Overview & Reviews

Kia Motors is a South Korean automaker that's relatively new to the United States. In its early years, Kia largely catered to budget-minded consumers with well-equipped vehicles priced below competing models. More recently, this growing brand has kept value a priority while also emphasizing technology and sportiness.

Founded in Korea in 1944, Kia started as a producer of steel tubing and bicycle parts. The company's name has its roots in the Chinese language, and means "to arise, to come up out of Asia." By the early 1950s, the company had produced Korea's first bicycle; by the latter part of the decade, Kia had branched out into motor scooters, with the rollout of the C100.

The 1960s saw Kia expanding its lineup to include motorcycles and three-wheeled cargo vehicles. Naturally, the next logical step was automobile production, and the company began moving in this direction in the early 1970s. By 1973, Kia had built a facility designed to make its automotive dreams a reality; its Sohari plant held the distinction of being Korea's first fully integrated automobile production facility, and went on to spawn Korea's first internal-combustion gasoline engine. A year later, Kia unveiled the Brisa, Korea's first passenger car. By the end of the decade, Kia's technology was being used to manufacture vehicles like the Peugeot 604 and the Fiat 132.

By the late '80s, Kia's lineup included new models like the Concord, Capital, Potentia and Pride. In 1987, Ford brought the Pride to U.S. shores, rebadging it as the Ford Festiva. Seven years later, Ford dealers got a replacement for the entry-level, subcompact Festiva in the form of another Kia constructed product, the Aspire.

Kia finally began selling vehicles in the U.S. under its own name in the early '90s, trumpeting its presence with the introduction of the compact Sephia. The car's rollout was gradual; in the early days of its production, the Sephia was only available in select Western states. By the mid-'90s, SUVs had emerged as a phenomenally popular and profitable vehicle segment. Kia responded with the 1995 Sportage, a compact SUV. By the end of the '90s, Kia's nationwide rollout was nearly complete.

Financial difficulties in the late '90s prevented Kia from expanding its lineup beyond those two models. Hyundai, South Korea's other major automaker, acquired the company in a merger in 1998.

Kia has been on a major upswing since its purchase by Hyundai, with improvements in build quality, performance and overall refinement. Reliability, previously a weak point, has also improved markedly and consumers' confidence was further bolstered by Kia's substantial warranty program. Today, Kia is on a dramatic upswing and offers a broad lineup of well-built coupes, sedans and crossovers that stand out for their value, performance and sporty styling.

User Reviews:

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  one thing after another - 2008 Kia Optima
  By bobbyhill - May 23 - 10:23 am

  iv had my car for just over a year, i bought it off my dad and he got it new in 08! in the last year i have had nothing but problems with it, first it was struts and sway bar links and bushings, then wheel bearing, and now the newest thing is my headlights like to burn out, replaced the passenger one 4 times now, at $25 a bulb for h11b its getting expensive, had it to the dealership and they want me to spend a bunch of $ to replace the headlamp assembly! iv been reading up on this and it seems it was a real issue in some of the older optimas, 02 especially! oh yeah, when i had it in there to look at headlight they told me the shift module had to be replaced, at $700 i passed, NOT IMPRESSED!!

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  Disappointed owner - 2004 Kia Sorento
  By Tanya DeMyer - May 23 - 5:26 am

  Ive had nothing but problems with the electrical - head/tail lights out every 3-4 months, clock, interior lights, thermometer for outside temp all stopped working. Exterior paint started chipping when the car was only 2 yrs old.

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  Dismal fuel economy - 2005 Kia Spectra
  By Reg Rothwell - May 16 - 10:23 pm

  Generally, nice car. Ranked higher than others in the same price range and body style (Sport suspension and 4- wheel disc brakes led me to choose it over the others). However, gas mileage is terrible (26 mpg with 1 person; 21 mpg with 2 people - consistently so for 42,000 miles). Of course, Kia is unwilling to address the problem. Totally defeated the purpose for buying the car. Adding to the problem, it requires 91 octane.

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  Why NOT to buy this vehicle - 2001 Kia Sportage
  By misspriss - April 19 - 7:33 pm

  Since about a month after buying my Kia Sportage I have had nothing but problems- the timing belt almost completely broke, parts have broken, and the gas mileage is awful. While it is good looking and somewhat fun to drive, I am not sure I would wish this vehicle on my worst enemy. The only positive is the 4WD was nice in the winter, but the car was still all over the road. Just under a year after purchase, I am trading it in!

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  Safety defect in manual transmission - 2005 Kia Sorento
  By Rick - April 15 - 11:00 am

  We have a highly intermittent problem with manual tranny. From time to time we cant shift gears or get the car to move which puts us in a dangerous situation (has happened downshifting in intersections, upshifting pulling out into traffic, etc.)/ As this is a safety defect we are seriously concerned & have reported the problem to KIA & NHTSA. Due to it being an intermittent one, unfortunately when KIA has test driven it they cannot duplicate the problem and refuse to take further action to diagnose the transmission and related components. We are concerned if we trade/sell we are passing an unsafe car to another unsuspecting consumer but we may have no other choice due to KIAs indifference.

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  You will pay for that warranty - 2002 Kia Sedona
  By KILLE IN ACTION -KIA - April 9 - 9:40 pm

  Own a 2002 KIA Sedona EX. I complained about lights going dim while under warranty. Kia checked, said everything within parameters. Guess what, 3000 miles out of warranty alternator died. KIA says its on you now. 63,000 miles and they want $565.00 to repair; that includes alternator, belts and labor. Its not a repair you can do either, seems AC lines are in the way. Do you think KIA planned it? Ask them about changing spark plugs the rear 3, seems you need to remove the air intake manifold? That will require new gaskets? Not sure of that cost. I hope to dump this Sedona by then! Think twice before you buy, they will get you to pay for that supposedly free 5year/60000 bumper to bumper warranty. RIPOFF.

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  Kia Sportage KX-3 SatNav auto awd , poor fuel consumption - 2012 Kia Sportage
  By pgw2811 - March 29 - 11:56 pm

  July 2012 .. I have just returned a Kia Sportage KX-3 SatNav automatic awd 2 litre diesel after not being able to get more than 30mpg with it , driving it at 70mph and 2000 revs on a more less flat smooth road . Kia advertise 47.9 mpg extra urban with the car I had with the 18 inch wheels , obviously this figure would be at 60 mph , even at that speed I still only got a fraction over 30 mpg . With this I phoned Kia customer service and spoke to someone who said his name was J V or J G , after explaining everything , I have never had such a not interested attitude in my life after buying a £25000 vehicle . After saying , I would like to get an honest opinion please on a very poor fuel consumption that I am getting with the Kia Sportage that I have just paid £24,995 for and certainly not happy with the fuel consumption . All I got at the end was take it back to the Kia dealer ...I did that and got just the same not interested attitude , we are too busy to look at it , it will be 6 weeks before we can look at it , then send a technical report to Kia , then we maybe get the response back from them in a couple of weeks or so . With that , I had , had enough and quoted sale of goods act 1979 , that it does not do what you advertise and I want my car back that I traded in . Whether I got my car back because they had not sold it or because I quoted the sale of goods act or they were going to get more profit out of me , I don’t know which , but I was glad to get rid of that diesel guzzler . I certainly will not be buying anything with a Kia name on it again as there after sales customer interest is zero .

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  The Good, the Bad & the Ugly... - 2004 Kia Rio
  By Single Mom w/2 teens - March 16 - 7:43 am

  My car is only two months *new*. I have a 4-door sedan, automatic, air- cond., am/fm/cd and the upgrade pkg. but no power windows/doorlocks. A bit hard getting used to NOT having those in a car but I can live without it. There is plenty of interior space for those sitting up front, however, those sitting in back have relatively NO LEG ROOM. Door handles etc. inside are obviously cheap plastic and somewhat ugly though functional. Engine needs more power, especially driving uphill on freeways as well as simply trying to pick up speed to merge onto a freeway or to pass other vehicles. Fuel economy is great! Overall decent and driveable car for the price.

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  Buy a coleman grill instead - 2012 Kia Forte
  By krkelsoe - March 12 - 8:08 pm

  Well, I bought mine brand new in December. Took her off the lot with 33 miles. I added a lowering kit, 20" wheels, and exhaust. I loved that car. It was fun to drive, but pretty slow. Still really caught a lot of looks though... But then I was driving home from buying bread last week and she went up in flames in mere minutes. Not sure what happened, and its under investigation with Kia. It only had 8,900 miles on it. Just feel like people should know. If I had kids in the back or was disabled or slow-moving, there could have been serious injuries.

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  Temperamental, unreliable BSD system - 2016 Kia Sorento
  By Cecile - March 4 - 2:39 pm

  We bought this beautiful, expensive car specifically for the added safety features. From the start, we have had ongoing problems with the blind spot detection system. It randomly fails. This happens under all types of road and weather conditions, without warning. The system sometimes spontaneously resets itself, and sometimes it does not. Our smart key entry also failed once. We could not enter the vehicle with either of our smart keys...we had to pull out the manual key to get into the car. On another occasion, the entire sound system failed! This lasted until we turned the car off and restarted it. Needless to say, our vehicle has been in and out of the dealership service area many times...with absolutely no resolution to the problem. This is the most beautiful, most expensive, and most unreliable car that we have ever owned. KIA should replace the car with a reliable one!