2012 Kia Optima Sx on 2040-cars

Auto blog

2016 Kia Sorento First Drive

Teenagers are awkward, predictably provocative and generally horrible to be around – at least unless you, yourself are one. There's just something about those angst-ridden years spent trying on identities, none fitting quite right. Luckily for Kia, the automaker has just celebrated its 20th birthday in America, and fresh out of the driver's seat of its 2016 Sorento – dare we say it – we sense a touch of self-assured maturity. Don't worry; we expect the automaker's antics – including super-freak athletes jumping over an Optima at the NBA All-Star game and the employment of urban hamsters – to continue. Thankfully, offering unremarkable vehicles in pretty competitive segments seems officially a thing of Kia's history e-book. To be fair, we've seen a pleasing Korean Renaissance for a few years now, and we're not just talking hot pots and bulgogi – 2015 Hyundai Genesis, anyone? Kia Optima SX? Soul? So where exactly does this third-gen 2016 Sorento fit in? Actually, we're not sure Kia knows that either; its product planners tell us that this miraculous crossover competes with variously sized vehicles including the compact Jeep Cherokee, markedly larger Grand Cherokee, and even the family-hauling three-row Toyota Highlander. But Kia is also not completely off its rocker, because the Sorento suffers (benefits?) from severe bipolar disorder in terms of pricing. While you can get a base L model for $25,795 after delivery – there are five trim levels including L, LX, EX, SX, and top-of-the-line SXL – the fancy SXL 2.0T with all-wheel drive we tested was priced at $45,305. That's a difference of almost $20k, with the latter model reaches a completely different, almost premium demographic. And there's more. Sometimes the Sorento seats five, other times it can party hard with seven. There are three very different engine flavors to choose from: a carryover 2.4-liter four-cylinder will greet entry-level buyers with 185 horsepower and 178 pound-feet of torque. A meatier V6 – good for 290 hp and 252 lb-ft – will come on three-row models only, while the new 2.0-liter turbocharged four option, good for 240 horses and 260 lb-ft comes on two-row models exclusively. Kia will offer all-wheel drive on all Sorento models.

Dealership worker takes Kia Soul for 200-mile joyride

Most often, dealership road-test capers in customer cars involve exciting metal - an employee totals a Chevy Camaro ZL1, or a does the same thing with a Dodge Viper. Or tapes himself wringing out Italian exotics at triple-digit speeds on public roads. That kind of horseplay rarely involves mass-market metal because it's not worth getting caught running red lights in a 2001 Mitsubishi Montero - except that actually happened, too. But we still don't understand the mechanic at Peak Kia North in Windor, CO, who used a customer's Kia Soul as his own car for four days and put 200 miles on it. Owner Veronica Pief discovered the nonsense when she downloaded the 17 hours of driving video from her dashcam. She dropped the Soul off to have its speed-volume control fixed, but got it back with the extra mileage and the volume problem still hadn't been remedied. It got worse when she said of the dealership, "Afterwards, they just blew us off. They didn't care. They didn't show any concern." Sometime between that disrespect and Denver's KUSA 9NEWS doing a story on it, the dealer decided it should fix the situation. Pief said she wanted the dealer to buy her car back and pay off the loan, which sounds extreme, but she might have been thinking about the verbiage in her owner's manual. Kia is one of the automakers that's strict about voiding warranties if it deems a car has been abused. Peak Kia North gave Pief what she wanted just one day after the original story ran, buying the car back from her with plans to auction it and donate the proceeds to charity. And yes, the mechanic was fired. You can watch the local news report above. Related Video: News Source: Detroit Free Press, 9NEWS Auto News Kia Car Dealers Hatchback Videos viral video colorado

Kia teases next-gen K5 in South Korea, foreshadows our Optima

Now that the redesigned Hyundai Sonata is down the road burning gas, Kia's loading the next-generation Optima into the chute. The automaker teased the South Korean-market K5 — our Optima — on Facebook, revealing a sedan that will bring a new attitude to the midsize competitor. The sketches largely line up with spy shots we got a couple of months ago, starting with the clamshell hood running down to a narrower, wider tiger nose grille. Two creases in the center of the hood bracket the Kia logo. We can't know what trim is on display in the rendering, but the pictured upper and lower grilles give up the mesh pattern on the current car for horizontal strakes. A pair of DRLs frame the front fascia, the Z-shaped light signature longer and more abstracted than that on the Cadenza sedan.  The profile includes a couple of signature strokes that create a wholly different impression. Moving the side mirrors to the doors emphasizes the sharp takeoff point for the greenhouse, emphasized with a chrome trim strip that could have come off a stretched Aston Martin DB11. Instead of the rear glass behind the C-pillar picking up from the edge of the backlight as on the current car and forming their own profile, the sketch show a faster glass design angled back to follow the shape of the roof. Lower down, the character line in the sketch rises from the front wheel arch to the rear door, then falls sharply to the rear wheel arch. We can't make out this line in any of the spy shots, though. The rear gets a lot edgier. It's possible the chrome greenhouse trim dips around the bottom backlight to form a single line around the car. A short decklid is backed by an integrated lip. A single taillight of dashed LEDs runs across the width, bookended by a tight V shape.  Wholesale change inside stresses the horizontal span. A slightly modified steering wheel sits ahead of a digital dash cluster. A second widescreen sits atop an instrument panel cut by wide, narrow vents and marked by fewer buttons. On the center console, the shifter's replaced with a rotary knob.  A debut could come before the end of the year, the sedan likely a 2021-model-year offering. Engines should mirror Sonata powertrains, consisting of a 1.6-liter four-cylinder and a 2.5-liter four-cylinder shifting through an eight-speed transmission, and a more powerful turbocharged four-cylinder expected to join the lineup.