Long-term report: Our Kia Stonic heads on an Everlong road trip

All My Life, there’s been a band I’ve been a little bit desperate to see — Foo Fighters. At last, I had nabbed tickets to see them, but not without a bit of a catch.

You see, our Gosport base lies so far on the south coast that we could probably throw a stone into the channel, while the gig was at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium — quite the Walk up north, to say the least.

Oh, and in a rather timely fashion, my sister had just given birth, so a trip home to Hull to meet my new nephew would be on the cards too. Fair to say I’d need some Wheels capable of ticking off the miles One by One both comfortably and efficiently.

Now, the obvious choice would be something luxurious, diesel and German. However, this seemed like a great opportunity to put our Kia Stonic through its first proper road trip — and thus, it became My Hero of choice.

The first stint would be a drive to Hull and would be my first real motorway experience with the Stonic, despite a few others in the office using it for a few airport runs. I had feared beforehand that it would prove to be a little tedious, being designed more for city use, but I’m happy to say I was wrong. Cruise control on, seat set a little further back than usual, and it proved comfortable while respectably returning around 42mpg across the trip.

It continued to be a surprise at home, too. I’ve taken a fair slice of tasty machinery back to Hull before, but never have any of the neighbours approached me to compliment them — not until the Stonic, at least. “It looks pretty beefy” is not something I’d expected to hear, but nonetheless, I did.

Then came the trip over to Manchester. Again, it was all going smoothly along the M62, until we got close to Leeds. An accident further down had effectively brought it to a halt, leaving us potentially arriving much later than planned with the risk of missing out on a good standing position at the gig.

This is where the Stonic’s Android Auto support came in handy. Now, I’ve complained before about the Kia’s lack of built-in satellite navigation, but this proved just how much better it can be to skim over that and use phone-based systems instead. Using Waze, we took to the backroads of Yorkshire that many had simply not realised were an option. It resulted in us making up plenty of ground and arriving in good time.

All rocked out, it was again that Waze proved wonders in the Stonic. With 60,000 people in attendance, you’d expect to be stuck in a fair bit of traffic but — car park aside — we were routed on some pretty quiet roads and swiftly found ourselves back on the motorway.

Eventually back down south, a glace down at the trip computer revealed I’d covered a shade over 1,000 miles on this whole trip. They’d gone by pretty comfortably, efficiently and most of all — in a forgettable manner. There’s nothing worse than remembering each mile in a long motorway cruise.

We’re coming into our last few months with our Stonic now, so a few farewell trips are on the cards. I get the feeling we might be sad we’re not holding onto it for Everlong.

Highlight of the month: Covering 1,000 miles with LF18 NKM