Like a Pinto!
Hyundai/Kia/Genesis has become a world-class automaker. After seeing their entry into the US market with the Excel and having test-driven a Scoupe, I never could have imagined it was possible. If I was in the market for a sedan I’d strongly consider the G70 or Stinger.
Yeah my wife wants one..
It’s a shame that our own USA ‘big 3’ automakers get outdone by these Asian imports. Good on Kia for producing quality products.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I consider it one of the ugliest vehicles on the road today, and a little too large. It’s probably very good functionally though, or it wouldn’t be selling so well. To each his own.
Back 25 years ago, a Toyota exec was asked who their main competition would be in the future. He said Hyundai. At the time Hyundai was not making very good vehicles, but the Toyota guy said they had huge manufacturing capacity all over the world, and they were starting to copy Toyota’s quality control methods. I kind of rolled my eyes at the story at the time, but he sure had it right.
I was visiting with a brother last December when he was looking at cars to “downsize” from the three that he had. He had a Chevy Impala, a big Ford F150 pickup he no longer needed because after his wife died he sold their large trailer, and he had a Mini Cooper (an older one).
He gave away the old Mini Cooper - it had become a money pit on repairs. He was looking to sell the pickup truck, paying off what was left on the loan on it, and trade the Impala on something. I asked questions, commented on anything I liked, when I was asked, but gave no suggestions about any choice I thought he ought to make.
He wound up looking at only small to mid size Suvs.
We looked at nearly everything and he drove many of them.
I did not want to be pushing him in any direction, no matter what I thought of the vehicles. I did not want him later assigning any possible blame to me for something he became unhappy with.
I liked two of the Kias, the Telluride and a smaller one. The Kia dealer offered him a more than reasonable cash offer for the truck, a big off the top discount off the sticker price and a good-as-anyone-else trade in on the Impala. He said he’d think about it, and we left without making a deal.
I would have taken the Kia deal if it were me, but I had to let him go his own way, and I never told him I thought he was wrong. It was not going to be my vehicle anyway.
He wound up getting a Chevy Equinox for about the same altogether money deal as he could have gotten with Kia.
Oh, well, it was not my decision anyway. One thing that did not seem to move him towards the Kias was the Chevy manufacturer’s warranty was for less years and less miles than the Kias. That to me was another positive reason in favor of the Kia. But, I also did like the feel driving them more than the Chevys.
I also did not like the Chevy “eco boost” mode. It was not optional - you could adjust it but not totally turn it off. Essentially, Chevy got the MPG rating down to what they report for the Equinox, based on full-time use of their eco boost mode. What it does is when you bring the vehicle to a stop, the engine shuts down - completely except for the electric powered engine cooling fan. Then the engine starts back up when you step on the gas. So, the MPG rating comes in part from the fact that while driving around town, no matter what happens with traffic or traffic lights, the engine is never running unless you are moving.
KIa has “eco” modes in its models, but they are activated by a button that has to be pushed, and you can turn it off by pushing that button, while the mode is already in play on the Chevy Equinox.
The Chevy had two other features I found annoying. It had its own view of the car being too close to the car in front of it, and would begin beeping if it reached that point. It also thought that changing lanes could be a mistake anytime, and would start beeping anytime you were doing so. Toooo much nanny state features for me. The car manufacturers are using such features to practice and improve their “driverless car” technology, pending their eventual introduction of such cars.
We’ve owned three KIA Sportages (2010, 2013, & 2020) and have not had any issues with repairs. Very reliable. They’re not the fanciest or plushest vehicles, but for our purpose, they have been great.