My tires are the NON GD , but they are the MUD style. and they work very well. They clean out pretty good, and were very good in the snow.

Now as to why a chose a kia, well in my case I was looking for a beater car, found the sportage and thought what the heck, so I went and test drove it, and I thought hey why not.

so it had a few small issues , but nothing major. and I stumbled upon this site., and at first I had the same thoughts. like WHY would you bother with a kia sportage!
but the more I drove it, the more it grew on me. I threw some ford f150 wheels on it that had 30x9.50's on them. and it looked nice. so then I just had to lift it, its really no t that expensive to lift one, considering there is NO after market companies making them.

and the funny thing is they actually do decent off road even with an open diff front and rear. NOW I KNOW that these are far from hardcore off road rigs, and if you see daves sportage, you'll see what needs to be done to make it one.

I wish there was more support for them. kinda like the samurais, I wonder how many guys said "why are you building an off-road rig out of that!" but once it caught on, it got to be a big deal, and now there is so much for those out there.

the kia is just as capable for the same mods, problem is nobody is doing them, or so few over the years that it never got to the after markets interest.

the sportage has a more powerful motor (although I do like the jetta diesel swap they did on a samurai on extreme 4x4 on spike)

So , is it fast? NOPE, is it a hardcore crawler? NOPE.
is it cool to see something that you most likely won't see someone else driving? YES

in my situation, I just want a gas miser, the sportage isnt all that bad, but I want 30's city/highway. as our 4runner uses gas fairly quick and we need to offset the $3.09 a gallon cost.

If I had an acre I would just keep the sporty but I don;t have that option, renting.....