So my sister has had her 02 Mustang for 11yrs now and it's age is showing everywhere but only has 5x,xxx miles on it. We had been trying to figure out a nice car that was perfect for her.

She was looking to move away from a 2-door to a 4 door. At first she was looking for some smaller cars like a Fiesta, Mazda2, Honda Fit (It's not that small). She also wanted something FWD or AWD so whe looked at a WRX as well.

We stopped looking around for a bit and I kept seeing these KIA's every where that always throw me off because they look like a Ford Taurus. I felt like that was the right car for her. When I told her her response sounded like she wanted to puke..... "A KIA? We went to the dealer to go look at them and she changed her mind about it. Looked Nice, Drove great, interior was nice. Everything she was looking for in a new car. Lots of bells and whistles with it and it has power as well. 274HP and 269TQ IIRC.

She thought about it for a while and kept looking around and last night decided on buying the Kia Optima SX with the Premium Package. It added heated and cooled front seats, heated rear seats, back up came (She needs it, lol), HD radio, heated steering wheel, Panoramic Sunroof (she needed to have it.), and a bunch of other stuff over a base Optima SX.

A base Optima SX starts at 26,800 and with the Premium package sticker on the window ended up at almost $31k. We got a steal on it for her and ended up at $25,5xx on it. 3k down offset dealer fees and taxes.

She really wanted white but they only had the SXL/EX/LX in white and skipped on black because black starts to show swirl marks in the clear after a while. She decided on thier mid grey. Not to dark but not a bright silver. It'll hide the dirt well like her mustang did.


















Where the Blue 8 usually naps.

Glad to hear! I've been wondering about those new Optimas myself. In my experience Kia's are built well enough and offer the same amenities as other big-namers, for less money. Their designs are sharp too, often times more appealing than what Honda/Toyota is putting out.

Ours is still treating us well, nearing 70k miles; purchased new.

You couldn't have paid me to drive one of the older Kias but I'm really warming up to the new ones, especially the Optima (never the Soul). And they're putting 10 year 100k mile warranties on them too. They're really pushing the electronics they come with in all the commercials. Add in a peppy engine and decent looks and as long as the reliability is there, which the warranty suggests it will be, and you have a pretty nice car.

erod550 wrote:You couldn't have paid me to drive one of the older Kias but I'm really warming up to the new ones, especially the Optima (never the Soul). And they're putting 10 year 100k mile warranties on them too. They're really pushing the electronics they come with in all the commercials. Add in a peppy engine and decent looks and as long as the reliability is there, which the warranty suggests it will be, and you have a pretty nice car.

Yep. It has it all. The 10yr/100k really nice and will last her. She didn't really need/want much of a performance car and it needed to be an Auto. So this is a near perfect fit and is pretty "peppy". She's been having a blast driving it. It's also a really spacious car inside. Smaller than my moms Camry but the inside is/feels huge. There is a bunch of leg room in the back and the trunk is Huge. Not what you'd expect from looking at the outside of the car. Didn't take pics of the interior but I'll post some I get off the web here.

Pictures up in a few. Also you should take a look at the New Cadenza.

Edit - I can't find any pictures on google images of the interior but if you go here and select "Fabric: Black (Leather/Sport Cloth)" under interior on the bottom right of the virtual tour you can get a 360 view of it.

Hard to tell just from a picture but that looks like a pretty nice interior. There are few things more appealing to the touch than a nice new leather steering wheel.