Edmunds dealer partner, Bayway Leasing, is now offering transparent lease deals via these forums. Click here to see the latest vehicles!
Kia Optima 2006 and earlier
Check out both Kia's web site and September 2000
issue of AUTOMOBILE magazine to learn about Kia's
upcoming release of their new Optima sedan, their
version of Hyundai's Sonata. Web site has a
picture. To come out with engines now in use in
Sonata: 2.4L I-4 and 2.5L V-6.
Will be interesting to see how Hyundai and Kia try
to differentiate and market these two corporate
cousins. Check out Sonata postings to get flavor
of how us Sonata owners feel about our cars.
Will the Kia steal sales from Hyundai, which has
seen them explode in U.S. over past year? Will
anyone even notice that Kia has a larger sedan?
Only time will tell.
issue of AUTOMOBILE magazine to learn about Kia's
upcoming release of their new Optima sedan, their
version of Hyundai's Sonata. Web site has a
picture. To come out with engines now in use in
Sonata: 2.4L I-4 and 2.5L V-6.
Will be interesting to see how Hyundai and Kia try
to differentiate and market these two corporate
cousins. Check out Sonata postings to get flavor
of how us Sonata owners feel about our cars.
Will the Kia steal sales from Hyundai, which has
seen them explode in U.S. over past year? Will
anyone even notice that Kia has a larger sedan?
Only time will tell.
Tagged:
0
Comments
then it is definitely better looking than Sonata.
can you please post the website.
BTW, I notice Kias now carry the same excellent warranty as the Hyundai Advantage. Even though I worry a little about the two name plates vying for the same customer pool, I think HMA stands to gain a bigger market share in the long run. That is, as long as HMA design enough differentiation between the two cars. Examples:
1. Give Sonata more "upscale" trim packages and make Optima the entry level value winner, a la Audi A4 and the VW Passat.
2. Tune the Optima as a family sedan with a compliant ride, and tweak the Sonata into a no-compromise sports 4dr sedan.
3. Differentiate various models with engine choices:
Optima: 2.4L I4 standard, 2.5L V6 optional
Sonata: 2.5L V6 standard, 2.7L V6 optional
In addition, make an "ultimate" Sonata model in the same vein as the Audi S-cars and BMW M-cars. Force-feed the 2.5L V6 with twin turbo chargers or shoehorn the 3.0L V6 from the XG300 into it. 1" lowered sport suspension and 17" alloys shod with 235/40ZR17s. Call it the Requiem, for the other imports, that is.
Uhh... sorry about the puddle of drool. Let me clean that up here. :-)
Kia should be to Hyundai as Chevrolet is to Pontiac. Let Kia sell more on price/value and Hyundai on sport & luxury. But they have to be careful to preserve real price and option differentials. If they are mere clones, they'll drag down each other's sales by cannibalizing at each other's dealers. Lower per unit per dealer sales would cripple expansion plans.
and it looks great too. I have seen these cars in person when I was living in Sydney. I just do not understand why KIA is not bringing them to USA.
Instead they choose to sell you bland cars kinda like Honda and Toyota. Are American tastes this
bland? Check out the KIA Mentor (Sephia Equivalent)
http://www.kia.co.nz/mentor.htm
http://www.kia.co.nz/Credos.htm
Not sure I'd say American tastes are bland. Unfortunately our market is moving away from cars to trucks, SUVs, and vans. I don't care for any of these. Give me a sports car or sports sedan any day!
Though this isn't politically correct, I believe another terrible problem in US is that most cars are automatics. Far too many (if not most) driver education programs don't even use manual transmissions. My wife along with lots of other wives in my rural Iowa town routinely tell me they can't drive sticks and don't want to learn.
About 80 plus percent of our cars and even higher percentages of SUVs, trucks, and vans come with slushboxes. Try to find a 4-door V-6 with manual transmission. Good luck. Whole models no longer come with manuals (e.g., Ford Taurus, Chevy Impala/Malibu, Cadillacs, etc.). That is why it is absolutely critical for both Hyundai and Kia to build and adequately market sufficient V-6s with manuals.
Americans have forgotten how fun cars can be to drive when they have a manual transmission. Since too few view cars for their driving pleasure, we don't get them styled to appeal to that same side. Maybe that leads to blandness?
All I know from the history books is that the 60s muscle car era had lots of powerful cars that could be ordered with manuals and they had style. We lost it when the era died and are slowly recovering from the dead 70s and 80s.
Sorry.
http://www.kia.co.nz/mentor.htm
Both interior and exterior of Mentor is better than Sephia.
BTW, I used to live in Australia between 1995-1998. I owned a Daewoo Cielo back then. Currently
I own a Daewoo Leganza and a Daewoo Nubira.
http://www.theautochannel.com/cybercast/2000autoshows/sflias/images/mvc-147s.jpg
BTW my very first car was KIA built Ford Festiva
and I drove it for 4 years with Zero mechanical
problems.
I think that is exactly HMA's intention for introducing the XG300. From what I've read, Hyundai Motors has been wanting to bring an upscale vehicle range to NA for a while now but have been apprehensive about its own quality control and NA public acceptance. I think the timing could not be better.
I think you're right that Hyundai doesn't have a lot of experience with high-end sports cars, although Hyundai Motorsports has been campaigning a successful Tiburon Rally team. So that may be changing soon.
Hyundai does have experience, however, building luxury cars, so perhaps they are moving upscale from that end with the XG. It's a smart decision. We'll just have to wait for the sports sedan a little longer.
BTW, I also agree about the proliferation of slushboxes on this continent. I have so far owned only 5sp vehicles - the Sonata is no exception. I'm very fortunate to have found a wife that comes with 5sp driving ability, standard. :-)
That is changing now though. Thanks to the seemingly undying economic boom, people are starting to demand style to go with the reliability. Witness the popularity of the New Beetle and the PT Cruizer. Both are from makers still at the bottom of just about everybody's reliability scale, but sell like hotcakes nonetheless.
Okay, I'd better shut up now. Boy, did I go off-topic. What was the topic again? ;-)
As far as the interior, sorry mate, they have the same dashboard design and switch locations. The only difference is the color of the cloth and possibly the dashboard. Otherwise, once again, the Mentor and Sephia/Spectra are exactly alike. I think you are a bit blinded by your undying love for the Australian car market and how much better your perceive it to be than the US market. I suggest opening 2 browsers so you can compare the 2 websites at the same time and see for yourself that they are the same cars.
The Spectra is indeed the same as Mentor. Sephia
is different though. I did not know KIA started selling Spectra. The current Spectra(MEntor) model
has been available in Australia since 1998.
And yes I love the Australian car market. It has more car choices. Can I get an Alfa Romeo Twin spark in USA? Can I get a Peugeot or a Renault
or a SEAT or a FIAT or a Citroen? Have you seen the cars Ford and GM are coming up with in Australia? When I arrived in Canada in 1998 I was really depressed when I went out car shopping. All
I saw were ugly boxes. Sorry to go off topic,
but I really do wish I was still living in Sydney.
Too bad that my wife's entire family lives in Canada.
If Hyundai can't get its suspensions to behave with more sophistication, then all the luxury accoutrements won't help it win luxury laurels. Luxury buyers don't want wallowy, floaty rides. They want precision and control, though not at the price of excessive harshness.
This is the type area Hyundai needs to keep in mind when trying to differentiate Kia from Hyundai. Kia should be the softer, floatier, more US interstate-type ride while Hyundai moves both to more sporty version as well as more controlled luxury version. I pray they don't just use same suspension/tire setting for both makes.
Curiously, I actually prefer the suspension setup of the Sonata base GL to that of the GLS. The GL seemed more stable and composed at highway speeds (50-70mph). I don't think I'm injecting any ownership bias into this, as I had arrived at this impression from test drives even before I bought my car. Perhaps it's the different shocks, the tire/wheel combinations or maybe the weight distribution due to different engines. I'm not sure.
I don't think Hyundai could do wrong by giving the Optima the same suspension settings, but I agree it would be better to differentiate the pair a little more than just sheetmetal.
Point is, unless any of us are blatantly flame baiting here, I'd like to hear y'all's opinions.
That is the sort of fine tuning I'm talking about. Maybe the Kia would keep the beginner's suspension set up. Hyundai doesn't need to makes its version overly aggressive. Just need to give it a bit more composure. Then, once they have done that, Hyundai could add a harder, sportier sport sedan version.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy driving my GLS V-6 w/5-speed and ABS. Just took me a while to get to know the suspension's quirks and foibles. All cars have them. Once I did, and knew what she could and couldn't comfortably do, I now find her fun to drive. Some of the "fun", though, comes from fact she needs more driver skill to get her to do what comes more naturally to other, more poised vehicles.
only car I had mechanical problems with was my wife's ex-car. A chevy Lumina. The power steering
went at 30,000 miles. The front axle went at 80,000 miles. I immediately traded it in for a 2000 Daewoo Nubira CDX. I am not used to having mechanical problems with my cars. I panicked. But hey I am an idiot right? I drive Korean cars!
My second Korean option personally would be the KIA's. I think the Credos and Spectra look great.
I actually sat in a Credos at the Sydney auto show
in 1998. Loved it.
Personally I think KIA is still lagging behind Daewoo and Hyundai in most aspect. I cant phantom how much money Hyundai will be losing after upgrading KIA warranty to 10/100K. Oh well, as long as they can pull it off...
jkobty, I must say I agree with you about the Daewoos been better in the styling department. I've always said that Hyundai needs to develop a familial resemblance in all its cars. There is something to be said about the elegance of an enduring corporate facade. Daewoo has done just that with all its cars. Hyundai and Kia really should follow suit.
The Optima will be the "flagship" of Kia's North American fleet. It would be a good chance for it to redefine the styling for the rest of the lineup.
This article is the perfect explanation for why Sonatas should only be bought with manual transmissions. Buying a manual transmission will completely overcome the problematic automatic transmission and do wonders for acceleration, negating to a great extent the low end torque concern.
However, there's no fixin' the handling issues with any OEM option. That is the key area Hyundia and Kia need to address in both Sonata/Optima and XG 300 platforms. (Aussie review of XG 300 reads like C&D Review of Sonata suspension.)
Hope they keep up these results and that it bodes well for new Kia Optima, Hyundai XG 300 & Santa Fe, and the other models slated to come out in near future.
They judged the car on what it really is. A decent family sedan. Trying to judge a family car as a sports sedan is plain rediculous, and a blatant attempt by the media to discourage buyers.
I have no faith in magazines that rely on advertising for survival. They have to brown nose and kiss [non-permissible content removed] all the time.
Judging a family sedan by sports sedan standards is indeed preposterous. So too is faulting a car costing $15,000 for being less refined than one stickers for $20,000. I'm sure when the Optima gets reviewed by the car rags, they will undoubtedly find all sorts of excuses to pin the car in what they perceive as the proper pecking order against the other major players.
You might find it under video downloads. or archives.
At least Hyundai financial results are positive. Financial Times and NY Times both reported last week the Hyundai presented a credible plan to spin off Hyundai Motor Cars and to get the founder to sell off about 6% of the company (he currently owns about 9%). That should ensure financial solvency for many years to come!
Usually Kia's model have had a fine handling and had a little bit hard suspension...because they had a special relationship with Lotus for a lon time...(almost all kia's suspension was tuned by lotus..) So, handling of kia cars was better than that of hyundais..
On the other hand Hyundai have tuned the suspension by themselves except Tiburon which is completely tuned by porshe...
Usually Hyundai set their suspension softer than competitors because of Korean's favor... Many koreans prefer soft sus to hard sus....
Sonata have been a No1 best selling car in Korean domestic market and to sell more car hyundai just follows the major consumers favor...
Anyway..optima..
Actually I have been in VA for two months as an exchange student...
So, I haven't seen real optima on the road yet.. but according to the Korean magazine, optima is better than sonata in everything except same powertrain...and of course more expensive than sonata...
Basically it includes
ABS,AIRBAG
steptronic 4-speed AT(same one as santa fe use..)
Trip computer
Electronic control suspension..
rain sensor..
wood steering wheel..
LCD cluster instrument panel
GPS Navigator
CD CHANGER...
AQS...
and so on...
The top line of optima's price is almost $20,000 in Korea....
Has anyone seen any firm pricing data? Anyone seen one on road or at a dealer's lot? Thinking they won't be out until Dec or Jan but you never know.
Hyundai and Kia need to do a better job getting the word out in the press about the Optima.
"will come with either a 2.4L, 4-cylinder engine (149 hp) or a 2.5L V6 (170 hp) ... Two trim levels will be offered: the base LX, which includes AC, PW/PL/PM and intermittent wipers; and the top-of-the-line SE, which adds alloy wheels with Michelin tires, heated exterior mirrors, FOG LIGHTS, moon roof, keyless entry with alarm, cruise control, premium stereo with cassette and CD player, leather-wrapped steering wheel, 8-way power driver's seat and wood interior trim. V6 models get 4-wheel disc brakes, while 4-cylinder models have front discs and rear drums. Standalone options include 4-speed automatic transmission, ABS, cruise control, and leather interior."
Finally fog lights!!! Nice to see that both ABS and leather can be standalone options. Thus people can get ABS without having to go with a Hyundai loaded Pkg 13. Too bad no sport suspension or 16" tire upgrade!!!
But, there's about 250 miles between the Kia & Hyundai dealer, so I'm guessing I'll see more Kias for now...
It's a CVT transmission.
However if you put selector on step-tronic mode, you can use 6-speed manual function.
This is $1500 option on top notch model of optima
There are some nice pictures of the 2002 Sonata out. It is quite a looker. Optima is more conservative while Sonata is tastefully flashy.
I had hoped Hyundai and Kia would differentiate this platform more on the basis of sport. One might have a more aggressive suspension and some performance/handling upgrades. If you are correct, maybe Kia wants to lure the attractive sex its way while Hyundai gets Joe Sixpack?
"sales of the new Rio compact sedan boosted Kia's 2000 sales to 160,606, its best ever, a 19 percent increase over 1999. Kia plans to introduce a Rio station wagon and the Sedona minivan in the U.S. next year."