I once or twice also considered the Elantra Touring....then I saw the Kia Forte 5 door. The Kia looks soooo much better than the Hyundai. (In Europe, the car we call the Forte is called the ceed. Dumb name, but it would have made for some interesting advertisements.) The Forte/ceed is a favorite of sorts at CAR magazine, so I consider that to be a pretty good endorsement. Unfortunately, either the roads in the U.S. are vastly different from those in the U.K. or the suspension settings on the ceed are vastly different between these markets as I haven't read many(any?) ringing endorsements of the Forte's handling in any U.S. car mags.
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Dec. 20, 2010 9:02 p.m. integraguy Dork
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Dec. 20, 2010 10:15 p.m. STS_ZX2 Reader
I imagine that the Forte 5-door is the same as the European C'eed...and similar to the Euro Hyundai I30. The US spec ET is the same as the Euro I30CW, and has a much bigger rear hatch area...it has as much space inside as a Tuscon...and the rear seats have a mile of legroom. I am 6'6" and there is enough space for me to sit behind myself. For a 'small' car, that is very impressive. The big advantage of the US Kia is that it offers the 2.4 Theta engine, whereas the ET only gets the 2.0 Beta. Had the Kia been availible in October, I may have considered it, as the extra power would have been appealing...but the back seat room and rear storage was more important to me than power, and that is where the ET shines. It also has a pretty dynamic chassis, which I imagine is similar if not the the same as the Kia...and quite honestly, the power of the 2.0 is adequate. It also comes with a B&M shifter...so it is fun to row the gears.
Either way, these both are nice cars with great warranties and a tremendous bang-for-the-buck (loaded for $20K MSRP).
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Dec. 21, 2010 7:18 a.m. integraguy Dork
STS-ZX2:
I looked at local inventory for the Hyundai and Kia last night. I can only find the Elantra Touring in my area with automatic (BOO). While nearly every Kia is automatic (I did manage to find one Forte 5 door with the manual transmission...a white one (smaller boo).
