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MATH WAS NEVER my favourite subject in school, but here's a bit of number-crunching I find interesting: to install yourself behind the wheel of a Kia Rio 1.6 sedan, you'll need $488 a month for ten years. This assumes you've coughed up $4,999 for a downpayment and that the bank is happy to advance you the rest, at 3 percent interest.
It doesn't seem all that long ago that a budget of $488 would have gotten you little more than derisive howls of laughter from the salesmen on duty in a showroom, but these days you end up with the sort of motoring personified by the Kia: decent looks, decent space, decent build quality, decent performance, decent? everything, really.
Cheapness itself is not a virtue in the auto world, of course, but it goes a long way towards excusing a number of sins. In the Rio's case, these tend to be sins of omission: the money won?t buy you airbags, antilock brakes or frills like parking sensors.
Still, the Kia is best thought of as an upgrade from public transport, in which case it's as specced-up as it needs to be.
CarBuyer's previous encounters with the Rio, in fact, left our testers with a pleasant taste in their mouths. The Kia may not be the last word in sophistication, but it feels like something engineered by people who knew what they were doing.
Among the eight Rio variants on sale, the model here looks set to be a big-seller, not least because of the popularity of the 1.6-litre sedan format. But there are genuine reasons to consider the Kia.
It doesn't seem all that long ago that a budget of $488 would have gotten you little more than derisive howls of laughter from the salesmen on duty in a showroom, but these days you end up with the sort of motoring personified by the Kia: decent looks, decent space, decent build quality, decent performance, decent? everything, really.
Cheapness itself is not a virtue in the auto world, of course, but it goes a long way towards excusing a number of sins. In the Rio's case, these tend to be sins of omission: the money won?t buy you airbags, antilock brakes or frills like parking sensors.
Still, the Kia is best thought of as an upgrade from public transport, in which case it's as specced-up as it needs to be.
CarBuyer's previous encounters with the Rio, in fact, left our testers with a pleasant taste in their mouths. The Kia may not be the last word in sophistication, but it feels like something engineered by people who knew what they were doing.
Among the eight Rio variants on sale, the model here looks set to be a big-seller, not least because of the popularity of the 1.6-litre sedan format. But there are genuine reasons to consider the Kia.
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On the move it's impressively and surprisingly quiet, and the controls are undoubtedly user-friendly. Most of the switches fall easily to hand and work with a satisfyingly well-oiled feel, while the instruments are laid out so clearly that a bat could see them properly.
The handling is nothing to shout about, but it's obviously been tweaked for safety; push too hard into a corner, and the Kia slides wide until you simply ease off the power.
The handling is nothing to shout about, but it's obviously been tweaked for safety; push too hard into a corner, and the Kia slides wide until you simply ease off the power.
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To be technical for a moment, it feels as if the front end of the car is more stiffly-sprung than the rear, which encourages the nose to lose grip before the tail does, meaning the chances of you ending up having to catch a tricky rear-end skid are pretty slim.
There is a noticeable softness to the controls, however, whether in the finger-lightness of the steering or the rubberiness of the clutch and gearlever action. Both suggest that the Kia is best driven in gentle fashion, so it's nicely ironic that the 1.6-litre motor punches pretty hard.
The acceleration is far more brisk than the 10.2-second 100km/h sprint time suggests, and as long as you're willing to drop a gear smartly, you should have little trouble keeping up with, or perhaps even outpacing, some of the more common machinery registered with a Cat B COE. Cheap, in this case, doesn't mean slow.
Incidentally, choosing a Rio 1.6 manual sedan over its 1.4-litre sibling will set you back by the princely sum of $20 per month in loan repayments. I may have dreaded math lessons in school, but those are sums anyone would like.
There is a noticeable softness to the controls, however, whether in the finger-lightness of the steering or the rubberiness of the clutch and gearlever action. Both suggest that the Kia is best driven in gentle fashion, so it's nicely ironic that the 1.6-litre motor punches pretty hard.
The acceleration is far more brisk than the 10.2-second 100km/h sprint time suggests, and as long as you're willing to drop a gear smartly, you should have little trouble keeping up with, or perhaps even outpacing, some of the more common machinery registered with a Cat B COE. Cheap, in this case, doesn't mean slow.
Incidentally, choosing a Rio 1.6 manual sedan over its 1.4-litre sibling will set you back by the princely sum of $20 per month in loan repayments. I may have dreaded math lessons in school, but those are sums anyone would like.
NEED TO KNOW
Model Kia Rio 1.6 4DREngine Type 1,599cc in-line 4
Max Power 112bhp at 6,000rpm
Max Torque 145Nm at 4,500rpm
Gearbox 5-speed manual
Top Speed 190km/h
0-100 KM/H 10.2 seconds
Price $45,999 with COE
Warranty 3 years/100,000km
Contact Cycle & Carriage Kia
Telephone 6471-0002
SIMILAR CARS WE HAVE DRIVEN
Hyundai Accent 1.5 4DR $45,000 with COE
The Accent is up for replacement soon but there's little wrong with the current model, especially considering the price tag. You get an even more spartan cabin than the Rio but the Accent makes up for this by offering a surprisingly spirited drive. |
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