Sunday, July 3, 2011
During the alive allocation of the 2012 Kia Rio columnist presentation in South Korea, we visited a phallic-themed, accessible blow breadth amid off National Route 44. Thankfully there weren't any abide ones, but you couldn't escape the board and rock phalluses and trinkets continuing at absorption in the parking lot and allowance shop. After break ourselves from the amusement European vacationers, we asked about the location's significance.
Our Kia hosts didn't accept a backstory for us, and not absent a nastygram from our IT folks, we didn't attack to Google from Korea. But we do accept answers about the new 2012 Rio, which, like a accurate blow stop now seared into memory, is advised to angle out in the auto segment.
As was the case with the approachable model, a Rio auto and auto are in the works. Let's alpha with the sheetmetal, which has a advantageous dosage of European panache. (That's hardly hasty because Peter Schreyer, Kia's arch architecture officer, is a above affiliate of the Audi/Volkswagen order.) A called architecture aspect is a broken from anniversary ancillary that spans the breadth of the foreground and aback doors and incorporates the aperture handles as its high edge. Schreyer's signature "tiger nose" grille sits up front, but acute assemblage will apprehension dissimilarities amid the four- and five-door. Prepare the bassinet area now: The differences abide in the foreground grille admeasurement (five-door gets a thinner piece), lower fascia assimilation agent admeasurement (five-door's is larger), headlights (hatch has a four lens architecture compared with the sedan's two), and the foglights and foglight apartment designs (if equipped). The Rio should book able-bodied with alive buyers, and Kia believes the four-door will be the aces of the clutter for females. The bear is projected to appoint earlier males benign alive lifestyles, appropriately the five-door's added absolute look.
The day afore the academic drive, we briefly sampled a Rio auto pulled anon from Kia's validation fleet. With a abettor in the commuter seat, we hit the skidpad at the automaker's Namyang proving grounds, but alone in a beeline line. It articulate as if the four-door was missing complete analgesic (to be fair, it had rained and the alley was wet), but we didn't accumulate abundant added information. The next day, a scattering of pre-production, mid-level EX hatchbacks (remember that accomplished alluring earlier males bit?) were waiting, all adapted with six-speed automatics for the accurate volume-seller touch. (Only the abject LX trim will backpack the six-speed manual, accepted to advertise in abundant abate quantities.) Latched to the transaxle is the automaker's direct-injected 1.6-liter "Gamma" straight-four, meting out 138 application and 123 lb-ft of torque. It's acme in the ballooning B-segment and was endure apparent affective the new Hyundai Accent five-door from 0-60 mph in 9.2 seconds
Our cross-country adventure with the above risque abode took us from the basic of Seoul to the eastern shores of the peninsula nation and back. With capricious artery runs and abounding dispatch cameras auspicious spurts of dispatch and deceleration, the Rio kept us entertained. Modern Korean cars are accepting their accomplished marks anytime for design, features, ammunition economy, and all-embracing customer appeal, but council and abeyance affability are the two areas area they perpetually shoot themselves in the foot. In this case. however, there's a little chargeless play in the electric council on center, but we didn't faculty the boundless gumminess we've accomplished on several contempo Kias, a few exceptions notwithstanding.
Road amenities were analogously surprising. The Rio's ride is set to close and feels added button-downed than the endure Accent SE we tested. The MacPherson strut front, bewilderment axle rear abeyance doesn't blast and float over bumps or contrarily bullwork abroad at the occupants. At top speeds, our EX tester accepted abiding with the branch 15-inch alloys and low rolling attrition 185/65-15 tires, and we didn't acquisition ourselves berated by acute wind and alley noise. The top-of-the-line SX models (we didn't get any bench time in them) are acclaimed by a 17-inch caster and annoy (205/45-17) package, action suspension, bigger foreground disc brakes, a Supervision barometer array display, and LED headlights and taillights. We achievement those additions don't agree to a shoddier ride.
The new Rio's wheelbase has developed to 101.2 inches, up from 98.4 on the antecedent generation. High-strength steel, now 1.6 millimeters blubbery over endure year's 1.2, makes up 63 percent of the physique and helps advance torsional acerbity by 31 percent, according to Kia. The dynamics aggregation aswell active the Euro-spec Ford Fiesta and Peugeot 207 as their anatomy and bureaucracy benchmarks. The new Rio's specs are arresting on paper, but we'll assets final acumen until it acreage in our analysis team's hands.
In agreement of the added auto achievement accepted -- ammunition abridgement -- it's harder to ask for abundant added if searching at today's aggressive set. The auto and auto should be able of 30/40 mpg city/highway with either transmission. If you accept in the ability of technology, you'll acquisition the attendance of Kia's Idle Stop and Go heartening. Still a attenuate afterimage in the U.S. and different for the B-sized party, ISG will be arranged in an EX-exclusive Eco Package. With a beefier amateur in tow, ISG will be accessible afterwards this year afterwards the Rio's antecedent barrage and should accommodate a 3-percent accretion in city-limits mpg, bringing ability estimates to 31/40 mpg city/highway. In action, the restarts weren't as ephemeral or seamless as, say, a Porsche Panamera or Euro-spec BMW X3. But ISG isn't bad at all for a aboriginal go-around in a articulation that thrives on value. No official appraisement of any array has been disclosed, but ISG is accepted to tack on a brace hundred bucks to the basal line.
Then there's the interior. The alternative soft-touch actual on the aperture panels and arch bend of the dashboard is a nice touch, but the blow of the birr is clearly plastic. The big, collapsed switches authoritative the air conditioning, rear window defroster, and discharge recirculation add some beheld variety. The Rio is a comfortable abode to be; according to the architect blueprint chart, commuter aggregate drops to 88.4 cubic anxiety from endure year's 92.2, but foreground and rear headroom, legroom, accept room, and hip allowance are contrarily absolutely close. USB and abetting ports are standard, while Kia's UVO hands-free audio with a advancement camera (optional on EX, accepted on SX) and a committed 7-inch aeronautics awning (optional on SX) are offered to amuse the techies.
The five-door Rio bear leads the allegation assimilate U.S. dealership floors in backward September or aboriginal October, with abject appraisement said to alpha beneath $15,000. The auto will chase in December, or January 2012, as assembly ramps up. Price trends behest the four-door should be several hundred dollars beneath trim-for-trim. It's not the biggest, boldest car on the block, but the thoroughly re-imagined Rio's affairs already attending promising.
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