Kia

Review: 2011 Kia Optima EX

Family Friendliness: 8.3

Recommended: Yes

Specifications apply to test vehicle only.

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By Keith Buglewicz

It's rough being a little brother. Sure, your family loves you as much as your big brother. But you get hand-me-down clothes and toys, the noogies never end, and you always have to play Luigi.

Kia is out to prove that sibling rivalry makes it stronger. As little brother to Korean powerhouse Hyundai, Kia often plays second fiddle with new models, technology or fresh designs. Yet Kia's forging a corporate identity unique from Hyundai, offering sportier, more aggressive designs than its luxury-oriented Seoul-mate. Take the 2011 Kia Optima for example. It shares its engine and basic mechanical underpinnings with the best-in-class 2011 Hyundai Sonata, but its style and attitude sets it apart. After a week behind the wheel of a 2011 Kia Optima EX, it's clear this little brother might give Hyundai a few noogies of its own.

Model & Pricing

While a turbo engines is available, the 2011 Kia Optima EX provided for testing had the standard 200-hp 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine and six-speed automatic transmission. All 2011 Optimas get a USB input, satellite-ready audio system and Bluetooth as standard equipment. The $23,190 price tag for the EX includes a $695 destination charge, as well as dual-zone automatic climate control, pushbutton ignition, and leather seats with an eight-way power driver's seat. The $2,000 Technology Package on this car added a navigation system, back up camera and upgraded audio system. The $2,250 Premium Package includes a panoramic sunroof, power front passenger seat, driver seat memory, heated and cooled front seats, heated rear seats, and even a heated steering wheel. That's a lot of midsize sedan for only $27,440 as tested, solidifying Kia's reputation for value.

Safety

All 2011 Kia Optimas come with standard front, side and curtain airbags, along with stability control. It's also rugged, acing the new, tougher NHTSA government crash tests with five stars across the board. It also impressed the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety enough that it earned the Institute's Top Safety Pick. The optional backup camera proved very useful because of the Optima's narrow rear view, but it's only available as part of the navigation system.

Behind the Wheel

The "GDI" badge on the trunk of the 2011 Kia Optima refers to the engine's advanced fuel injection system. Called "gasoline direct injection," it gives the Optima a solid 200 horsepower, while still delivering EPA estimates of 24 mpg in the city and 34 on the highway. Even though this particular Optima only managed an average of 17 mpg, that's mainly because it was on hilly terrain most of the time. A highway cruise showed a solid 33 mpg after a few miles, right in line with the EPA's estimate. The Optima managed the hills fine otherwise, and the six-speed automatic didn't "hunt" between gears on long uphill grades. The only drawback to the engine is that it gets a little noisy at full throttle.

The Optima offers up a slightly firmer ride than the Hyundai Sonata. It definitely inspires more confidence on a twisty road, but with only a small increase in harshness on the freeway.

Utility & Comfort

The 2011 Kia Optima's interior is nice enough that you'll wonder if someone accidentally put a Kia steering wheel in a more expensive car. The padded and stitched dash, high-quality materials on the doors and center console, and Kia's efforts to hide hard plastics all pay off with an interior that makes the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord feel downright chintzy by comparison. How's that for a paradigm shift?

It's comfortable, too. The seats are supportive and easy on the backside. The driver-focused cockpit has big, clear gauges, easy-to-find switches and knobs, and a center stack that tilts the navigation screen, climate and audio controls toward the driver. There's plenty of head and legroom for tall drivers. The seat heaters are great on cold mornings, but even better are the in-seat fans for those hot days.

The rear seat features a wide bench with tall seatbacks and deep butt pockets for the outboard passengers. Legroom is good, but the Optima suffers from the same mediocre rear headroom as the Hyundai Sonata. You can fit three across, as long as they aren't NBA starters.

Interior storage is about par for the class. There's a covered bin that serves as a center armrest, and two cupholders ahead of that. In front of the shifter is a small pocket that's also home to two power sockets and the audio system inputs, making it the perfect place for your cell phone or iPod. The glovebox is decently sized, and there are door pockets with bottle holders. The rear has bottle holders in the doors, pockets on the front seatbacks, and additional cupholders in the fold-down armrest.

The Optima has one of the larger trunks in its class, featuring plenty of space and an opening wide enough even for large items. If you need more cargo space, a quick pull of the trunk-mounted handles folds one or both rear seatbacks, albeit at the expense of passenger space.

While the Optima's interior is overall a comfortable place to be, it's not perfect. You should shut off the "easy exit" feature, which slides the driver's seat rearward when you shut off Optima. It eliminates legroom behind the driver, making it hard to get in or out on the driver's side. The all-glass panoramic roof relieves the claustrophobia that the narrow side windows would otherwise cause, but it's too easy to open the sunroof itself when all you want is to open the shade. The biggest problem is that narrow rear view. The small rear window and very thick rearmost window pillars almost make the backup camera mandatory, and a blind spot indicator system should be on the options list.

Family Friendliness

There's a reason they call cars like this "family sedans." Driver, spouse, and three kids all fit comfortably inside. There's enough space in the trunk for a stroller plus a week's worth of groceries, as long as you don't mind stacking your bags on the stroller. Airbags deploy from the dash and steering wheel, front seats and the roof in worst-case scenarios, and the LATCH points were easy to reach between the rear seat cushions. There's no rear-seat DVD system, but the outboard rear seats do offer heaters, which is a nice touch.

Yet there were a couple of annoying quirks. First, the high rear belt position and low seat cushion meant that even older kids needed to be in a booster for good seatbelt fit; Chevrolet offers belt positioning clips in its smaller Cruze, and there's no reason they can't be available here.  In addition, the seatbelt buckles in the rear had an annoying tendency to get shoved down between the seat cushions at the slightest push, causing frequent choruses of, "Daddy, I can't strap my seatbelt."

Conclusion

So, let's see. The 2011 Kia Optima has a long list of positives, and the only negatives fall into nitpicky categories like, "Oh bother, the panoramic sunroof doesn't quite work like I'd hope," or, "Boo hoo, the rear seat belt buckle doesn't quite stay put." When that's the worst thing you can say about the Optima, it's pretty clear that its sporty good looks, comfortable and upscale interior and overall value trump any nits you may pick, making it a winner that gets a full Recommendation.

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