models that are already outstanding; they run the risk of spoiling a good thing in the pursuit of the latest design and tech. The team behind the latest Kia Sportage appears to have erred on the side of caution, though.

A facelift for our current Family SUV of the Year aims to build on the model’s many strengths by giving it a fresh look, an updated interior and a reinstated entry-level petrol engine (in place of the previous mild hybrid). In lowest-rung Pure trim, it can be had only with a manual gearbox, and it’s this combination we’re testing.

However, sometimes there’s no school like the old school, and that’s where the Seat Ateca comes in. You see, while it hasn’t changed much since it was launched in 2016, it has continually proved to be a strong SUV option, offering sharp handling and a practical, user-friendly interior. We’re testing it in range-topping FR Black Edition trim, which can be had for similar money after discounts.

So, have the changes helped or hindered the Sportage? Is it still the family SUV to beat, or would you be better off with an incredibly well-equipped Ateca?

Driving

Performance, ride, handling, refinement

The Sportage’s 1.6-litre engine is slightly larger than the Ateca’s 1.5-litre unit, but they are very closely matched in terms of power. So, while the Sportage is a second quicker from 0-60mph, both pull willingly from low revs and respond briskly when you ask for a burst of acceleration as you’re rolling along. Because they have manual gearboxes, there’s none of the delay you often get with automatic equivalents. 

Those gearboxes are generally easy to use, with light shifts, but the Ateca’s lever has shorter movements and a slicker feel. What’s more, the Ateca’s clutch pedal has a more defined biting point that makes it easier to pull away smoothly compared with the Sportage’s lighter pedal. 

Although the Sportage has never been in contention for the title of best-handling family SUV, it’s more than good enough for everyday driving. Sure, it leans a fair bit through corners, but there’s still plenty of grip on offer and the steering gives you a good idea of what the front wheels are up to.

The Ateca, though, is one of the most enjoyable cars in its class to drive. It feels sharper and more agile than the Sportage, because it stays flatter through corners, and its steering is both quicker and even more precise. 

The price you pay is that the Ateca has a firm ride – especially on the large, 19in alloy wheels that come with the FR Black Edition. You’ll feel every bump and pothole as you pass over them, and near-continuous fidgeting jostles you around in your seat. 

The softer Sportage is much more comfortable. Around town, it soaks up large bumps and potholes with ease, while it stays smooth and settled on the motorway.

At low speeds, you’ll notice slightly more road noise in the Ateca (due to those large wheels) than you will in the hushed Sportage. However, the Ateca turns the tables at motorway speeds to be the quieter cruiser, suppressing wind and engine noise better than the Sportage.

Behind the wheel

Driving position, visibility, build quality

No matter which of our contenders you climb into, the driver’s seat lines you up perfectly with the pedals and steering wheel, and you sit high up, as many owners prefer. 

Both give you plenty of steering wheel and seat adjustment (including lumbar support), but only the Ateca comes with electrically adjustable front seats, making it slightly easier to tailor the driving position to your liking.

Which seat is inherently more comfortable, though, is a matter of personal preference; the Sportage’s is more cushioned, but the Ateca’s holds you in place better through corners.

The elevated seating positions and relatively slim windscreen pillars result in fine visibility to the front and sides at junctions. You’ll have a good view over your shoulder, too, thanks to large side windows in both, but the Ateca has  larger glass areas behind the rear doors that reduce any obstruction caused by the rearmost pillars. 

Visibility directly behind each car is equally unhindered, but nevertheless they come with front and rear parking sensors and rear-view cameras that help to make parking and manoeuvring a doddle. The Sportage misses out on the Ateca’s fancier surround-view camera, but the bigger and clearer image that its rear-view camera displays on the infotainment screen helps to make up for that omission.

Speaking of screens, the Sportage’s digital instrument panel has sharper graphics than the Ateca’s equivalent, but only the middle section of it can be altered, showing you basic things like what’s playing on the audio system or efficiency data. The whole of the Ateca’s display can be customised with a choice of layouts. 

It’s great to see soft materials in most of the areas you touch most often in both cars, including on the top of their dashboards and doors. Both are let down slightly by hard, scratchy plastics on their centre consoles, but some of the other trim materials have been improved in the Sportage, helping to make it look and feel the smarter of the pair. 

The Ateca’s interior design feels dated compared with the uncluttered Sportage’s, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You see, it’s straight from a time when Seat and the rest of the VW Group were using lots of sturdy physical controls, greatly aiding its usability on the move.

Infotainment systems

Kia Sportage

This may be the entry-level trim, but the touchscreen is the same size as in other Sportages. Not only is it larger than the Ateca’s (12.3in versus 9.2in) and swift to respond to inputs, but it also has more modern-looking graphics and a more straightforward menu layout. Shortcuts on a separate panel below it help with ease of use. As in the Ateca, the Sportage comes with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay smartphone integration.

Seat Ateca

Although the graphics on the Ateca’s touchscreen look a bit dated, the system responds quickly enough to inputs. There are touch-sensitive shortcuts alongside the screen and more icons along the bottom of the screen. Even so, getting to some functions can be complicated. Some of the icons could do with being larger; this would make them easier to hit on the move. Unlike the Sportage, the Ateca offers wireless phone charging.

Space and practicality

Front space, rear space, seating flexibility, boot

Unless you’re especially tall or broad, you’ll have more than enough space in the front of either car. The only thing setting them apart is that the Ateca’s slightly higher ceilings give those over six feet tall more space between the headlining and their hair. 

Each has a decent amount of storage up front, including a pair of cupholders, a deep glovebox and a cubby within their central armrest, but the Ateca goes the extra mile with more accommodating door pockets.

The Ateca’s head room advantage continues when you move to the back seats, but you’d have to be exceptionally lanky to find the Sportage wanting. The same is true of leg room; a pair of six-footers can fit comfortably behind two equally lanky people in the front in both, but the Ateca has slightly more clearance.  

Three people sitting side by side in the rear will have slightly more shoulder room in the wider Sportage, while the occupant sitting in the middle will appreciate the extra foot room freed up by the much smaller floor hump that they have to straddle. 

Both cars offer Isofix points on the outer rear seats, but you’ll find it easier to load a child seat into the Sportage, because its rear doors open especially wide.

Only the Ateca comes with an electric tailgate, but it lacks the height-adjustable boot floor that you get in the Sportage. As a result, the Ateca has a really tall boot that’ll easily swallow eight carry-on suitcases, but with a large load lip and a step up to the rear seatbacks when they’re folded down – a problem you won’t have with the Sportage’s adjustable floor in its highest setting.

With its floor dropped down and the reclining rear seatbacks in their most upright position, the Sportage matched the Ateca’s tally of suitcases. Reclining the seatbacks all the way reduces this to six cases. 

When you need to carry bigger loads, the Sportage’s versatile 40/20/40 split rear seats fold totally flat and free up 100 litres more space than you get in the Ateca in two-seat mode. They also make loading longer items through from the boot easier than the 60/40 split in the Ateca, even though the latter has a ski hatch.

Boot space

Kia Sportage

Boot capacity 591-1780 litres Suitcases 8

Seat Ateca

Boot capacity 510-1604 litres Suitcases 8

Buying and owning

Costs, equipment, reliability, safety and security

In the trims tested, the Sportage undercuts the Ateca’s list price by a healthy margin. The latter car, however, is available with far larger discounts, bringing the gap down to the point where they’re almost level. 

If you go down the PCP finance route, putting down £3500 on a three-year contract with a limit of 10,000 miles per year will see you paying £404 a month for the Sportage and £571 for the Ateca.

Even if you were to go for the Ateca with the same engine but in entry-level SE trim, it still comes out more expensive, costing £70 more per month using the same finance terms. 

What’s more, the Sportage promises to be more affordable to run over three years, shedding value at a much slower rate than the Ateca and costing nearly £600 less to service. Indeed, the only area in which the Ateca will prove cheaper is fuel costs; it returned an average of 39.6mpg on our mixed testing route (to the Sportage’s  38.5mpg), saving you around £200 over the same period.

Company car drivers chasing low benefit-in-kind (BIK) tax payments will want to stick with the Sportage because, despite its CO2 output of 162g/km putting it one bracket higher than the Ateca, its far lower list price keeps monthly costs down. Alternatively, you can reduce the Sportage’s BIK cost even more by going for a hybrid or plug-in hybrid version – options that the Ateca doesn’t afford you.

While the Sportage is nowhere near as well equipped as the Ateca in these trims, it comes with most of the essentials, including keyless entry, full LED headlights and cruise control. You get these on the Ateca too, but it adds leather seat upholstery, adaptive cruise control, dual-zone climate control for front occupants (to the Sportage’s single zone), heated front seats, an electric tailgate and metallic paint (£675 extra on the Sportage). 

The current-generation Sportage is mostly proving very dependable, achieving a commendable 96.5% rating in the 2025 What Car? Reliability Survey. The Ateca isn’t far adrift, though, with a 94.8% score. Kia ranked eighth in the overall brand league table (out of 30), while Seat was 18th.

Should anything go wrong, Kia offers owners greater peace of mind, thanks to its generous seven-year/100,000-mile warranty. By contrast, Seat offers only a three-year/60,000-mile warranty with the Ateca.

Both of our contenders have been tested by Euro NCAP, but the Ateca’s five-star rating was awarded so long ago that it has now expired. Tested in 2022, the Sportage also scored the top star rating, providing a good level of protection to adults in the front and children in the rear. 

These cars come with plenty of advanced safety features, including automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assistance and traffic sign recognition. The top-spec Ateca gets two additional safety packs as standard, adding things like blindspot monitoring and exit assistance; the latter helps to prevent you from opening the front doors into oncoming traffic.

Our verdict

It may not have changed much over the years but, once again, the Ateca puts on a good show in this test. Its keen handling and spacious interior continue to make it an SUV that’s both fun to drive and practical, while in this trim it’s also really well equipped. However, it’s relatively pricey on a PCP, so we’d stick with a lower trim level to keep costs down and improve ride comfort by having smaller wheels. 

Even then, though, the Ateca isn’t as well rounded as the Sportage. True, the refresh hasn’t wrought huge changes, but it hardly needed to, because the Sportage wasn’t even close to being broken. With its fine ride and handling balance, spacious, practical and smart-looking interior and reasonable running costs, it’s still the best family SUV you can buy – and better value than ever in entry-level form.

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1st – Kia Sportage

For Fine ride and handling balance; smarter-looking interior; lower PCP rates; cheaper to run; longer warranty
Against Some fiddly controls; few options are available
Recommended options Metallic paint (£675)

What Car? rating 5 stars out of 5

Kia Sportage review >>

Kia Sportage deals >>

2nd – Seat Ateca

For Sharper handling; generously equipped; slicker gearshift; slightly more head and leg room in rear seats
Against Firm ride; infotainment can be fiddly; sheds value at a faster rate; pricey to buy on PCP finance
Recommended options None

What Car? rating 3 stars out of 5

Seat Ateca review >>

Seat Ateca deals >>

Kia Sportage 1.6 T-GDi Pure

Engine 4cyl, 1598cc, turbo, petrol
Peak power 147bhp at 6000rpm
Peak torque 184lb ft at 4000rpm
Gearbox 6-spd manual
0-60mph 9.0sec
30-70mph through the gears 8.5sec
Top speed 121mph
Braking 30-0mph 8.8m
Braking 70-0mph 48.2m
Noise at 30mph 57.9dB
Noise at 70mph 65.9dB
Kerb weight 1552kg
Tyre size (standard) 215/65 R17
Fuel tank 54 litres
Test fuel economy 38.5mpg
Official fuel economy 39.8mpg
CO2 emissions 162g/km

Seat Ateca 1.5 TSI 150 FR Black Edition

Engine 4cyl, 1498cc, turbo, petrol
Peak power 148bhp at 5000-6000rpm
Peak torque 184lb ft at 1500-3500rpm
Gearbox 6-spd manual
0-60mph 10.0sec
30-70mph through the gears 8.5sec
Top speed 126mph
Braking 30-0mph 9.7m
Braking 70-0mph 52.7m
Noise at 30mph 58.5dB
Noise at 70mph 64.7dB
Kerb weight 1413kg
Tyre size (standard) 235/40 R19
Fuel tank 50 litres
Test fuel economy 39.6mpg
Official fuel economy 42.7mpg
CO2 emissions 151g/km

Weather conditions 17 deg C, wet

Cars pictured

Kia Sportage 1.6T-GDi Pure with Dark Penta Metal metallic paint (£675)

Seat Ateca 1.5 EcoTSI FR Black Edition with Graphite Grey metallic paint

Read more: Best and worst family SUVs >>