You say Cer8to, I say Cerato
What’s the best car you can buy for less than $40k? Kia has the answer, Paul Owen argues.
These are halcyon days for Korea’s oldest car brand – Kia. The Hyundai subsidiary might have a name that sounds like that of our resident avian vandal, but unlike the increasingly-threatened native bird, its star has been on the rise of late.
First there was the usurping of perennial-winner, Porsche, in the US JD Power audit of automotive customer satisfaction last year – the first time a ‘mainstream’ carmaker had reached the top of the quality pops in the world’s largest car market.
And now there’s Kia’s rise as a global brand in the annual listings compiled by Interbrand. Kia has climbed five places in the top 100 and now sits in 69th position, 11 places ahead of Harley-Davidson.
Down here on the fringes of global automotive activity, Kia is also doing well. Last year, it only needed nine months to overtake its total 2015 sales result.
So what have been the contributing factors? I reckon it’s good products like this Cerato Limited, propelled to the top of our minds by well-targeted media campaigns that make the most of Kia NZ’s comparatively meagre marketing resources.
Price has featured fairly significantly in these campaigns, which mostly call consumers to action through traditional points of engagement like print media and television. This ‘keep it simple’ approach is obviously paying off, but would only work if the product stacked up.
Which I’m happy to report that the Cerato patently does. Like Hyundai’s i30, the Cerato is a wellmade Korean Corolla competitor sharing the same componentry, platform, and development. The differences are found in its more accessible visual appeal that is now a Kia brand value, and a willingness to foster perceptions of offering more fruit for your pfennigs.
The newly-upgraded Cerato range is a fine example of the latter. When it first arrived back in August 2016, the entry point was $31,990 for the base LX, which offered goodies like a seven-inch touch-screen with a reversing camera, front and rear parking sensors, smart key, Android Automotive connectivity (sorry Apple-eaters, Kia’s still working on your interface), and enough active and passive safety features to get a five-star blessing from the Australasian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP).
The $39,990 LTD has an impressive kit bag – powered leather-clad heated seats, extra safety features like lane departure warnings, forward collision warnings, blind spot monitoring and rear cross traffic alert, and a sunroof large enough to lighten the cabin even during the darkest days of the dampest spring weather of recent memory.
With the upgrade all Ceratos now share the same powertrain, with a 2.0 litre port-injection four developing 112kW and 192Nm and driving the front wheels via a sixspeed automatic gearbox.
Previous range-topping Cerato models had a direct-injection four that offered more impressive outputs, but there’s a lot to like about the commitment of the lower-tech replacement to make the power and torque peaks more accessible via their arrival earlier in the rev range. You don’t need to work the Cerato as hard to enjoy swift progress, and a welcome side benefit is that decent fuel economy is achievable without sacrificing performance on the altar of frugality. Even lead-foot Muggins managed 7.5L/100km fuel use figures without modifying my driving.
The chassis of the Cerato is as competent as the powertrain thanks to the fine-tuning of the suspension and steering geometry by our Australian cousins, and Kia’s willingness to offer models that are well-adapted to roads bordering the Tasman Sea. Only a little vagueness of the leccy power steering at the wheel’s straightahead position lets the Cerato down. It possesses decent ride quality despite the basic rear torsion beam suspension, and would offer even more accomplished road-holding if the Nexen tyres were replaced with some that like to get their treads wet.
This is a good honest hatchback, with nothing challenging or controversial to either recommend or condemn it. About the only thing in contention here is the pronouncement of the model name. An American might call it the ‘Cer-eight-to’, and we’ll continue to call it the Cer-raa-to. Either way, it describes one of the best cars anyone can buy in this country for less than $40k.