Got a Little Captain in It With First Class Lounge - 2015 Kia Sedona SX-L Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

Got a Little Captain in It With First Class Lounge - 2015 Kia Sedona SX-L Long-Term Road Test

Our 2015 Kia Sedona offers First-Class Lounge Seating, one of three second-row configurations available. That should make it a hit around here with just about everyone.

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ebeaudoin

That is a whole lot of adjustment. I sell Hondas and the Odyssey has two clearly-labeled levers and one unlabeled. Customers still pull the wrong one ALL THE TIME. This Kia looks pretty confusing.

daryleason

This seems awesome for long trips, until you consider the safety issue. Reclining the seats back, extending the footrests, etc., changes the occupants positions relative to the side curtain airbags. Also, reclining back like that, transitional force during an impact would cause the seatbelts to act in a slicing motion, causing a risk of cuts, broken necks, etc. This would only be beneficial if you're intending to sleep in the vehicle while it's parked. There's no way I'd let my son kick back, stretch out, and sleep while I'm driving.

jlaszlo

We had similar seats in a Sienna we once owned. A fun gimmick only used a handful of times.

bankerdanny

daryleason said:

This seems awesome for long trips, until you consider the safety issue. Reclining the seats back, extending the footrests, etc., changes the occupants positions relative to the side curtain airbags. Also, reclining back like that, transitional force during an impact would cause the seatbelts to act in a slicing motion, causing a risk of cuts, broken necks, etc. This would only be beneficial if you're intending to sleep in the vehicle while it's parked. There's no way I'd let my son kick back, stretch out, and sleep while I'm driving.

I recommend you wrap your family in bubble wrap and stay home. That way they are perfectly safe (assuming they don't smother or there isn't a fire or earthquake or...) and you are not clogging the road while I drive.

stever

The 2016 Sedona owner's manual spends a lot of pages covering the seats. For example:

daryleason

bankerdanny said:

daryleason said:

This seems awesome for long trips, until you consider the safety issue. Reclining the seats back, extending the footrests, etc., changes the occupants positions relative to the side curtain airbags. Also, reclining back like that, transitional force during an impact would cause the seatbelts to act in a slicing motion, causing a risk of cuts, broken necks, etc. This would only be beneficial if you're intending to sleep in the vehicle while it's parked. There's no way I'd let my son kick back, stretch out, and sleep while I'm driving.

I recommend you wrap your family in bubble wrap and stay home. That way they are perfectly safe (assuming they don't smother or there isn't a fire or earthquake or...) and you are not clogging the road while I drive.

Thanks for being condescending. But what I said was true. Why knowingly use a vehicle in a way that could cause the safety features to increase the chances of an injury? My main point is that the features, while interesting, aren't a good idea for when the vehicle is in motion. Its main benefit is if you're stopped. If you're hashing out that sort of cash for the minivan, you're probably going to stay in a hotel.

okseriously

ebeaudoin said:

That is a whole lot of adjustment. I sell Hondas and the Odyssey has two clearly-labeled levers and one unlabeled. Customers still pull the wrong one ALL THE TIME. This Kia looks pretty confusing.

From photo left to photo right: seat fore-aft, extend footrest, seat inboard-outboard, seatback recline.

I'm hardly young, but that took me all of 10 seconds to figure out. Notice that the pictographs are even oriented to where the operator using the switch would be standing/seated.

Do I need to be dumber to own an Odyssey? ;-)

schen72

daryleason said:

bankerdanny said:

daryleason said:

This seems awesome for long trips, until you consider the safety issue. Reclining the seats back, extending the footrests, etc., changes the occupants positions relative to the side curtain airbags. Also, reclining back like that, transitional force during an impact would cause the seatbelts to act in a slicing motion, causing a risk of cuts, broken necks, etc. This would only be beneficial if you're intending to sleep in the vehicle while it's parked. There's no way I'd let my son kick back, stretch out, and sleep while I'm driving.

I recommend you wrap your family in bubble wrap and stay home. That way they are perfectly safe (assuming they don't smother or there isn't a fire or earthquake or...) and you are not clogging the road while I drive.

Thanks for being condescending. But what I said was true. Why knowingly use a vehicle in a way that could cause the safety features to increase the chances of an injury? My main point is that the features, while interesting, aren't a good idea for when the vehicle is in motion. Its main benefit is if you're stopped. If you're hashing out that sort of cash for the minivan, you're probably going to stay in a hotel.

I think you're right too. It's not safe to recline the seat too much while moving. But families often wait at their kids' events, and I can still see the value of having these lounge seats.