Kia hits one out of the park
Affordable, safety-conscious and loaded with options, 2018 Rio model is a winner
I had never really given Kia much thought. My mother- and sister-in-law both drive Kia Souls, and although they have never gone out of their way to boast about them, they have made it plain that they like the car.
It was with this in mind that I flew to Quebec City 10 days ago for the introduction of the 2018 Kia Rio. After driving it around the Quebec capital region, I think Kia has hit one out of the park.
First, there are not too many $15,000 new cars — if any — that come with heated front seats and a heated, leather-covered steering wheel. How about a rearview camera? Not too long ago, that was a premium option. Well, the Rio’s got that.
Heated side view mirrors? Check. Keyless entry? Check. Electronic power steering? Check.
Safety is at the top of everybody’s mind these days, and the new Rio has six airbags and boasts an ABS (anti-lock braking system), electronic stability control and vehicle stability management, among other things.
And all of this is propelled along by a 1.6-litre GDI four-cylinder engine (130 horsepower; 119 pound-feet of torque) with a six-speed manual transmission.
So, if you’re in the market for a five-door hatchback, and you want what really are becoming necessities in today’s automotive marketplace, and you also don’t want to have to pay a lot of money, then this Rio should fit your bill.
Now, we’re talking about the entry level LX model here. There’s lots more available from Kia, but it is going to cost you more money. And that should come as no surprise because that’s pretty much how the world works.
Go up a level to the LX+ ($16,595 vs. $14,995, officially, for the LX) and that additional $1,600 — approximately — will get you an automatic transmission, air conditioning and cruise control.
If I was going to buy this car, I would pay the extra, because I’m a fan of automatics (I do a lot of stop-and-go, rush-hour driving), and I love cruise control once I get out on the open road. Plus, I’m prone to hay fever and asthma, so air conditioning has always been a must for me.
Moving on up — and it’s a fairly significant leap financially — the EX model (MSRT $20,945) will give you a centreconsole armrest, leatherette door trim, a telescopic steering wheel and fog lights — that sort of thing.
But the big feature attraction on the 2018 Rio EX model is here under technology: the UVO Telematics System. Trans- lation: you can talk to your car from just about anywhere and make it do things so that it’s ready for you when you get into it.
During a lunch stop — several dozen writers and Kia personnel went for a day’s drive around the Quebec capital in the new cars — I had a chat with Ted Lancaster, who’s COO of Kia Canada. To say he was excited about the telematics system would be an understatement. “Everybody nowadays runs around with their smartphones and their tablets,” he said, “and we wanted the car to be as smart as the phones that people are using, and this car delivers on all of those attributes.
“Essentially, telematics allows people to connect to their car remotely. They can start the car, they can change the temperature of the car, they can send diagnostics to their local dealership. It is providing consumers with that next wave of technology that is going to come in a lot of our other products.”
When asked what other attribute he particularly liked about this car, Lancaster was off and running.
“I will go to the one thing that I think adds safety to the vehicle,” he said, “and that’s the high-strength steel we use in the chassis. Something our company can do that gives us an advantage is that we are part of a much-larger organization (Hyundai Steel) that has its own steel division and provides the steel that we use in our products.
“With the high-strength steel, we’re able to add rigidity. The stronger the steel, the greater the ability to absorb impact, and I think that’s a technological advancement that a lot of people don’t talk about, but in our vehicles, it adds a lot of safety for the consumers.
“It’s not a big car, and one thing that is important when we talk about safety is the ability to absorb impact. We get a lot of letters from consumers along the lines of, ‘We were in an accident, and this car saved my life.’
“I hate to hear about people being in accidents, but I’m happy that they’re able to write and say that the car really saved their life and that’s because of the steel that goes into each and every one of the products we make.”
As you continue to move through the various Rio models, you find yourself paying for things that I, personally, would not consider essential. For instance, in the EX Sport Model ($22,045), you get a rain-sensing windshield. Look, if somebody wants to throw that in for free, fine. But until now, I have had no difficulty turning on the windshield wipers when it rains.
But the top of the line EX Tech ($23,745) offers up an option that I tell everybody who will listen to get and that’s autonomous emergency braking (AEB). Yes, it is something that has been researched and discovered by most car companies as they engage in the race to produce the world’s really and truly first self-driving automobile (still a long way off, folks) but it is — to my mind — one of the greatest advances in automobile safety in ages.
We all know — we all do, don’t we? — that texting and driving and all sorts of other distractions brought about by connectivity are bad. But something as innocent as taking a sip of your Tim’s in the morning, or sing- ing along to some ’60s song, can sometimes take your mind off of your driving (like, if the coffee is really hot, or you suddenly think of that sweetheart you were with when that song was popular), and autonomous emergency braking can save a life when your mind is elsewhere when you should be hitting the brakes.
Now, speaking about the brakes, my co-driver, Tim Dimopoulos of 680 News, was a little surprised when, at 80 km/h, I told him I was going to slam on the brakes and then did. This is all part and parcel of doing the job of an auto reviewer and resulted in my only nitpick with this car: it slid; the ABS did not work the way I think ABS should work, which is stop the car on a dime without skidding. But that was really the only thing.
We both felt that the car was a bit sluggish when we first started to drive it but it pepped up considerably when it was popped into Sport Mode. However, that sluggishness can be explained. These were brand new cars. Any new car, be it a Rio or one of Kia’s higher-end offerings (or any other car or truck, for that matter) needs some time to be “broken in.”
I suggest if we went back out in the same car a couple of months from now, that sluggishness we felt initially would be gone.
The Rio, for a subcompact, is getting bigger — but, again, so what else is new? North American cars have a history of being teeter-totterish: they’re big, then they’re small, then they’re big again.
The new Rio has 325 litres of cargo capacity with the seats up (not a lot of room — two airline carry-on bags and a computer bag pretty much took up the space) but that increases to 1,054 L with the seats down. We didn’t have our golf clubs with us, so I can’t report on the fit, but that’s usually the test.
Speaking of the seats up and down, I got into the back seat behind Tim when he was taking his turn driving, and I could do it, but it was a tight fit, and I would not want to go from Quebec City to Montreal like that. This is an observation; not a criticism. Subcompacts are aimed at young singles or couples without kids, or people looking for a second car, so I can’t imagine four people cramming themselves into one and heading out on a road trip. Out to dinner, yes; off to Halifax, no.
When attending these unveilings, or introductions, a big part is the driving experience, and the marketing and PR personnel go to great lengths to find routes that will include freeways and back roads in order to give auto writers the opportunity to check out the car as thoroughly as possible.
So, when we left the courtyard of the centuries-old Château Frontenac Hotel in Quebec a week ago Wednesday, Tim was driving and I was navigating. They handed me a map and said, “The first thing to do is turn right. Just do what this says and you can’t go wrong.”
So, Tim turned right and I started talking about Wolfe and Montcalm and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, and within five minutes, we were lost. We eventually found our way, but let’s just say our particular Kia Rio probably travelled more kilometres through and around Quebec and the surrounding countryside than any of the other cars.
Which was a good thing, because the car got a workout and enabled us to truly put it through its paces. It passed with flying colours. nmcdonald@thestar.ca