Kia’s Sportage changed shape completely between 2021 and 2022. The QL, sold here from 2016 to 2021, gave way to the NQ5 for the 2022 model year, and the new car is not a facelift of the old one — different body, different glass. The rear doors are where that matters if you are shading the back seat.
The QL rear door, 2016 to 2021
The QL is the rounder of the two, and its rear-door aperture is the smaller. The pane tapers as it runs back towards the C-pillar, so the area is concentrated towards the front of the door and the top rear corner closes in. Perfectly shadeable, and there are plenty still on Australian roads — but it is its own shape, cut for the QL and nothing else.
The outline is only half of it. A panel that holds itself up has to hold onto the painted steel around the glass, so the run of metal available around the opening is part of the fitment rather than a detail.
The NQ5 rear door, 2022 onwards
The current car gives you more to work with. Its rear-door pane is deep and sits close to upright, with noticeably more glass area than the equivalent QL window, and the frame around it is a long, uninterrupted run of steel. That is the good case for a magnetic panel: a continuous edge on every side to locate against, and no break partway along where the panel would have nothing to hold. Sets on this generation tend to go on square and stay put.
The panels supplied for the NQ5. This is the product render from the listing, not a photograph of a fitted car.
What the extra glass costs the back seat
The same area that makes the NQ5 straightforward to fit also means more sun landing on whoever sits behind the front seats. An upright pane takes the sun side-on for more of the day than a steeply raked one, which is why the rear doors do most of the work on this body. Cover both and you have dealt with the bulk of it.
What is on record here is the four-panel set — two front, two rear — supplied to A.B. in Queensland in July 2026. Treat it as a note on the car rather than a review: none of the above came from the buyer, whose details stop at two initials and a state.
If yours is the 2016-2021 QL
The panels do not swap. A set cut for the NQ5 rear door will not sit properly in a QL, and the reverse holds too — the outlines differ enough that a near miss is still a miss. Model name alone is not enough to order by here. Check the year range on the listing against your build, and if you are near the changeover, go by body code rather than year.
The NQ5 set is available here: Kia Sportage 2023-2025 car window shades.