KIA Cars - any good?

Limey

I've had a new Ceed as a hire car and both myself and my colleague were pleasantly suprised with it (apart from the tango orange dash illumination).

My other half is not a Kia fan, she's worked on several in the body shop and says they are only surpassed by the Ford Kak for rust in new cars.

forgotmyname

2006 Kia Rio. Electric windows getting slower and slower. New battery didnt help.

It was the worn seat that surprised me, My mondeo has double the mileage and the seats
are in a lot better condition. His car reminds me of ex police cars where the utility/handcuff
belt has damaged the seat when they get in & out of the vehicle.

Starrystarrynight

I have a 55 plate Picanto and I love it. Has been problem free since I got it, more than a year ago.

movilogo

I have a Ceed. Although it is a nice car, it sometimes develops irritating electrical faults.

Since it is under warranty, dealer does offer to look it whenever I ring them. But the nearest dealership is quite far away and I hate spend weekends on garage!

jase1

forgotmyname wrote: »

2006 Kia Rio. Electric windows getting slower and slower. New battery didnt help.

It was the worn seat that surprised me, My mondeo has double the mileage and the seats
are in a lot better condition. His car reminds me of ex police cars where the utility/handcuff
belt has damaged the seat when they get in & out of the vehicle.

Which one? 2006 was the crossover year for the Rio. The old car was a bit of a dog TBH.

thescouselander

I'm surprised so many people are saying the engines are good. In my experience they are ruff as anything, really thirsty and under powered. The Kia I had to drive last week only managed 25 mpg on a fairly long run - it was a very poor drive too - not good at all.

Maybe its just that I usually get abused hire cars but if that's the case it suggests to me they are not very durable,

adamc260

Buy Toyota :P!

jase1

There is more to an engine than how it feels to drive. These (effectively Japanese) engines are very solid. The ancilliary components around them were poor which led to an illusion of a poor engine.

In any case, the newer cars are known for their refinement. I own a 1.6 Focus, and the 1.6 Cee'd is an order of magnitude sweeter, quieter and more refined. The comparison is almost ridiculous.

(I personally think that the Focus is a bag of spanners, plasticky, noisy and with a poor driving position -- but that's a different argument).

Going back to one of your earlier points, I don't know where this "poor brakes" thing comes from at all. I've driven a number of Kias, and even on the old rubbish ones the brakes were if anything over-assisted -- the tiniest tap and your head was flung forwards.

Lum

Over assistance doesn't make crap brakes good. It makes crap brakes over assisted, which makes them seem better than they are.

jase1

Over assistance is not compatible with the pedal requiring more effort, and needing to be pushed half way down before it'll react though.

In any case, the particular car I was thinking of was relatively unusual in having discs all round on a very small car. My Focus doesn't have that. It also stopped more smartly than the Focus does.

At the end of the day the Cee'd won this year's Auto Express customer satisfaction survey. While this isn't the last word, I don't see how a "crap" car could achieve this. If it could, Renaults would win every year.

EDIT: D'oh, it wasn't the Cee'd wot won it, it was the mechanically-identical Hyundai i30. Ho hum.