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-   -   Kia Rio > All? (https://www.miataturbo.net/insert-bs-here-4/kia-rio-all-71841/)

Joe Perez 03-28-2013 12:31 PM


Originally Posted by 2ndGearRubber (Post 994978)
The versa is a crime against humanity. And the Yaris isn't much better.

The Jaguar X-type was a crime against humanity, being essentially a re-badged Ford Contour, which was itself a thoroughly awful car.

What, specifically, makes the Versa and Yaris substantially more horrible than the Rio? The reviews which I've read criticize them for being under-powered and sort of bland-feeling, but this is a character trait which I associate with all cheap hatchbacks in general.

The 80s-vintage Rabbit Diesel was by no means a fast and nimble car, but if you look up the word "reliable" in most dictionaries, they have a picture of it below the definition.

shuiend 03-28-2013 12:32 PM


Originally Posted by Joe Perez (Post 995004)
I had a Mazda2 as a rental car about a year ago in Phoenix. The automatic transmission was underwhelming (no surprise there) but in every other way, I was really quite amazed by how horrible the car wasn't. I initially cringed when they gave it to me, but it turned out to be a very comfortable place to sit, handled reasonably well, and seemed very well put together.

The auto's in the Mazda2's are a complete piece of crap. My good friend's wife has an auto and he has a manual. There is a night and day difference between them. He will not even drive the wives car at all.

turbofan 03-28-2013 01:28 PM

I think the Fiesta is the best car in the class, with the Fit a close second. Those roles can change depending on your needs. The Fiesta gets better mileage and has more power but the Fit has more space and better resale value.

KIA still not up to par IMO, and I almost bought a Soul last time I was car shopping (bought a used Jet ta TDI instead and don't regret it for a second).

Joe Perez 03-28-2013 01:43 PM


Originally Posted by turbofan (Post 995030)
I think the Fiesta is the best car in the class,

Jeremy Clarkson would seem to agree with you, and that's saying a lot.






KIA still not up to par IMO, and I almost bought a Soul last time I was car shopping (bought a used Jet ta TDI instead and don't regret it for a second).
Pretty much.

Right now, Kia makes aspirational cars for poor people. You can walk in with your one-step-above-minimum-wage job, sign a few papers, and drive away in a car loaded with the same gizmos and gadgets that your college-educated friends have in their Hondae and Lexii, feeling pretty good about yourself.

The difference is that a few years down the road, everything about the Hondae and Lexii will still be working properly, not rattling, etc. Your hamstermobile, by comparison, will have gone the way of the knockoff handbag, looking a bit threadbare and starting to tear at the seams.

There's a very good reason that some cars have a higher average resale value than others.

turbofan 03-28-2013 01:49 PM

I don't know that the difference is as great as you state, but I do believe that there is a difference for sure.

Thing about price... The new Rio starts at just a hair under $14k. So does the Fiesta (sedan... Hatch is like $800 more). Fit starts at, what, $14.5k? Mazda2 at $14k ? The KIA isn't saving you any money!

shuiend 03-28-2013 01:53 PM

I paid $14800 out the door for my new base model Mazda 2. It was the $1400 invoice and then $800 for tax, title, registration and all.

turbofan 03-28-2013 02:18 PM

My beef with the mazda2 is that you can get more space with better fuel economy and more power with the Fiesta, or more space with about the same power and economy with the Fit. Basically I'm disappointed with the size, power and fuel economy of the mazda2.

Joe Perez 03-28-2013 02:26 PM


Originally Posted by turbofan (Post 995047)
Thing about price... The new Rio starts at just a hair under $14k. So does the Fiesta (sedan... Hatch is like $800 more). Fit starts at, what, $14.5k? Mazda2 at $14k ? The KIA isn't saving you any money!

Yup. Ironic, isn't it? They started low; might have been a loss-leader for all I know. But now they've come up to parity price-wise while still lagging in the quality department. Not to mention the stigma attached to the brand with regard to resale.

Think of it this way: If you live outside the rust-belt, the secondary market is saturated with 20 year old Hondoyotazdas that are running fine, passed their last emission inspection with no problem, and still feel like they're not falling apart.

How many Daewoos of the same vintage do you see for sale?


Here's what it boils down to:

If you watch enough car commercials on TV, you see a lot of automakers touting that such-and-such model won an award from J.D. Power for best something-or-other. It's like playing little league baseball in third grade, where everybody gets a ribbon just for showing up.

But here's the thing. Inasmuch as these awards are a valuable measure of anything at all, it's interesting to note which automakers claim which awards.

The Koreans, for the most part love to talk about their Initial Quality ranking, meaning that you got a lot of stuff for your money and it lasted at least 12 months without breaking. (Literally, that's what the Initial Quality award measures.) They tend not so much to mention long-term dependability, resale value, etc.

TurboTim 03-28-2013 02:42 PM

No one yet has mentioned the turbo sonic. I have never been in one, but it's turbo...?

shuiend 03-28-2013 02:53 PM


Originally Posted by TurboTim (Post 995078)
No one yet has mentioned the turbo sonic. I have never been in one, but it's turbo...?

Fuck needing to use premium gas in my DD.

Braineack 03-28-2013 03:32 PM

2 Attachment(s)

Originally Posted by TurboTim (Post 995078)
No one yet has mentioned the turbo sonic. I have never been in one, but it's turbo...?

the dash is cool:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1364499138

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1364499138



https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-V...4/DSC_6009.JPG

Joe Perez 03-28-2013 03:39 PM

Seeing those pictures brings to my mind a question:

Why do most automakers elect to locate the starting battery within the engine compartment, very near to many sources of heat? All else being equal, high ambient temperatures tend to increase the rate of degradation of a flooded battery.

18psi 03-28-2013 03:41 PM

oh look they took the speedo right out of a motorcycle

olderguy 03-28-2013 03:46 PM


Originally Posted by Joe Perez (Post 995113)
Seeing those pictures brings to my mind a question:

Why do most automakers elect to locate the starting battery within the engine compartment, very near to many sources of heat? All else being equal, high ambient temperatures tend to increase the rate of degradation of a flooded battery.

And Mazda went from the trunk to the engine compartment when they brought out the NC. They save the wire and we buy the batteries when they fail.:vash:

olderguy 03-28-2013 03:52 PM

Back to Kia: I haven't found any major problems with the 2 Sportages and one Borrego I own and have owned. Brakes on the first Sportage required replacing too early, but the second Sportage and Borrego have served me very well.

y8s 03-28-2013 04:02 PM


Originally Posted by shuiend (Post 995049)
I paid $14800 out the door for my new base model Mazda 2. It was the $1400 invoice and then $800 for tax, title, registration and all.

a green mazda 2 was a jeopardy question the other day. my wife wanted to make sure I told you.

turbofan 03-28-2013 04:14 PM


Originally Posted by TurboTim (Post 995078)
No one yet has mentioned the turbo sonic. I have never been in one, but it's turbo...?

By the time you get a turbo model you're around 20k.

Scrappy Jack 03-28-2013 04:48 PM

2 Attachment(s)

Originally Posted by Joe Perez (Post 995004)
A friend of mine down in FL has some Kia sedan of relatively recent vintage (2008 maybe?) and while it has only slightly over 100,000 miles on it, it's more or less falling apart. The drivetrain is fine, but it's developed all sorts of little squeaks and rattles, the interior is coming to pieces, the A/C has crapped out twice, etc.

Kia is still an emerging company, regardless of what they'd like you to think. They are the automotive equivalent of the guy selling knockoff Louis Vuitton purses from a little kiosk on the street in Chinatown. Sure, they look a lot like the real thing, but they're poorly assembled from inferior materials.


Originally Posted by Joe Perez (Post 995045)
Right now, Kia makes aspirational cars for poor people. You can walk in with your one-step-above-minimum-wage job, sign a few papers, and drive away in a car loaded with the same gizmos and gadgets that your college-educated friends have in their Hondae and Lexii, feeling pretty good about yourself.

The difference is that a few years down the road, everything about the Hondae and Lexii will still be working properly, not rattling, etc. Your hamstermobile, by comparison, will have gone the way of the knockoff handbag, looking a bit threadbare and starting to tear at the seams.

There's a very good reason that some cars have a higher average resale value than others.


Originally Posted by Joe Perez (Post 995064)
The Koreans, for the most part love to talk about their Initial Quality ranking, meaning that you got a lot of stuff for your money and it lasted at least 12 months without breaking. (Literally, that's what the Initial Quality award measures.) They tend not so much to mention long-term dependability, resale value, etc.

While I am not refuting your premise, I do have to stand up for one particular model of Kia based on personal experience: the current generation Optima. Along your line of thought that they are an emerging brand, you cannot necessarily look at the resale value of a 2008 Optima and project that on to a 5-year old 2013 Optima.

2010 2nd gen Optima
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1364503734

2011 3rd gen Optima
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1364503734

You are right to make the distinction between initial and long-term quality and reliability but I would point out that there has been a pretty big evolutionary jump in the last couple of years. Whether that holds up long term, no one can accurately say at the moment.

In other words, beware recency bias. :)

blaen99 03-28-2013 04:50 PM

That 2013 Optima screams ricer.....

I mean holy shit. The wheels alone....

Joe Perez 03-28-2013 05:01 PM


Originally Posted by Scrappy Jack (Post 995153)
you cannot necessarily look at the resale value of a 2008 Optima and project that on to a 5-year old 2013 Optima.

If true, then this, in and of itself, is further evidence for my claims. When great discrepancies exist between the value of a durable good over a short time span, this indicates that the market perceives the value of that brand to be unstable.

Now, to an extent I acknowledge that this is a variant on the 1960's era IBM argument. (Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.) And we all know how that story ended. But given the choice between buying a car from a company with a history of producing reliable vehicles and one of which it can be said that "They've gotten a lot less bad over the past five years..."


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