2014 Kia Forte EX First Drive

Edmunds.comEdmunds.com Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 10,316
edited September 2014 in Kia

image2014 Kia Forte EX First Drive

Edmunds' First Drive of the 2014 Kia Forte EX. Includes on-road driving impressions, specifications and photos of Kia's redesigned compact economy sedan.

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Comments

  • corollamikecorollamike Member Posts: 29
    Like its Elantra sibling, this car's styling is balanced at every angle. You are correct in saying that good design sells cars. This car is what the Focus could have been, and what the next Corolla should be. KIA have hit the nail on the head with this one.
  • hank39hank39 Member Posts: 144
    Looks like Kia hit a home run with this iteration of the Forte.
  • hank39hank39 Member Posts: 144
    Looks like Kia hit a home run with this iteration of the Forte.
  • emajoremajor Member Posts: 332
    Like it's predecessor, it is a good looking car. Overall, it appears impressive, but this is the loaded version with the more powerful engine that probably stickers north of $22-24K. So it had better make a good impression. It will be interesting to see if this refinement and positive press carries down to the $18K volume model.

    I have to extend a middle finger at Kia for putting LED brake lights on this thing. Those are absolutely blinding at night and completely unnecessary.
  • eric_leric_l Member Posts: 7
    Very nice looking interior. Makes you wonder why the Focus has such a cluttered center stack and the Dart such as cluttered interior. They could all learn something from Kia.
  • motorstreetmotorstreet Member Posts: 23
    I think the 2.0L engine sounds good. 173hp is respectable and this sounds like a nicer engine than the Elantra has. Sounds like a pretty good car overall and should be a good value.
  • duck87duck87 Member Posts: 649
    The styling is much preferable to Hyundai's alien-fish fascia, and it seems like a decent car all around. In this segment, that means lots of sales.
  • us1us1 Member Posts: 1
    "Greeted with a wave or supple power that delivered a smooth getaway-plenty of scoot to merge safely-converse in a normal voice at 70 mph- supension easily soaked up bumps-etc", for a minute I thought you were describing the current VW Golf which has been on the market since 2007, plus 15 cubic feet of cargo space with full size spare tire and hidden storage space, soft touch cabin materials, outstancing stability and much more. You compare the Kia to the Focus and Cruze but never mention the superior Golf.
  • bassracerxbassracerx Member Posts: 188
    my only gripe is the twist beam rear suspension when some of the other cars in the class have multi link or strut rear suspension the twist beam seems like a letdown. but the elantra and other cars get by just fine with the twist beam so meh. the compact segment is a category that i can somewhat understand but personally would never purchase. there are subcompacts with more space (honda fit) and midsize cars that start very close to the midlevel price of these compacts that drive better and dont give up much if any mpgs.
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