In spite of how you feel about Kias, I decided the Kia Rio 5 S was what best suited my needs. The problem is, none of the dealers in Southern Nevada had any. I took it upon myself to try and contact nearly all 50 Kia dealers in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Most wanted to communicate via online chat. The few who did answer the phone told me there was no one available in the Sales Department to talk to me at the moment, and someone would return my call, which, of course, they never did. Finally, I found a dealer in Texas, who had the exact car I needed. Being disabled, I asked him if we wired or "overnighted" a bank check if we could arrange for the car to be delivered to my home. I'm not exactly in the position to take a 38-hour round trip to get this car. They claimed they lacked the means or authority to transport any vehicle across state lines under any circumstances. So I attempted to e-mail Kia's Corporate Office to express my dissatisfaction in their lack of proper customer service. Halfway through my e-mailing them, their website shut down right in my face, claiming, "Your session has timed out." So now I'm informing you, Scotty, to in turn inform your followers, TO TAKE YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE!
You should be thankful for their lousy web site and bad customer service. You dodged a bullet due to their incompetence preventing you from buying that thing.
https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/hmg/
Hi.
Hyundai-Kia do not make much money on these ultra budget cars.
They don't have much interest in selling them.
Their average profit margins are about 10% (that's the average throughout the entire Kia range, highest on expensive SUVs, much lower on budget cars - on some market that gets to as high as $1,000 per that kind of car but generally with the Rio it's lower)
And not only are profits low from sale of cheap cars, so is demand, at least in the US.
That's generally why no one else even bothers selling small cars - Ford doesn't bother offering the Fiesta, VW doesn't bother offering the Polo, Jeep doesn't bother offering the Avenger, Toyota stopped offering the Yaris, Mazda doesn't bother offering the Mazda2, etc.
So it's no surprise that KIA dealers are also not interested in "wasting lot space" with $16k cars that are going to sit there for ages waiting to get sold (and when they do get soled, probably even at a slight loss)
Eh, They're the last car markets to even bother making these kinds of cheap cars (selling 300,000-400,000 Rio and Rio based cars a year), the rest just quit that market. (The Drive, Australia: https://www.drive.com.au/news/kia-pledges-not-to-desert-sub-20000-segment-as-four-of-the-top-5-brands-bail-on-bargain-hunters/ )
On the topic of the Rio it self, I like the YB chassis so I might have bias towards and yet still it's NOT recommended. I really like how the dropped the G4FD engine in favor for what seems to be the beloved G4FG - so unlike most of their engines, decent - I really like the Gamma/Kappa MPi even with CVVT.
As far as the body, it's quite alright, It's a bit small (even by Euro standards) but very comfortable, has impassive tech, and it drives ridiculously well for it's size and price.
BUT, and that's a HUGE BUT, Kia seems to have chosen to only offer the iVT CVT in the US and that's a pass!
So AVOID the Kia Rio S!
These transmissions do NOT have a positive reputation (you can see complaints filed against other models that use the same iVT, such as the Kia Seltos) on NHTSA.
"Your session has timed out."
This is normal on many websites.
You might want to look into the Hyundai Accent. It's basically the same car off the same assembly line.They share the same drive train.
Hyundai owns Kia or at least has a controlling interest. Hyundai keeps the Kia business separated from Hyundai. Hyundai is more established in the states. The dealers are more mature. Kia on the other hand is a relatively new comer and as a result the dealers in the states are immature and not very customer oriented. They have the attitude that the sales will just magically appear without any effort. I can't tell you how many times I walked into a Kia dealer and was blown off because it was lunch time or the "Sorento guy" is busy. The other typical response has been "We sold that this morning and the only ones we have are all $10K more". I did find finally a good dealer but it was attached to a Ford dealer so the salesmen and management had been around a while. I have two Kias and they run fine but my experiences with dealers would discourage me from buying one in the future.
Any one wanting to chime in is welcome.
I have owned a Hyundai Accent for almost a decade previously.
Currently I have two KIA Stonic SUV, which share the model designation ("YB"), the interior and almost all components (except styling and suspension) with the Kia Rio.
-
And these two cars are surprisingly completely different - The Accent is kind of "rough around the edges" while the Rio is genuinely nice.
-
The 4th gen Rio uses a European market sophisticated platform ("Hyundai-Kia GB")
while the 5th gen Accent uses the "Russian/Chinese market" "Hyundai-Kia K2" platform.
-
The Rio feels like a nice European hatchback, the Accent still feels like an Asian budget car from the early 2010s...
I am sorry to hear your current experiences with KIA.
That sounds really frustrating.
They should fix their dealership problems before they fix their cars design flaws.
