Kia Philippines recently launched the facelifted Carnival in our market. Now, if you’re familiar with the MPV, you might be thinking to yourself: “That’s still new. What needed changing?”
Well, it’s not that anything needed changing, because the pre-facelift Carnival was still a pretty darn good people-hauler that looks anything but dated. But if you take a closer look at the refreshed model, you might understand why Kia changed it up.
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Starting with the exterior—there’s a new-look Tiger Nose grille up front that keeps the Carnival looking like it belongs in the Kia stable, especially with the arrival of newer models like the Seltos and the Sonet. It’s got new wheels derived from the EV9 (or the EV5), and it has larger taillights with a lightbar at the rear.
Inside, it boasts a cleaner-looking layout with a nice brown colorway with softer tones that are much easier on the eyes. Kia also updated the dash with a more modern-looking touchscreen minus the bezels plus the added toys inside the head unit. The controls on the center console are now also much more organized thanks to the touch panel that replaces all the buttons from the old model.
We won’t dive too deep and tell you all about the interior, because that’s going to take a while. Instead, we’ll direct you to the video we shot prior to the launch which you’ll find below. What you’ll need to know is that mechanically, you still get the same 2.2-liter in-line-four Smartstream diesel engine that churns out 199hp and 440Nm of torque. There are also two variants available, with the EX priced at P2.888 million and the SX at P3.368 million. Anyhoo, without further ado, here’s the clip. Enjoy.
