Pride may be a destructive force, especially in such quantities that it turns into hubris. For Kia, though, Pride was just an example of one of the things they had always done, take an existing design (Mazda 121 / Ford Festiva), rebadge, move some things about for the enjoyment of potential customers and away you go. This began to change in 1992 with the release of the Sephia, Kia’s first in-house design as well as the first Kia to officially make it into American Soil. In 2001, the second completely in-house developed vehicle by them arrived on these shores. Let’s take a look at what it had to offer.
Italian Design, for one. Perhaps not at all that confident on their abilities to design their new subcompact, Kia decided to reach out to I.DE.A Institute in Turin for assistance. They were probably contacted on the basis of previously working on another Korean vehicle, the Daewoo Nubira.
I am not a fan of the Nubira’s design, to put it on the plain-est of terms, but they had also styled the Alfa Romeo 155 and the Fiat Tempra. Perhaps they did not have the flair of Bertone of Pininfarina, but they could be trusted out to bring some flair to the party. At least I thought they could until I found out the gen1 Tata Indica and the 1993 Nissan Terrano were also their creations.
With that said, they got it pretty right for the Rio. It looks decently enough for an early 2000s subcompact. I am Fit-biased, I’ll admit, but especially as a wagon it doesn’t look out of place next to a contemporary Daewoo Lanos or even a Toyota Yaris. Our featured model also benefits from the 2003 facelift which would carry the car until the new model was released on 2005. I’m guessing 2003 as that is when the bulk of them (some 43k) were sold.
It’s not a massive facelift with a slightly bigger front grille and revised tailights. However, there were also some changes under the hood. American models received a bump in power, from 96 to 104 horsepower thanks to a small bump in engine displacement (1.5 to 1.6). The standard transmission was a 5-speed manual, with a 4-speed automatic as an option. All very standard of the times.
All wagons were called “Cinco”, to reference the number of doors. Compared to the $9,095 base price of the sedan, $10,385 did seem like a bit of a jump, but wagons came as standard with power steering, body-color mouldings, a tachometer, a cassette player, and a tilt wheel. All of those were optional extras on the sedan. Air conditioning? Add $750 to the price. Cargo space for the wagon was 24.8 cubic feet, or about the same you get on a 2014 Jeep Cherokee. Sedans made due with 9.2 cubic feet. Somehow it managed to do all of this while weighting exactly 6lbs less than the sedan on which it was based.
The interior also got a bit of an upgrade, it was still hard plastics and I know from experience that those buttons on the console will wear themselves into smooth white plastic with repeated use, but it was certainly competitive. It may have hard plastic everywhere, but some of them also had dual airbags.
This particular model was caught and uploaded to the Cohort by cjcz92, exhibiting all the signs of a beater. Gen 1 Rios were just as likely to be the purchase of young families and elderly looking for a motorized shopping trolley as they were as the perennial second car or the thing to throw at the kid going to college. The image isn’t helped by the faded paint usually exhibited by many 90s and early 00’s vehicles. It was around this time when environmental standards were implemented for paints and manufacturers were experimenting with new techniques and biodegradable quotes. Which is why a lot of red cars of this era are now some some sort of chalky pink.
2005 brought along a new Rio. Bigger, better, more modern. It was pretty much a sign of things to come from Kia and it’s not-quite-brother Hyundai as they moved on from cars that were destined to beaterdom from the day they left the factory into legitimate matches against the established Japanese and European brands. In Korea, the new model also got a new name. As far as they were concern, that was the Kia New Pride.
I seem to wake at the right time to be the first to comment lately. I knew nothing of these and don’t recall seeing a wagon. They must not be popular in Northwest Indiana. It seems like kind of a generic car, but to me it’s rarity makes it interesting. Looks like a mini-Taurus a little. Even the facelift of the ’04 Ford looks similar to the facelift done on this Kia. It is a basic style which I like. Not offensive in any way. Clean interior layout. Hard plastics were the order of the day for small cars. When my Taurus was in the shop in 2008, my free loaner was a 2008 Focus. I was surprised by how well it drove, and actually bummed to get the Taurus back. But the interior was so much hard, brittle plastic it was kind of a shock. But that is the trade-off for mileage and cost. So if it drives anywhere near as nice as the Focus, I would have one of these. The yellowish gold one looks pretty sharp, actually. Cool wheels, not too flashy but a little bit. Thanks for an interesting post.
Ah yes, the infamous ‘hard plastic’. That favorite whipping boy of every auto reviewer trying to loudly proclaim his journalistic chops. To all of those reviewers: Some of your readership doesn’t give a damn, and the eyeballs roll back with a loud click as soon as that phrase inevitably comes up.
We never had a Rio, but my then-girlfriend (now-wife) picked up an ‘06 Spectra (now called Forte) at her favorite buy here/pay here lot (when I met Maggie her credit rating was into the toilet thanks to her jailbird husband and his parents), chosen because it looked like the best car available that she’s could afford. And I had fond memories of my Ford Festiva. It turned out to be a damned good car, coupled with the local dealer who serviced their customers like the cars said Lexus on the hood. Which led to our current Sedona minivan, which gives equally excellent service.
Despite the hard plastic on the dash that (horrors!) you can actually see and touch.
And, when it’s time to go car shopping again, Kia is very high on our list. It’ll just be a matter of seeing if they make what we need at that time.
Forgive me, but I’m somebody who cares about soft-touch surfaces. I’ll cut a subcompact some slack for not having them, given the price point, but for me the presence of soft-touch plastics suggests quality and makes the cabin a more pleasant place to sit in. And in the end, that’s where you’re spending your time…
I’ll back you on that. I kind-of agree with Syke, in the sense that the functionality of the car is really what matters most when it’s your bread and butter, and I agree the hardness of plastics is rather over-weighted in car reviews (“the lower dash has hard plastics” – just how much time am I going to spend down there if I buy it, and anyway, can I even SEE it without effort?!), but given that the tech of nicer stuff seems mastered even on cheapies, the hard cracky-sounding stuff is too much to put up with in any newbie.
As for this model Rio, sold plentifully in Aus at the time, I’m with Gerardo: styled by a mob without a single desireable car to their credit, built by a company still learning their trade, engines built (smokily) under license, it’s quite bereft of pride.
I have to admit the “hard plastics” thing bugs me in reviews. For me, if it’s plastic it’s plastic. For an upgrade I’d want wood, hand stitched leather, some creative use of metal.
If dash plastic is thin it feels nasty to me – I drive a Suburban and the top of the dash feels like it was made of some old packaging they found lying around – but hard plastics per se don’t trouble me.
I’m with you on the hard plastics thing, to a point.
Over time, my experience has been that the preferred surfaces of auto reviewers will sometimes stain, crack and lose their shapes, while the hard stuff wipes clean with a microfiber cloth, and light scratches buff out with a melamine foam sponge (known as a “Mr. Clean Magic Eraser” to us Americans).
My only gripe with hard plastics is when the design and production of them allows parts to reach the consumer with razor-sharp edges at the mold lines. About a dozen years ago I was wiping down the interior of my Jeep, and received a deep gash on my thumb from such an edge that was hidden on one of the panels.
Actually, I’ll back your point too! In a slightly different context, I frequently wondered what the hell was the point of the lovely, swish-looking, velvety light beige, no-doubt-well-reviewed carpeting in a Honda Odyssey as I yet again tried in vain to remove snot and vomit and whatever else kids can produce in just one trip from it.
That’s where I love my 04 Buick Rendezvous ‘Fisher Price’ interior, the panels wipe clean, and the seats and carpet are fairly easy to clean up despite being beige interior.
“Over time, my experience has been that the preferred surfaces of auto reviewers will sometimes stain, crack and lose their shapes…”
Indeed, said every person who has ever owned a late-nineties or early-aughts German car, when they tried to get super fancy. The stuff on my 1997 Volkswagen Jetta GLX VR6 did not age well.
I agree on the hard plastic issue. If one is going to bitch about use of plastic, then really, shouldn’t one be bitching that they did not use metal instead? Make the part in metal, then cover with leather or some upholstery if you want a soft surface. That would cost a lot more, so they compromise with a soft touch plastic, but to me, that means they went the cheap route. If one is really a hard core automotive journalist, intent on only wanting high quality on touch points, then complain about use of soft touch plastic over metal. That’s one of the many joys of older cars. There was no plastic involved. I understand the use of it. Plastic is easy to mold and is cheaper to produce than metal. Hard plastic tends to hold up better long term, yet is cheaper to produce than soft touch plastics. If you are buying something at a lower price point, you are going to get whatever was $0.01 per unit less to produce.
Whenever I think of complaints about “hard plastic”, I think of all sorts of door-handle goop on MKIV Jettas that peeled right off, or the fabric cover on my Civic armrests that have been polished smooth by elbows over 10 years.
Like everything else, materials are only as good as the thought that went into their selection and placement. Sometimes hard plastic is perfect.
Miserable, miserable cars. Ok, so the exterior styling on the hatch isn’t bad. But my sister had one of these, having traded a ’97 or so Hyundai Excel (Accent). Despite being several years newer, the Rio was a retrograde step. I didn’t get a chance to drive it but my sister thought it worse to steer than her Hyundai. And that interior was just wretched. Paint it red and yellow and it could have been a cheapo kid’s cubby house. Only it wasn’t in such festive colours, it was an unrelenting sea of gray. It felt cheap and nasty and way more low-rent than the Hyundai’s interior. Just sitting in it reminded you spent what you spent and you didn’t spend a penny more.
In most countries, there was a horde of B-segment/subcompact rivals. A pity American consumers are always so deprived in this segment and have to settle for dreck like this.
Even though I’ve told my sister Hyundai and Kia are one and the same today and even though she owns a Hyundai once again, she’s dubious of ever buying a Kia again simply because of her old Rio. The stigma of the brand just hasn’t washed off for her or for, I imagine, a great many consumers.
I’ll end my comment on a positive note: I love Kia today! I’d happily buy a new Kia. And here in Australia they have a 7-year warranty. That’s definitely helping Kia climb the sales charts.
Teehee!
Yep, God, they were nasty little things, they were. For all the world, it felt like (I imagine) what piloting a prototype must feel like, nothing properly attached or finished, and about as fast as a clay model too. And my experience was limited to a hire car!
And yes, in just 15 years, a fair bit less in fact, Kias are now a properly good thing.
Your sister’s story is one every manufacturer should read. The vast, vast majority don’t give a damn about cars, caring only if it breaks or ages super-fast (her car, I imagine). Then, they never forgive. And I get that. For things I can’t be bothered even thinking of, from razors to fridges, I’ll stick like poo on a blanket to brands that worked, while never again even looking at the ones that didn’t.
I’m with you on the plastics. They didn’t used to bother me. Most of my early cars were GMs and Fords from the 80s and they were all about that. But on the aforementioned Focus, the dash was so long that it just seemed crappy to have it be the same quality plastic they make ballpoint pen caps from. At least go Rubbermaid level. The Focus and my Taurus were both the same age and mileage and the Taurus was cheaper when a year old than than the average Focus, and it has a great quality materials inside. I still have it and not a single blemish or crack. It has never seen Armor All or been babied. I have an ’03 Avalon and it hasn’t worn as well as the Ford in the inside.
The 7 year warranty is also in Europe.
And the gen 2 Cee’d (pic) was one of their greatest looking cars to date (already discontinued in favor of the gen 3 which lost the apostrophe in the name)
We have one of these in the family, a black 1.6 diesel, and so far it’s been a great vehicle. The interior is very well laid out and looks great, and I love the looks of the exterior.
I had a few of these as rentals (an ‘04 and an ‘09) and while they got us around, they were nothing I would consider buying. The new ones look a lot better, and I rode in one last year – it seemed like a much nicer car. Maybe I’ll get one as a rental again, but they’re not on my shopping list at present.
I would classify this as late early Kia, with early Kia meaning cheap cars sold cheaply. These early Kias seem to mush together in my head. The only thing that stood out about them was that they all seemed to sprout stickers from buy here-pay here lots.
Two thoughts. First, this is not horrible looking. But then I like small wagons. Second, while I know nothing about the mechanical integrity of these early Kias, their bodies seem to have held up better in salt country than many brands with much better reputations (I’m lookin at you, Protoge5).
Fast forward to today and I am a happy 7 year Kia owner. I might not buy a Kia the next time I am in the market for a new car, but the Kia dealer would be my first stop for a test drive.
Allow me to play with the image you have of this vehicle as “not horrible.”
In Aus, the 5 door was marketed as a hatchback. Suddenly, a not-too-bad small wagon is an eye-squintingly, taste-offendingly bad job, a queen sugar ant with all her potential tribe stored in her ass, caring not that the whole world can see.
Or perhaps I’m just susceptible to marketing.
Either way, I can say this with impunity – it is no Studebaker.
I never would have thought of describing a car as looking like a queen sugar ant, Justy, but I can see exactly what you’re coming from!
The other gripe I have about the styling of these is the vertical depth of the back bumper. Later ones with the horizontal crease down the bottom aren’t so bad, but seeing one of these going down the road ahead of you looks like a toddler in a wet nappy.
+1.
The Rio and too many others today can look like a baby’s full poo carrier from behind. And if they accelerate full-bore on the wrong petrol, you get a pong to match that mental image too.
The sedan and hatch are both blessed with very awkward proportions. Tall greenhouse balanced on a too low, and overly cigar-like body. Something about the too tightly curved panels sits uncomfortably.
I think it was Wheels Magazine that pointed out the clamshell hood. Expensive to manufacture, and odd for such a cheap car.
I like the analysis from your Sedona rental review of Early Kia, Middle Kia and Modern Kia… definitely seems accurate.
The weekend we took delivery of our new Sedona (below), and while at the dealership I sat in several new Kias of all types — they seem to have an impressive model range and good value, too. Back in 2003 when this Rio was built, I never would have imagined saying such a thing, and certainly wouldn’t have imagined buying a Kia.
I don’t know if Kia will find greater success in North America, but if they do, it’ll make an interesting case study on how to improve a brand’s image once it had been sullied by undesirable cars. After all, it’s a safe bet that most early Rio buyers didn’t become repeat Kia customers, so after the Early Kia era, they pretty much had to build the brand from a hole that they dug.
So far I’m impressed with our Sedona, particularly since it was an excellent value. The few little annoyances can be forgiven since it was at least $5,000 less than an equivalent Sienna.
Very nice! Your comment is timely, as just yesterday I gave back the black Sedona we had been driving since early August. After 2200 miles you can get used to things like automatic temperature control and such. Can you believe, I have to turn on my own headlights now?!?!?!
I remember when my oldest son was quite small. My BIL gave me his C&D magazines after he had read them and in one of them was a road test of a Kia Sephia. The lad was just learning his cars then and was trying to figure out a Kia Sephia. I wanted to say “don’t worry about it, you will never see one of those in real life.” HaHaHaHaHa, says the guy who has been driving a Kia for 7 years now. I agree that the new ones present themselves extremely nicely. And we will all patiently await a report after you get a year or so into it. 🙂
It is a good looking van as well. Congrats!
As a man who owned the 2nd gen Rio for three years. They are fine… for about a year. They were built to the absolute lowest standards and made to be sold to the broadest market. Garbage. Kia should’ve never been allowed to shovel that crap here in the States. I’m glad they finally got their thumb out and make cars that are worth a damn now, but speaking as a former owner, Pride and Kia never go together in my mind, and never will.
My partner Matt had an ’02 Rio wagon, purchased for $10k when it was about 2-3 yrs old. It was fine for the first 20 months of ownership until it developed a no-start conditon which left him (and us) stranded a number of times. The local dealer was both incompetent and indifferent and seemed unable to fix the problem, which led to high stress levels for both of us. The local dealer removed the remote start system, thinking it was part of the problem (it wasn’t) and refused to reinstall it afterwards. Local dealer finally called the dealer in my partner’s hometown 50 miles away where he’d bought the car to get more info, and guess what! said dealer didn’t know a thing about the car since it had been bought at auction – they’d told us it was a local trade in. Lies, lies and more lies!
We were both happy when Matt got rid of that Kia and bought an ’06 Ford Focus hatch which turned about to be a great car.
All this article does is depress me at the loss of compact station wagons in the US. This Kia might have been crap, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s the perfect form factor for a vehicle I would buy. All that’s left is the VW, and I won’t buy one of those.
Almost bought a brand new 2002 Rio Cinco back when my Oldsmobile was stolen in Detroit. It was a $9,999 special but ultimately decided that I couldn’t swing the payments.
Eventually bought a 5 year old Escort wagon with 21,000 miles on the odo, decent options (cruise control was more or less the only thing missing) for $7K out the door.
I will be honest. I actually liked the first generation Rio. The dealership I worked at during my time in school (Win Kelly) owned the local Kia Franchise at the time these were coming out. One my jobs was to Pre Delivery Inspect(PDI) all the cars. (On GM’s that meant attaching the running boards on the Suburban and Tahoe trucks). I was tasked with driving the cars for at least 10 miles.
I did not find them to be bad cars but I did realize that these were entry level cars on day one of seeing them. They were however a step up from the Chevy Crapaliers that Win Kelly also sold at the same time.
The folks buying them were buying them from Win Kelly as one of the following:
1.Spare car
2.Commuter car(they got great gas mileage)
3.Car for a kid
4.Car to leave at a summer home
5.Car to drag around behind a motor home
The folks that were buying these cars wanted them for basic transportation and Win Kelly advertised them for that reason. They actually sold a lot of them those years I was there and most only came back for oil changes and mileage based services. There was not much warranty work done on them
Now the Sportage was a different story. Those were total crap boxes (there were times they arrived on the truck from KIA with a bad engine)
I liked the first generation Optima the most. Those were great to drive.
Now the 2018 Rio and the Hyundai Accent are great cars in almost all respects. I can get a fully loaded 2019 Accent with all the toys including lane departure(alerts you when you are drifting), Brake Assist, Forward Collision Assist (FCA) Smart High Beams(dims the high beams on approach of another car) and more for well under $20,000
I recently went car shopping for a brand new car and I was looking at several small cars including the Accent and Rio but ended up buying a brand new 2018 Elantra during Hyundai’s 2018 model clear out.