(first posted 6/5/2017) It is said that you can learn more from failure than you can success. Well did I learn a lot from this CC find. Come along and join me for a lesson.
One of the cars I’ve been trying to find for a while is a Kia K900. Not that they are particularly hard to find (after all, you can go to any Kia dealership to see one), but these are rare cars to actually see on the road. You would think that the official car of LeBron James would be everywhere in Cavs crazy Cleveland, but apparently even LeBron’s magic touch has limits.
So I got excited when I was out running errands and saw the car pictured above. It was big, it was a Kia, and as you can clearly see in the feature photo, it had no badges. No matter, I took my pictures, excited about my find, and went on my merry way.
Boy was I disappointed when I got home and started Googling images of the K900, only to find that they didn’t quite match the images of the badgeless car I had captured earlier that day. What the heck was it then? As it turns out, Kia has another near luxury car that is almost as obscure as the K900: The Kia Cadenza.
I was about ready to hit delete and dump the photos, when instead I decided that I could use this as a teachable moment, both to the readers of this site, and to Kia (if they are interested): Mainly, that if I, a highly qualified car spotter, couldn’t tell the difference between a K900 and a lesser Kia, what chance does John Q. Car Buyer?
Check out this sausage fest
So why are these near luxury Kias such an epic failure? Well for starters, the “same sausage different length” approach to styling only applies if all your sausages are highly desirable. BMW and Audi can pull this off, because even their lowliest sausage links (2-series and A3, respectively) still carry some cachet. Not so much the Kia Forte and Optima.
Next, most brands only have a limited range, and it is easy to overreach. Ask Volkswagen how well the Phaeton did, or Mazda their Millenia. Heck, all you need to do is look at Kia’s sibling Hyundai: After years of trying to sell Hyundai branded Genesis and Equus’s (Equii?) next to $17K Elantras, they finally wised up and decided to make a separate channel for their luxury wares.
Do I know you?
Lastly, and most importantly, as I pointed out in my End of Luxury article, luxury cars can no longer distinguish themselves by their features alone, with options like heated seats, adaptive cruise control, and lane keeping systems being available on even the lowliest econobox now. Luxury cars must now tread not only on their exclusivity (which admittedly the K900 and Cadenza have is spades), but also their snob appeal (which the Kias are sorely lacking). After all, what good is exclusivity if you can’t flaunt it? Sure, they can call these “Practical Luxury Cars,” but I don’t really think this is a thing any more, and apparently luxury buyers agree with me.
FYI the Stinger actually interests me, however…
Kia Kadenza = Korean Lacrosse.
Kia K900 = this is how we justify all that development money spent on the Genesis sedan.
Kia is Hyundai’s version of Pontiac. Slightly sportier place to dump badge-engineered vehicles.
KIA Hyundai have really upped their game since 2006. Their designs today are veryvattractive.
Maybe true a few years ago, but the recent Kia EVs are now desirable. A word that was usually an oxymoron in a sentence including Kia.
I will confess a long history of having trouble keeping Kia’s model lineup straight. And this from an actual Kia owner. Hyundai has finally spun the Genesis line into its own nameplate. Will it work? No idea. But they will have more luck than Kia would with the same maneuver, because Genesis at least has a little name equity. Kia has done a poor job of “building a brand” with its higher line stuff, attractive as the cars may be.
I live in the snob capital of the world–Naples, Florida–where we count 15 to 20 Bentley’s a day. There are Genesis G80’s all over the place. I mean the ones badged Genesis, with the faux-Bentley winged logo, not the Hyundai badged Genesis models. They are as common as Audis and BMWs. If they’ll sell here, they will sell anywhere.
Now look at that Kia. See the stylized logo rather than the usual bold K I A badge? That’s the way they need to go with their expensive models.
Kia defines “generic car”, and same with their CUV’s. Snoozemobiles.
Even my non gear-head friends will quickly go through the Kia exhibit at the Auto Show to see ‘real car brands’.
When I was stationed in Korea, we used to joke that any driving errors on the road would leave “Kiamaster” tattooed on your forehead. These were one of the leading trucks in Korea. From at least the ’70s, Kia also sold cars and passenger vans which were basically locally produced badge-engineered Mazda models. I always liked the Bongo vans. I haven’t been back to Korea for years, but I suspect they might have the same image problem in their home country as they have in the US. Kia just didn’t have an upscale image. One of their popular models was called the Brisa. A step above a Saehan Maepsy maybe, but still an image far below a Hyundai.
Some of these older Kias and Saehans would probably be considered curbside classics in Korea – if they have such a thing. The Koreans used to joke that only American soldiers drove old beat up cars. Even more than big, a new car defined status. An automakers dream market.
I call these the Kia Credenza.
Ahh, a man after my own heart!
As do I. Came immediately to mind when I first heard the name.
A normal version of these wouldn’t be as hard to identify, as this Cadenza has been stripped of its US market badging. The rear Cadenza script has been removed from the lower left rear portion of the trunk, and the SXL script present on the lower right is from an Optima. Also, all the KIA badges have been replaced with the Korean market K logo (not unheard of). What is strange here is the hood and trunk “K” is mounted backwards…
Backwards, or upside-down?
You are correct, upside down would have been a better descriptor.
The important thing is that no one confuse that for a Lexus logo at a glance
Mounted like that, it looks like one of those off-brand Chinese near-clones.
KIA isn’t on my mental map of car manufacturers that I’d be likely to buy from. They seem to make decent cars but have trouble standing out in the herd. Perhaps if they released a MX-5 knockoff for 19,999 I’d come knocking.
These are KDM badges in the photos (front and rear)
Standard US market KIA badge says “KIA” inside the oval.
I`m not a fan. I always had a problem with the name ‘KIA’ – Killed in Action?
Same here. Horrible initials, especially since KIA insist on using all caps. The name is actually Ki-A == Rising Asia. “Asia Motors” would be a better name, or they could always buy “Studebaker”
BTW, “Hyun-Dai” == Modern They could have been called “Modern Motors”
There was an Asia Motors in Korea until the nineties. It ended up… in the hands of KIA.
The K900 could be a fun V8 beater in 10-15 years. That is all I think of when I hear mention.
My friend and I were pretty impressed with the interior of a K900 at the auto show earlier this year but we both agreed that it makes more sense as a used car.
They will probably depreciate heavily.
All reviews have stated how floaty and barge-like the K900 is, and how it seems to have been tuned to drive in a more cushy manner than even the Equus. I found that puzzling considering Kia is ostensibly the sportier brand, but hey, the launch of the K900 in North America is puzzling to begin with. It seems to be a case of, “Hey, we’ve had this in Korea for a few years, we may as well sell it here too…”
I always think it odd that Hyundai and Kia together keep using musical terms to name cars: Sonata, Forte, Accent, Cadenza. I’m waiting for the Aria, the Concerto, maybe even the Passacaglia or the Chaconne. Maybe that would be too much a niche market.
I’m reminded of the Ford Tempo, which actually was Adagio or Andante….
Andante con Moto. Wait, that’s the Edsel.
Or the Austin Allegro.
How about the Crescendo? Imagine how that would be misspelled on craigslist!
Poor old Kia. Ratings suggest they good car, but perhaps a little late to the party. Starting with a bunch of forgettable econoboxes probably didn’t help.
Such cars result from the hubristic thinking of CEOs and corporate boards. No market niche actually exists for a cheap luxury car, but some in Korea (and Mazda according to insider reports) thinks such a market can be created in USA.
While I had great experience with a Kia Forte, that does not mean that I will buy another Kia when I want a Lexus.
The Cadenza is definitely an unpopular car, but its not a luxury vehicle. With a starting MSRP of around $32,000 its more of a competitor to the Maxima, Impala, Taurus, and 300. I don’t really think there’s enough room in the full size sedan segment for a newcomer, which is why it isn’t selling. I’m sure the Optima works just fine for most Kia shoppers.
It is near luxury car as the author stated, most of those what they call “full size cars” in that category are. Maxima (not a true full size), Avalon, Lacrosse definitely fill that bill. Nothing sporty about this car, to me this generation Cadenza drives more like a Lacrosse and ES350 and compares well to those, no sporting bone in it’s body.
On Saturday, I saw a car with this same badge in a parking lot, and thought to myself, “what logo is that?” The thought that it might be a Lexus badge with a missing piece crossed my mind, but no, a second look established that wasn’t it. I guess I didn’t care enough about it to devote too much time to figuring it out, and I continued on my way. If I follow the comments upthread, this is actually a KDM Kia badge, which some American owners of Kia’s more upscale models obtain and put on their cars in place of the North American “KIA” badge?
I’m puzzled by this idea of using KDM badges on the car. Isn’t it unknown enough as it is, without making it even more so? And also surprised that there are actually Kia enthusiasts who know the obscure fact that KDM badges are different.
I kept threatening to turn my wife’s Chrysler Town & Country into a Lancia Voyager by changing the badges, grill and wheel centers. If I get another Chrysler 300 it will become a Lancia Thema.
Do it! That’s a fun idea.
That I like. Though as a Fulvia HF fan from way back, the Lancia badged 300 is just wrong … but still fascinating in a sick way.
Many years ago, when my brother was a parts guy at a GM dealership, we got some “Firefly” (Canadian Metro) badges for my wife’s ’96 Geo Metro…when she took it for an oil change, the mechanic couldn’t find “Firefly” listed for the oil filter and didn’t know what to do, so had to call my wife and she “fessed up” – it gave us, and my brother, a good chuckle!
I reckon the owner’s idea was that it’s better for this obscure but reasonably handsome upmarket model to display a mystery logo (and inverted so it doesn’t even vaguely resemble a stylized K anymore) rather than the downmarket-perceived stock KIA badge. Notice how they removed the stock Cadenza model badge as well. About the only thing remaining that gives this away as a Kia is the signature “tiger nose” grille design.
People talk about how Mercury had no reason to exist because it was just a Ford clone, but here we have cars that are NOT just Hyundais with different badges and the broader marketplace just says “meh”.
Kia has about THE WORST dealers, at least in my area. Online, folks give them dismal ratings for the sales experience and they scrape the bottom of the barrel, ratings-wise, for their warranty experiences. Then, they run infomercials here, at all hours, that make Mitsubishi dealers cringe. They tell you that they can put you in a new Kia for as little as $139 a month….”and you own it.”
A Cadenza? My first thought is: isn’t that a piece of furniture? I can’t say I’ve seen one, yet. The same with the K900, a name that sounds like a piece of Army artillery….a small piece.
Well, you WILL own it, just 96 months later!
Exactly. I walked into a Mitsubishi dealer once, in response to a raffle ticket they sent to my house. What a dump, reeking of cigarette smoke. Really awful salesmen beating up on obviously low income victims, err, prospects. I could not run out fast enough.
Kia is barely better in our town, from what I can tell. The minute I think of Kia dealers, Mitsubishi comes to mind, just as it did with you.
And that is exactly why neither my partner nor I will ever buy a Kia again. After his disastrous experience with his Rio combined with dealership incompetence/lying, well never again! You can tolerate a bad car, or bad dealer service, but not both together.
Same thing turned me off the VW brand forever.
Such a shame about Kia dealerships here. Back in Australia, the dealers seem to be decent and Kia also has a 7 year warranty. Considering you can get the same basic car with Kia skin, it’s often a better idea to go with them rather than a Hyundai.
A woman at my work has one of these. Nice car I guess, but can’t really see anything special about it. Maybe that’s the problem…
Seems like the Cadenza is the modern day version of Kia pulling a Rambler. And, like Rambler, although they got ragged on mercilessly for it, it’s the only move to make for the long-term. While it’s hard to sell a slightly upmarket car by the same people who sell the Soul, Optima, et al, it’s doable. It just takes a while.
Hyundai Motor Group’s approach to the U.S. luxury market has been decidedly tone-deaf. Randomly spewing out pricey sedans such as they have, with almost no regard for the logic that Toyota put into Lexus, has been almost comical and the laughs have be been reflected in their luxury sales figures.
I sat for a moment in a Genesis sedan at the Auto Show last year, and found it to be a very nice car – but not for a moment do I think HMG has anything but a serious uphill battle ahead, thanks to years of goofiness.
Their efforts would have been slightly more convincing if they had simply kept Hyundai obviously more upscale than Kia.
With the recession era luster falling off HMG like leaves in November, Genesis and their other luxury products will need a miracle to be taken seriously.
Mmmmmmmmm, sausages .
.
? Where’s the Sauerkraut ? .
.
-Nate
Sausages…never thought of it that way good description.
Kia appears to be doing well in the SUV/CUV crossover market here in SoCal. A friend has a top of the line Sorento from three years back that has held up well and he likes very much. Another friend just went from a Lexus RX to a new Kia Niro Touring hybrid – these things are flying off the lots here. Given that the sedan market in general is on a downward spiral, Kia will no doubt significantly reduce its sedan offerings in the coming years. Kia’s superlative long-term warranty was appealing to my friends – sorry to hear that its dealerships are not so great.
GM, Ford and Chrysler could learn some lessons from KIA and Hyundai’s styling and designs.
They need to teach them how to use tracing paper?
Pretty rich from brands who use a “Black Oval” and an italicized H as their badges…
The name Cadenza always makes me think of Catera and specifically THAT goofy Catera ad. You know the one I mean. Maybe Kia needs to do their own version:
Lease a Cadenza today. See your Kia dealer.
Who is Lisa Cadenza?
Just happened to get the latest issue of Consumer Reports in the mail today, and inside were short test/reviews of the Subaru Impreza, Toyota Highlander, BMW 530i, and Kia Cadenza. Overall score of the BMW was ’81’, while the Kia Cadenza got a ’82’. High points on the Cadenza were: acceleration; smooth powertrain; quietness; braking; interior room; controls. Low points were: lacks agility; automatic emergency braking not available on base ‘Premium’ trim. MPG as tested was 24….. Price: $36,945 YIKES!
Kia may be a great value proposition, but around here (metro Detroit), they are strongly marketed as cars for folks with “bad credit, no credit, bankruptcy, repossession – no problem.” You can’t build a credible luxury marque when you keep descending into that marketing strategy.
KIA Austria promise (threaten?) to bring the Stinger here by the end of the year. No prices yet but even if significantly cheaper than the usual suspects I cannot see it being sold in more than 100 cars per year. I’m sure the dealers know it and I’m also sure it’s a corporate statement, not a genuine attempt to sell these cars deep inside enemy territory. But it may be an interesting as a 5 year old once brutal depression has taken its toll.
I could see the Cadenza disappearing in the short-term, like the Hyundai Azera will. The full-size segment is shrinking and there’s heavy internal competition from the turbo Optima. It seems there will still be a strong demand for these back home in Korea, so will Kia just continue to offer it in the US and dial back the (already non-existent?) marketing? Does that make financial sense?
Kia will also soon have a Cadillac-esque problem: a lot of sedans at roughly the same price-point, while the market cries for crossovers. I don’t expect to see the K900 stick around either but Hyundai-Kia could prove me wrong.
Now the Stinger… That’s a mid-sized Kia sedan I’m genuinely excited for! I can’t wait to read the first reviews, it looks good inside and out and the specs look very compelling. I think they could do some serious business here in Australia, arriving right as the VF Commodore ends production.
I wonder if the marketing Kia chooses for the Cadenza is region-specific? The new generation that was introduced this year has been getting a fair amount of commercial air time in the Twin Cities (and the last generation seems to have sold decently here too).
I have to agree with you though; Kia will have 3 sedans roughly the same size in the $35,000 price range with the introduction of the Stinger, and it seems hard to believe that strategy will be able to sustain itself for the long term.
I come here to defend the lowly Cadenza, because a) a new one is currently sitting in my driveway, and b) it’s actually the second Cadenza I’ve bought/leased.
As others have (derisively) noted, Kia has nowhere near the brand cachet of Lexus, or even Buick… although I’d argue the latter point, because few seem to be clamoring to own a Lacrosse or China-sourced Envision, either. Buick was never on my purchasing radar, but I did cross shop my 2015 Cadenza against the ES350. I found that I genuinely preferred the Kia even before the subject turned to price, mostly due to the awful Lexus styling language, inside and out. Material and build quality didn’t seem markedly different between the two, either.
I’d planned to keep the 2015 for awhile, but an attractive lease incentive convinced me to upgrade to a 2017 SXL in April. Whereas the older “Premium w/Luxury package” car was a nice, solid, fairly big sedan, the new one is a full-blown (near)-luxury car that offers very impressive ride quality, performance, and technology. And I love the muted tone from the 3.3L V6 under acceleration.
No one is more surprised than I that I’ve become something of a Kia enthusiast. Do I think the brand is equal to Lexus? Certainly not, at least not yet. However, even Toyota had to start somewhere, and my ownership and purchasing experiences have been just fine so far, including dealer visits for regular maintenance. I’ve also been impressed with Kia’s numerous follow-up surveys that have focused on build quality, driving impressions, and dealer interactions. The brand seems genuinely concerned with making sure I’m happy with its vehicles.
Life is too short to make conventional choices! Alas, I also swapped out the OEM badges for the KDM-style ‘K’ because, as others have said, “KIA” is not a particularly attractive series of letters to look at – my only real complaint about the brand. At least I oriented the badges correctly.
Count me as another Kia fan who is surprised about it. My 5 years of experience with my 2012 Sedona has been quite positive. The car itself has been a pleasure to own and drive and the support/dealer experience has been positive as well. As an example, a year after my model went out of production, I got a recall for a redesigned set of door weatherstrips (at no charge) for reduction of wind noise. Although I thought the wind noise a little excessive before, I had never complained about it and considered it a trade-off for the price I had paid. But Kia fixed it anyway.
I was the last guy in the world who expected to become a Kia fan. I was sucked in by the low price and the fabulous warranty (I was predisposed towards a Dodge minivan, but the combination of Chrysler’s recent ups and downs and the wide difference in warranties pushed me to Kia). But I have become converted by the vehicle itself and how the company and the dealer have taken care of me.
I’ll chime in also, albeit a bit late. I leased a 2012 Forte Koup in late ’11, as we were looking for something for my wife to drive that was good on gas, reliable, and had at least a modicum of sportiness to its looks. She specifically wanted a 2-door, which narrowed the market considerably, and we liked the Forte much better than the Civic coupe (admittedly the ’12-’13 Civics were a rare error by Honda…). We liked it well enough to buy it at lease end, and almost six years later it’s been nearly flawless. The dealer experience can vary, as with any low-priced brand, but there’s a good one local to us also. Not that we’ve spent much time there as it’s needed nothing but regular maintenance! The experience has been a good enough one that its replacement also has a good chance of being a Kia, as my wife quite likes the new Sportage. They’ve come quite a long way from their humble beginnings. (Personally an Optima SX was high on my list when recently car shopping, but I couldn’t find one used locally, only a couple of poorly optioned EX models without the panoramic sunroof.)
The Cadenza seems like a good effort, though it does seem to have a high forgettability quotient like its platform-mate Azera. Nothing wrong with it, but it tends to live in the shade of a mass-market sibling on one side (Optima) who arguably wears the styling language better, and a visible if rare luxury sibling (K900) on the other. I do like the recent ad campaign with Christina Hendricks, though, I must say.
Apparently this story is a rerun.
I have no problem with that.
But I didn’t remember reading it.
I saw the picture and thought “Big white sedan, meh.”
I read the caption and thought “Big white Kia. Meh. Maybe he can put an interesting spin on it.”
I read the story and thought “So there are more big Kias than I realized. In North America anyway.” I don’t know what their lineup is here, and frankly I don’t care.
Then I read the comments and found I’d commented six years ago (under my old name) – about a car I didn’t even remember seeing!
And therein lies Kia’s problem – these are forgettable, indistinguishable from other biggish Kias, as Tom found. While these differently-sized biggish Kias may work in Korea, to western eyes they’re too close in size to have a separate identity, and too bland for most folk to notice or care.
Even car enthusiasts.
And especially in white.
I don’t see a lot of Kia sedans besides Optimas, but the new Telluride and Palisades are everywhere. They look pretty nice inside, and that warranty would make one attractive. They just need to keep building good cars, and they will build a loyal customer base. I was checking out a used Genesis sedan on line, and I found the interior to be very appealing, and it looked pretty good outside too.
The lack of badges is a leading part of of Kia’s bold strategy to reduce theft.