Here is the article in its entirety!
This, my friends, is a car review. It will likely not interest the majority of you but it may assist someone, somewhere out in the land of Internet, in making a vehicle purchase and so I shall post it.
I have owned, or regularly driven, a fairly significant number of cars over the years – from a Ford Focus to a Jeep Grand Cherokee and all the way down the list to the Corvette Stingray. I love to drive and I do it very well, despite my inability to adhere to a speed limit, and a good car only enhances the experience for me.
The flip side is that I’m concerned about the environment, and despite not commuting to a job or driving frequently I still want to use as little gasoline as possible when I do need to get somewhere. I also don’t want to spend a lot of money on a car in general – from purchase to repairs.
Once we knew we were adopting, it was time to make some decisions about our vehicles. We owned a 2004 4-door Echo that was getting high in mileage and which we still owed a significant amount of money before it would belong to us. We also had a 2002 2-door Echo that was smaller (and not so great for kids) but which had lower mileage and was fully paid off.
Our discussion evolved and we decided that we needed at least one vehicle with a lot of cargo space and leg-room for the kids and the dogs and the miscellanea that accompanies most families when they venture away from home. We traded in the 4-door and kept the 2-door for my husband’s daily commute.
Noting our requirements, I began searching the new and used car ads and making comparisons between car companies, prices, options and warranties. Kia kept coming up – over and over – with high rankings in customer satisfaction in the past few years.
I confess: I had a negative opinion of Kia. From day one I was under the impression that Kia was a “cheap throw-away” car and that they weren’t known for their longevity. The cars seemed unattractive to me and, after some time, they fell off my radar altogether.
In more recent years I’ve come to know a few people who own(ed) a Kia and who were extremely pleased with their purchase. I began to research the company and the cars. I learned that Hyundai owns Kia and that Hyundai, too, has been getting rave reviews lately. I found a few negative reviews, of course, but the overwhelming majority were positive.
Earlier this month I purchased a 2007 Kia Spectra5 from the local dealership. It was, without question, the easiest car purchase ever. There was no haggling, just a discussion, and there was no point in the process that I felt uncomfortable or uncertain. We traded in our old car, purchased the new one (with 0% financing) and got a fantastic warranty to boot. EASILY. That’s a strong point in favour of Kia.
After a few days’ wait (for the car I wanted to arrive at the dealership) we returned and picked up the car. No further paperwork to sign and, even better, they had already plated the car with my personalized plates that I had dropped off a few days earlier. I shook the sales rep’s hand and drove home.
Having had the car for a few weeks and driving around, I will say this: for the price we paid (about $27K) it is unspeakably luxurious and packed with standard ‘options’. Power windows, power heated mirrors, mp3 cd player with built-in iPod connection, dark tinted windows, cruise control all make for a pretty comfortable environment. The stereo has pretty decent sound, too!
The upholstery is not the world’s most comfortable, though perhaps it will break itself in and become softer. Right now it’s quite plasticky (which could also be partially attributed to the stain-protectant, perhaps) but the structure of the seats is excellent. I haven’t had the chance to ride in the back seat at all yet, but there is a lot of leg room.
There are no cup holders in the rear which I found rather strange. My husband tells me that it may not necessarily be a bad thing if the kids can’t take grape juice in the car. I’m sad, though, that there are no back-of-the-seat pockets to hold maps or small toys. We’ll need to purchase something from Canadian Tire to accomodate those items.
The handling is so smooth it feels decadent; I can take curves at a significantly higher speed than in any previous car (other than the Corvette) without feeling any wobble or tilt. Not that I’d speed on a curve, of course. Nuh uh. Still, it’s a really gentle ride. The turn radius is quite tight and that makes getting into and out of small spots quite easy.
The clutch (my car is manual – real women drive stick dont’cha know?) is extremely responsive – leading me to some fabulous engine revving the first few times I restarted from a full-stop. “Look ma! The lady in the Kia wants to race you!” It’s extremely comfortable to shift and also totally effortless. It is what my father would call “fingertip shifting” enabled.
Cargo space in the rear is not as fabulous as I’d like but that’s to be expected in a car with ample leg room in the rear. To keep the small profile, something had to be sacrificed. The car has a hidden spare tire and all the appropriate tools. There’s also cargo-area cover that’s removable (enabling you to carry more in the back) and the rear seats fold completely flat after you flip up the seat portion. All told, I’m satisfied with the cargo space but not elated, y’know?
Greatly amusing, to me, is that the gas tank is approximately 80 kabillion liters in capacity. It takes forever to fill, costs a lot to fill, but will not require frequent trips to the gas station. If you worked at it, I’m certain you could arrange to purchase gas only at the times when the price is down and save a little bit of money on your overall costs. I like this.
All told and all considered, I’d rate the Kia Spectra5 a solid 9 out of 10. It’s missing a few non-essential luxuries but it’s so unbelievably great in every other way that I couldn’t possibly take off any other points. Time will tell if it will hold up, of course, and I may have other issues once the kids are installed into car seats in the back seat, but for now I am exceptionally happy with our purchase. Go Kia!
I have owned, or regularly driven, a fairly significant number of cars over the years – from a Ford Focus to a Jeep Grand Cherokee and all the way down the list to the Corvette Stingray. I love to drive and I do it very well, despite my inability to adhere to a speed limit, and a good car only enhances the experience for me.
The flip side is that I’m concerned about the environment, and despite not commuting to a job or driving frequently I still want to use as little gasoline as possible when I do need to get somewhere. I also don’t want to spend a lot of money on a car in general – from purchase to repairs.
Once we knew we were adopting, it was time to make some decisions about our vehicles. We owned a 2004 4-door Echo that was getting high in mileage and which we still owed a significant amount of money before it would belong to us. We also had a 2002 2-door Echo that was smaller (and not so great for kids) but which had lower mileage and was fully paid off.
Our discussion evolved and we decided that we needed at least one vehicle with a lot of cargo space and leg-room for the kids and the dogs and the miscellanea that accompanies most families when they venture away from home. We traded in the 4-door and kept the 2-door for my husband’s daily commute.
Noting our requirements, I began searching the new and used car ads and making comparisons between car companies, prices, options and warranties. Kia kept coming up – over and over – with high rankings in customer satisfaction in the past few years.
I confess: I had a negative opinion of Kia. From day one I was under the impression that Kia was a “cheap throw-away” car and that they weren’t known for their longevity. The cars seemed unattractive to me and, after some time, they fell off my radar altogether.
In more recent years I’ve come to know a few people who own(ed) a Kia and who were extremely pleased with their purchase. I began to research the company and the cars. I learned that Hyundai owns Kia and that Hyundai, too, has been getting rave reviews lately. I found a few negative reviews, of course, but the overwhelming majority were positive.
Earlier this month I purchased a 2007 Kia Spectra5 from the local dealership. It was, without question, the easiest car purchase ever. There was no haggling, just a discussion, and there was no point in the process that I felt uncomfortable or uncertain. We traded in our old car, purchased the new one (with 0% financing) and got a fantastic warranty to boot. EASILY. That’s a strong point in favour of Kia.
After a few days’ wait (for the car I wanted to arrive at the dealership) we returned and picked up the car. No further paperwork to sign and, even better, they had already plated the car with my personalized plates that I had dropped off a few days earlier. I shook the sales rep’s hand and drove home.
Having had the car for a few weeks and driving around, I will say this: for the price we paid (about $27K) it is unspeakably luxurious and packed with standard ‘options’. Power windows, power heated mirrors, mp3 cd player with built-in iPod connection, dark tinted windows, cruise control all make for a pretty comfortable environment. The stereo has pretty decent sound, too!
The upholstery is not the world’s most comfortable, though perhaps it will break itself in and become softer. Right now it’s quite plasticky (which could also be partially attributed to the stain-protectant, perhaps) but the structure of the seats is excellent. I haven’t had the chance to ride in the back seat at all yet, but there is a lot of leg room.
There are no cup holders in the rear which I found rather strange. My husband tells me that it may not necessarily be a bad thing if the kids can’t take grape juice in the car. I’m sad, though, that there are no back-of-the-seat pockets to hold maps or small toys. We’ll need to purchase something from Canadian Tire to accomodate those items.
The handling is so smooth it feels decadent; I can take curves at a significantly higher speed than in any previous car (other than the Corvette) without feeling any wobble or tilt. Not that I’d speed on a curve, of course. Nuh uh. Still, it’s a really gentle ride. The turn radius is quite tight and that makes getting into and out of small spots quite easy.
The clutch (my car is manual – real women drive stick dont’cha know?) is extremely responsive – leading me to some fabulous engine revving the first few times I restarted from a full-stop. “Look ma! The lady in the Kia wants to race you!” It’s extremely comfortable to shift and also totally effortless. It is what my father would call “fingertip shifting” enabled.
Cargo space in the rear is not as fabulous as I’d like but that’s to be expected in a car with ample leg room in the rear. To keep the small profile, something had to be sacrificed. The car has a hidden spare tire and all the appropriate tools. There’s also cargo-area cover that’s removable (enabling you to carry more in the back) and the rear seats fold completely flat after you flip up the seat portion. All told, I’m satisfied with the cargo space but not elated, y’know?
Greatly amusing, to me, is that the gas tank is approximately 80 kabillion liters in capacity. It takes forever to fill, costs a lot to fill, but will not require frequent trips to the gas station. If you worked at it, I’m certain you could arrange to purchase gas only at the times when the price is down and save a little bit of money on your overall costs. I like this.
All told and all considered, I’d rate the Kia Spectra5 a solid 9 out of 10. It’s missing a few non-essential luxuries but it’s so unbelievably great in every other way that I couldn’t possibly take off any other points. Time will tell if it will hold up, of course, and I may have other issues once the kids are installed into car seats in the back seat, but for now I am exceptionally happy with our purchase. Go Kia!
In response to the above article
ReplyDeleteDriving Instructor on 11 October 08 at 9:50 am
I work as a professional driving instructor here in Canada and use the Kia Spectra 5 SX 2007 to teach in. I do agree that it’s only on the upper model that you’ll find cup holders in the back. They place them at the bottom of the middle console between the two front seats. In addition they place mesh seat-back pockets to hold small items.
My car is also standard, in my opinion it’s the only way to drive ;-)
I have to agree that this car runs super smooth. It’s also definitely finger tip shift enabled and is actually shifts smoother then most standard vehicles out there. The reason for my comment is due mostly to feedback from my students. Most of them have standard vehicles at home from Mazda 3′s to Subaru WRX’s and other cars way beyond the price point of a Kia Spectra 5 and yet they always note how much smoother and easy it is to shift in my car.
In addition to smooth shifting it’s also a smooth ride, rock solid and takes corners like there’s no tomorrow. I had put some high performance low profile tires on the car and it increases the handling even more. I’ve found that the Kia Spectra 5 is also a very quiet car. Ambient noise is very low and students always forget that the car is running when we’re stopped. If you’ve ever heard the sound that the starter makes when you try to start a car that’s already running it’s not pleasant.
My car takes a beating and suffers hardships on a daily basis. On a good day my car is stalled at least 20 times, on bad days over 100 times. I’m amazed at the fact that I still haven’t had to replace the starter. Students are also wickedly hard on the clutch and gears. They’ll pull the shifter out of gear without clutching and then try to ram it into the next gear. Some students also have a nasty habit of accelerating out of second to ram it back into first gear instead of third. Even though first gear will red-line close to 60 KM/h students take their foot off the clutch too fast and it’s always a shocker to them. You can imagine how hard this is on the clutch.
I don’t really understand why they do this since I always run through all the gears with them, have them practice with the car off, demonstrate the fact that with just a finger you can gently pull it out of gear (with the clutch in of course) and it will stop at neutral. Then it’s just a matter of moving the shifter appropriately to the next gear.
At any rate the whole point is that this car is amazingly durable. I have still yet to replace the starter, brakes or the clutch. The car still shifts smoothly and the synchro-mesh gears are still doing their job.
As far as mileage goes I’ve filled up the tank before and driven 825 KM before hitting empty. This exceeds the manufacturers specs for gas mileage. That was accomplished driving 80% freeway and 20% city driving. The beautiful thing with standard cars is that using some economy driving techniques you can stretch a tank of gas out much further.
Like yourself I’ve also experienced awesome service from Kia. It’s always a pleasure and never a hassle to deal with them.