Kia putting Chevrolet in its cross hairs

[Sixty8panther]

Kia's towering warranty is a lunge at consumers yet leary of one of the worse quality nameplates in automotive history. One hopes the eventual buyer's 'experience' is not augmented by 'mitsu-san' treatment of complaints: ignore, bury & lie for 25 years...

I can not even begin to tell you what a crock of $h! the Kia warranty really is. 100,000 for things like lugnuts while the $h! that actaully breaks is somehow always excluded. If some of you have any experience you KNOW waht I'm talkign about. Always an exclusion.

And when there isn't an exclusion you wait 3 weeks for the third trans. replacement on a car with 50K miles. That's quality. :AH-HA_wink:

[The O.C.]

Must you try to always disqualify any and all positives with GM's vehicles & Brands... while simultaneously defending one of the least reliable brands on the market? All this in a GM Fan Forum????

As FOG just stated, you act and talk as if “ANYTHING is better than GM” which is not the case. for example, you're so quick to call the Lucerne an "embarrassment to GM" yet you want to instantly elevate a Kia to an equal status of Honda/Toyota. Honda & Toyota both deservingly earned their reputations. Kia has earned its notoriously horrible reputation too. They've been worse than GM, even during the "dark 80's & 90's." GM's efforts and accomplishments over the past 10 years exhibit far more credibility and respect than just released vehicle(s) from Kia that aren't even in distribution yet. Potential is there, but your enthusiasm is no more valid or objective than passion exhibited by any other fan.

Fine....label me all you want. I don't really give a rats ass what anyone thinks of me on here.

I'll bite....YES, almost anything IS better than GM right now in many fundamental ways....with a few notable exceptions that GM deserves all the credit for.

There, I said it. Are you done? It's the truth....the unfortunate truth. The truth that NONE of us want to be....but it IS. It doesn't mean I still don't wish them well, or wish them success, or that I don't like the very GM products that I criticize........iIn most cases I do. Doesn't change the situation though.

I'm sick of all the blind loyalty on this site when it's directed harshly at people (such as me) that point out legitimite issues and concerns.....or deserved praise for a competitor's product. And, I'm sick of all the bashing of anything that presents the tiniest threat to GM's supposed dominence. It's what got them in trouble and it's what's keeping them in trouble.

I'm just as big a fan of GM as anyone, but I'm not willing to look past the fact that they are seriously uncompetitive on many levels today. That's why they are in the situation they are.

And I wasn't disqualifying anything positive about Buick and Cadillac's warranty. Obviously you didn't get my point about the warranty issue.

And secondly, where in my post did I elevate Kia to the same level as Honda and Toyota? Where? Please POINT IT OUT.

Lucerne? If you go back and research my original posts, I was one of the most positive posters on here about the car. After seeing it more, sitting in many of them, looking at the car and studying it, YES there is TONS of room for improvement. Much like my enthusiasm level for LaCrosse and Impala. And YES....the interior quality is embarrasing for a car that goes up to almost $40K....especially when it's sister-car, the DTS, does it just a bit better in all the right places.

There. Enough. Rant over.

[The O.C.]

Ok so I wasn't even aware there was a new Optima coming out....and I can't see anything saying it has been released already...so how have people driven it?  It's not even listed as being at any of the big auto shows.

It was at NAIAS. I sat in it there.

[regfootball]

They have better interiors than even some Toyotas and many american made vehicles, the new Sedona blows away many other minivans in power, refinement, features, price etc. They still have glove box lights, cig lighters, chrome trim, bodyside moldings even on there cheapest cars etc. There interiors and exteriors are very well put together. They share many parts with Hyundai who is recognised as making quality products etc. They use more modern and smooth shifting trannys than many competitors. They have better styling than Toyota in many cases.

nah, kia interiors are nasty across the board

read some of the recent rio reviews where they blast the car for being stripped when cheap and then expensive when having say, power windows.

kia is not there yet at all

[The O.C.]

nah, kia interiors are nasty across the board

read some of the recent rio reviews where they blast the car for being stripped when cheap and then expensive when having say, power windows.

kia is not there yet at all

.....you say that.....but when's the last time you sat in a Kia Spectra?

It's interior quality of materials, switchgear, seating comfort, and fit-and-finish are 10-times what the Cobalt offers.

Soft-touch (!) dash pad and door panels on the Kia (won't find that in the Chevy), nicely-grained plastics, comfy seats covered in a "plush" velour-type fabric, and classy-feeling center-stack (HVAC, radio) controls (won't find that in the Chevy either.)

That being the case, I still like the Cobalts styling inside-and-outside better and it's powertrains are more substantial.

But you simply cannot back up your claim that "kia interiors are nasty across the board."

[ponchoman49]

That is the 2006.5 Optima:

http://www.automobilemag.com/auto_shows/na...602_kia_optima/

I just saw a link on Kia's website for it.  Six airbags are standard but ESP is not standard.  ABS and TC are still options.  Engine is still the 2.7L V6 yet gets 185 hp...and the 4 cyl requires premium for some reason.  Overall...still not impressed. 

I'm curious though...as it says it is not yet available...how anyone has driven it.

Wow this is light years better looking than the new 07 Camry! To bad it's V6 powertrain isn't up to the Toyotas standards though.