KIA Cee'd Review

We usually try not to take notice of the lack of premium features on a car that shouldn't have them in the first place, and this was pretty much the case with the Kia Cee'd we tested. Although available as an option, it didn't have leather or electrically adjustable seats, and frankly, that didn't bother us too much. The fabric on the seats could have had a better quality feel to it though, since that was pretty much the only thing that gave away the car's cheap or Korean nature.

As we mentioned before, we really dug the spaciousness of the interior, which is among the largest if not THE largest in the European compact class. This naturally added to the overall sense of comfort, even if it didn't actually made us jump in amazement.

The suspension setup is far from breaking your spine, but it is a bit sport oriented, while the independent multi-link rear takes care of a lot of road imperfections, while delivering a mildly planted stance when driven harder. Still, our car was fitted with 16-inch alloy wheels. This, along with a rather high ground clearance and the reasonable height of the tire side walls didn't exactly deliver a sporty handling.

As a matter of fact, while going at some illegal (except the Autobahn) speeds on the highway it kind of told us to back down. Without words, naturally, since it was all the up-down movements. In other words, the feel of the suspension is just right until you reach some excessive highway speeds, when the car begins to make you feel sea sick. On the whole though, the Cee'd is pretty comfy.

When first getting our hands on the car from the dealer, the first driving impression wasn't very good, since it seemed to have a very snail-like acceleration off the line. For a moment we actually thought this was the smaller, 1.4-liter version, since the acceleration response was so mellow. This probably happened since we didn't rev it past 2500-3000 rpm, thanks to being accustomed to a previous low-down torque car.

In the rare occasion you haven't realized it yet, the 1.6-liter four-banger is of the high-revving kind. The CVVT in the engine's name comes from Continuous Variable Valve Timing, which in theory should help its responsiveness and deliver a broader torque range, but it didn't quite did it for us.

It feels unnecessarily slow at low rpm, while the sound it makes at higher rpm kind of made us stay away from that rev area altogether. On paper though, the four-cylinder mill can really change someone's perception about Korean engine making. 1.6 liters, normally aspirated and 122 horsepower? It's not record-breaking, but considering this is a family-vehicle it's more than nice.

Unlike some other models from better established brands (:cough: Opel Astra :cough: Honda Civic :cough:), the Cee'd has an independent multi-link suspension in the rear, which, along with the pretty stiff chassis can provide a mildly entertaining ride. It's not quite near the Golf VI (OK, V and a half) we tested earlier, and at high speeds it doesn't feel as controllable, but overall it provides a very nice compromise between sportiness and comfort.

For the non-believers out there – there still must be some of you left – the Cee'd does offer its fair share of contraptions. Sure, it isn't exactly an Inspector Gadget on wheels, but considering it costs as much as the smart fortwo we tested not so long ago it's more than OK. Our version didn't have HID headlights with a cornering function, no automatic feature for the windshield wipers or for the headlights and the seats were manually adjustable. A navigation system or some rear parking sensors? Forget about it, especially on a car as cheap as this.

Still, the air conditioning system is automatic – albeit with a single zone one, sadly- and it doesn't put too much strain on the high-revving engine, although it does influence its fuel consumption a little bit. The inboard-built CD-player is at least decent as a sound system, having MP3 capabilities and an RDS radio. The nice surprises related to the audio were its AUX and USB inputs, neatly located at the base of the center console, so that you can plug in pretty much any type of MP3 player and listen to your favorite illegally-downloaded songs.

Another type of convenience which may fall in the "gadgets" category are the four automatic windows. Small feat when you first think about it, but in this price level this could pass almost as "a touch of class". Apart from this, there really aren't that many things to boast about in this category, but on the whole we weren't exactly disappointed, since the Cee'd delivers in other areas.

Right after it was first introduced in 2007, the Cee'd was crashed tested by the European NCAP organization, where it passed with flying colors. Coincidentally, the car tested by EuroNCAP was also a 1.6 model in GSL trim, so the comparison with our test car is perfectly natural.

The 5-stars it received weren't exactly won with maximum points, but they are 5-stars nonetheless, especially since the passenger safety cell remained stable in every impact. Apparently, there are some hard structures in the dashboard which may present a risk of injury to the front passengers' knees and femurs in a frontal impact. Since a rather extensive facelift for the model is coming as soon as this autumn and EuroNCAP has revised its testing procedures we can only expect that the Cee'd will be tested again.

Our test car was standard-fitted with six airbags (two dual-stage frontal ones, two front-side and two head ones that can protect all outboard passengers. Apart from that and the five-star rating at EuroNCAP, the Cee'd 1.6 GLS can also brag with the standard anti-lock braking system with electronic brake assistance, standard electronic stability program wich can be deactivated at the touch of a button (not recommended since even without the Cee'd doesn't become sportier).

On the whole, we'll give our Kia test car a pretty good safety rating even though it doesn't really excel at anything related to safety, albeit it does deliver a good overall package.

The Kia Cee'd is the automotive equivalent of a success story. In a very FUBU-like manner (For Us, By Us, Ed), the Korean model was created to satisfy the tastes of Europeans with not enough dough to buy the mother-of-all-compacts, the Volkswagen Golf. We didn't find it exactly Golf-beating, but given its lower price, industry-leading 7-year warranty, roomy interior and a nice quality overall feel, the Cee'd managed to win some of us over, albeit with a different, more fuel-efficient powerplant under the hood. The car's best asset, you ask? Well, we're not that determined to pick a clear winner, but the battle is fought between the humongous warranty and the highly spacious interior (given its compact exterior size).

Since we found that the Cee'd doesn't particularly excel at anything beside the two good things we mentioned above, the same can be said about its downsides. The bad part about the 1.6 GSL we tested was probably its Honda/Ferrari-like engine, with the maximum torque available from a stratospheric 4200 rpm. This can only mean that in the city the car really behaves like it's got only 90 hp, instead of the advertised 122 hp. There's a distinct lack of torque at low rpm, and by low we mean under 3000 rpm.

The ugly part about our Cee'd 1.6 GSL test car must have been the rather high fuel consumption for such a small engine. Plus, the car had a really odd way of calculating the medium mileage, since according to the onboard computer we used around 8.5-9 liters per 100 km at 110-120 km/h (US 27.7-26.1 mpg at 60-65 mph). While those numbers don't sound good, we should also tell you that the same onboard computer was showing at some points a BETTER fuel consumption during city driving. Obviously, we scrapped that misleading information and calculated ourselves, which resulted in an average of 9 liters per 100 km (US 26.1 mpg) in a combined highway/country roads/city driving (with around 70% of the driving being made in a crowded city).