2012 Kia Optima: My impressions

[VTEC_Inside]

Just spent a week and 700+ miles with one of these things. Wanted to share my experience.

First thing that jumped out was that it can be a difficult car to see out of. Second, the Kia needs to spend some time on their electric power steering calibrations.

The engine made an acceptable amount of power, but kinda sounded like shit whenever you could hear it. The gf agreed that it sounded EXACTLY like her moms 2.2L 1997 Cavalier 4 banger. At idle it did almost sound like a diesel, no doubt because of the direct injection, but sounds like something is wrong on a gas engine. Fortunately, at cruising speeds its very quiet.

No complaints overall about the transmission, but here is an area that it could have benefited from a little more advanced programming as well. Nothing like having the cruise set going up a long hill and watching it struggle in 6th, downshift to 5th, accelerate, up shift to 6th, strugglle.... and repeat. Strangely, a switch to manual mode forcing it to stay in 5th didn't shut off the cruise. I figured for sure this would have shut off the cruise.

On the topic of the cruise, I found it pretty annoying that the master "switch" was defaulted to off every time you restart the car, but the "ECO" switch stayed where ever you left it.

I really appreciated the engine/trans behavior with that ECO mode on. It did at times make the car feel very sluggish, but it was also nice to accelerate without it needlessly kicking down a gear. With the ECO mode off, the throttle response/trans were quite lively, almost to the point of making it difficult to take off civilly, but then you also heard more of the coarse sounding engine too, so I preferred to leave it on.

With ECO set to on the majority of the time I managed just over 30mpg according to the trip computer. It was at 32mpg until a bit more city driving.

I found it ok to drive with the one big exception being the steering. I would use the word schizophrenic to describe it. I thought the car had a pull at one point, but that wasn't the case. Very responsive on center to the point of being nervous, you kinda just wanted to keep a finger on it to keep it pointed in the right direction, any more and you're fighting the inputs created by the blood pulsing through your hands. I could have forgiven that nervousness a bit if the car was more playful. Unfortunately, my few attempts at "corner" carving resulted in fairly large body movements almost in contradiction with the initial response.

Closing one of the back doors, I had to re-open it because I thought I had caught the seat belt. I did it a couple more times right there to confirm that, nope, that's just what it sounded like. I actually looked for chipped paint inside the door jamb. Plenty of room inside. Seats were ok, but took some time to adjust. Height and lumbar adjustment on the drivers seat were welcome, but I found myself fidgeting with them after an hour or so to get comfortable again. I didn't realize how high I had it set until a short trip in the passenger seat. I felt like the front man in an Apache. On that note, placing larger items in the passenger door pocket means that the glove box hits them after opening about an inch and wont open any more. To be fair, if whatever you have in there fits properly its not a problem, but with a large Pepsi bottle kinda sticking out on an angle it got really annoying to have to open the door to open the glove box.

Another nitpick. In what seemed a fairly feature laden car, the omission of auto climate bugged me. I really don't understand how this feature hasn't become standard in the quest for fuel economy. Anywhere you'd use the A/C it should help.

Overall not a horrible car, but the devil is in the details. A few small changes could make this a car I wouldn't mind owning if I was in the market for such a vehicle. That said, I'll admit that I have a difficult to shake negative brand perception of Kia. I'll probably need a few more years to work on that.

[cawimmer430]

Auto Motor und Sport just compared the Kia Optima to the Renault Laguna.

The review wasn't very kind to the Kia in all other departments. The Laguna beat it in every single category except for value-for-money and warranty. At the same time, the Optima represents basically the only kind of car in its class that offers an impressive size/interior space combination for so little money.

[WookieOnRitalin]

I always liked the Optima. Seems disappointing that your experience was sub par.

How was the interior?

Auto Climate and Power Seats are high my lists of standard features. The system on the Kizashi is almost dumby proof. The most complicated part of the vehicle is operating the bluetooth, but once you figure it out its not so bad. From what I hear, the Soul, Sportage, and Sorento are all pretty damn good for their price points.

[Payman]

Hmm, I test drove a loaded 2.0T last summer and loved it... except for the steering, which I found no worse than any other electric boosted system currently on the market. Haven't heard the basic 4 cyl, but the turbo was quiet, with a nice growl when you put your foot down.

[VTEC_Inside]

I always liked the Optima. Seems disappointing that your experience was sub par.

How was the interior?

Auto Climate and Power Seats are high my lists of standard features. The system on the Kizashi is almost dumby proof. The most complicated part of the vehicle is operating the bluetooth, but once you figure it out its not so bad. From what I hear, the Soul, Sportage, and Sorento are all pretty damn good for their price points.

The interior was decent. Though with only 2800miles on it when I picked it up it was obvious that a tan interior was probably not a good idea for rental duty.

I'm curious to try a Sonata now for comparison. Its a little more than $2500 more expensive here (comparing base autos), so I'd like to see how many of the cons that takes care of compared to the Optima.

[VTEC_Inside]

Hmm, I test drove a loaded 2.0T last summer and loved it... except for the steering, which I found no worse than any other electric boosted system currently on the market. Haven't heard the basic 4 cyl, but the turbo was quiet, with a nice growl when you put your foot down.

My CSX has EPS and its never made itself that obvious. Something just didn't feel right on the Optima.

The engine was very quiet when cruising, no complaints there. It just didn't sound all that refined when winding out.