Kia Telluride Ground Clearance: What To Know
Kia Telluride by JLaw45 — CC BY 2.0
Before we talk about Kia Telluride ground clearance, we need to know what ground clearance is and how it affects your vehicle.
Ground clearance is the minimum distance between the road and the lowest part of the vehicle’s body, excluding the tires.
It might seem like one of those unimportant statistics, but paying attention to ground clearance can tell you a lot about a vehicle. Just looking at a vehicle’s ride height can help you with your purchasing decision tremendously if you know what you’re looking for.
The Importance of Ground Clearance
The ground clearance can be a good indication of which roads it is designed for. It also impacts many different elements of the vehicle, such as load capacity, road comfort, safety, and so on.
Let’s discuss the ways ground clearance affects a vehicle and then compare it to the Kia Telluride’s ground clearance.
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Ground Clearance and the Purpose of the Vehicle
Both high and low ground clearance have advantages and disadvantages, and it largely depends on the terrain you want to drive your car on.
Because of the factors that we’ll discuss a bit later, Kia Telluride’s ground clearance of 8.0 inches is ideal for city driving. It can travel off-road, but neither frequently nor into deep adventures. It won’t pass every obstacle due to its 8 inches height since a minimum ground clearance height of 8.5 inches is suggested for off-roading.
The Kia Telluride’s suspension is capable of off-roading, but its ground clearance of 8.0 inches is just not safe for off-roading. Lifting the Kia Telluride would be a lot of fun, even if it’s a tad bit expensive. The choice is entirely yours, but we recommend it.
You’ll have to invest a bit more if you’d like to take the Kia Telluride off-roading. However, it’s still an excellent pavement vehicle.
How Does Ground Clearance Affect Driveability?
The higher the ground clearance, the better the vehicle performs on dirty, muddy, and rocky roads with many imperfections. If you try to travel off-road with limited ground clearance, you will most likely not get very far, and you’ll risk damaging your vehicle’s undercarriage.
Pickup trucks and SUVs usually have higher ground clearance. One downside of a high ground clearance vehicle is that it has a high center of gravity, which increases body roll, which can be dangerous. On the other hand, Coupes and sedans tend to sit lower to the ground, which gives them better stability at high speeds and in the corners.
How Does Ground Clearance Affect Visibility?
A vehicle with high ground clearance is not only appropriate for driving on rough and rocky terrains, but it also helps with road vision. The higher ground clearance allows you to see over other vehicles on the road, making it much easier to spot traffic jams in advance.
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How Does Ground Clearance Affect Performance?
Although the performance of high ride height cars is not much worse than it is on lower ground clearance vehicles, the differences should be noted. The performance will worsen, but unless you plan to take your Kia Telluride to a drag strip, you won’t notice it.
Those who’ve lifted their vehicles discovered that doing so worsened the fuel economy. This happens because larger tires have higher rolling resistance, the vehicle’s total weight is heavier, and the profile is higher, contributing to increased aerodynamic drag.
Lifting your car also makes it more challenging to handle a sharp turn and may result in a rollover. You may see a large pickup or an SUV at a drag strip, but you’ll rarely see them at a circuit track.
How Does Ground Clearance Affect Comfort?
Comfort is another primary reason why most people who aren’t into sports cars purchase an SUV. An SUV is made to be comfortable, so combining it with high ground clearance makes it even more comfortable.
Because of higher ground clearance, you can make the suspension a lot softer. You won’t feel every imperfection on the road, and running into a pothole won’t feel like you dropped from 15 feet.
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Kia Telluride Ground Clearance Comparison
Telluride is a brand new SUV from Kia. Its first model year is 2020, and it has 8 inches of ground clearance across all trims. Still, let’s see Kia Telluride’s ground clearance compared to other SUVs.
As we’ve already established, the Kia Telluride has 8 inches of ride height. It’s relatively difficult to find an SUV with a lower ride height, but still, there are a few. Ford Puma, for example, has only 6.5 inches of ground clearance, which is close to a compact car such as a Honda Civic that has 6 inches of ground clearance. If you aren’t a short person that needs a lower vehicle, the Kia Telluride is perfect in terms of ground clearance.
Now, if you’re looking to take your new car into off-roading adventures, then a Toyota 4Runner with its 9.6 inches might be a better option. It’s a car that was designed for off-roading. However, if you love the Kia Telluride and you want to go off-road with it, a lift kit might be costly, but it’s worth every single penny.
Kia Telluride Ground Clearance: Good for Off-Road?
If ground clearance is your main criteria in buying, the Telluride will make it easy for you since ground clearance is the same across all trims at 8.0 inches. Although it’s not the highest ground clearance in the segment, the Telluride features some serious off-roading chops. Despite not being off-road oriented, the SUV does have good departure angles.
Although Kia is known to make some of the most reliable vehicles available, we’re not telling you to take your Telluride in rock climbing, but know that it’s a capable SUV for off-roading. The biggest Kia boasts good traction, with a good center clutch that distributes the torque from front to rear. The Telluride’s traction control can easily emulate a locker’s action by grabbing the brake on slipping tires.
So which models should you choose?
The base Kia Telluride model offers excellent value for the money. It can seat up to eight people with plenty of standard tech features to keep you safe, secure, and entertained. However, the EX trim also offers a great value proposition as it offers heated leather seats and a wireless charging pad.
The Beginning of Your Kia Telluride Adventures
Kia Telluride is a brand new vehicle that began production in 2019. So far, we don’t know exactly how the vehicle’s design will evolve in upcoming years. The SUV still needs time to prove its worth in the automotive market. However, with Kia Telluride’s ground clearance, it hit the nail on the head to find a balanced offering.
Eight inches of ground clearance is perfect for the city, and it gives you all of the advantages, with unnoticeable disadvantages. You’ll ride your SUV in comfort, and you’ll be able to get yourself out of traffic jams before they even occur because you can see over other vehicles. And if you want to take it off-road, you still can, just not on a tough to traverse rocky terrains—for that, you’ll need a lift kit.
Overall, Kia Telluride seems to be promising, and we expect it to become more and more popular.
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