I'm in love with a Korean..............Korean made car, a KIA Optima K5 review

Assalamualaikum,

Hi folks,

Yes, I have to admit that last year I had fall madly in love with a Korean. No, it’s not Soo Jin, the cute lass from the Korean show Tasty Road. That lass is funny. That helps. Errr...get a bit side track here...focus Raziff, focus. Did I mention that she is cute? Fooocuuuuusssss...

Back in January last year (2012), I sold off my 3 year old Nissan Grand Livina. I decided that our family can go on with our daily life by owning only a single car. My wife’s workplace is just a short 5 minutes walk. So what is the point of having 2 cars if one can walk to work? But we know from the onset that it will be a temporary thing, maximum a year and a half before my wife will be posted somewhere else. So we go on with our merry life, doing our commute on a 4 year old Suzuki Swift. I love that car. It is reliable and comes with good fuel economy.

So, I have basically up to 18 months to shop around for a brand new car. Plenty of time, huh? During that time period, I found myself falling deeply in love with a Korean....a Korean made car, the Kia Optima K5. Not with Soo Jin the cute Korean! The K5 was launched in Malaysia somewhere in November 2011. By April and May 2012 you can see quite a number of K5 on the road. When I first set my eyes on them, I honestly think that it was an Audi! It was and still is a handsome looking car. 

Before we go any further, I highly recommend that you watch this video. It is a documentary shown on Discovery Channel detailing about the birth of the Kia Optima K5. Click on the link below to watch the video on YouTube.

Building a Kia Optima

Safety

The K5 that is currently sold here in Malaysia comes fully loaded with plenty of passive features. Included features are, disc brakes on all four wheels, ABS + EBD, traction control, stability control, and hill start assist (HSA). For family with young children, rest assured because ISOFIX comes as standard as well. There are a total of 6 airbags, dual front, dual side and dual curtain airbags. You will also get rear parking sensor, speed sensing auto door lock and impact sensing auto door lock. For night driving, you will have the brightly lit HID headlamp to assist you while driving. If you are making a corner turn at night, a static bending light will illuminate to help improve your visibility. I particularly like this feature because I can see much better while taking corner at night. During day time, the DRL (daytime running light) will help to make the car more visible to incoming traffic, thus reducing potential accident. One other feature that I really like is the rear view camera. It is located on the rear view mirror, which makes a lot of sense since you will be spending a lot of your time looking at it while reversing. Plenty of gadget huh? There are plenty more. Since the version sold here have the FULL passive safety features, it should be the same one that undergone NHTSA crash test. The best part is that it managed to get 5/5 star rating. You can click the links below to see the crash test conducted on the K5. Even the new Camry is not able to be certified 5 stars.

Kia Optima K5 Frontal Crash Test

Kia Optima K5 Pole Crash Test

The bright HID lights in action. Note the LED DRL at the bottom half of the front bumper.

Styling

Peter Schreyer. Now, remember that name. That guy used to design cars for Audi and VW. The good thing is that now he is channelling his genius for Kia. The folks at Kia love him so much that they appointed him as the President of Kia Motors, the first non-Korean to be appointed to that post. The K5 is the work of Peter Schreyer. I do not want to write too much about this topic. Just feast your eyes on the K5 below.

The rear lamp at night.

The meter cluster.

The driver's cockpit at night.

Another picture of the meter cluster.

Another view of the rear lamp.

Comfort

I used to own a Proton Satria, a Honda City, a Honda Civic, Nissan Grand Livina, Kia Picanto and a Suzuki Swift before. So what do I think about the K5?

When I first drove my K5, I ended up with a very bad stiff neck. I tried adjusting the seat and steering positions countless time but still ended up with a stiff neck. I was getting frustrated and regret started to creep in. I did not feel any pain when I test drove the K5 before. When I joined the Kia K5 Club Malaysia Facebook page and start looking at the comments about the car, only then I realised that my tyre pressure was on the high side. When I correctly adjusted the tyre pressure to the recommended numbers, I do not experience any more issue with my neck. When the tyre pressure was high, all the knocks and bumps were not dampened by the tyres, resulting with my body absorbing some of the knocks and bumps instead. So, check your tyre pressure regularly.

On long distance travel, being inside a K5 for me is a plus. I travelled back and forth from KL to Penang on many occasions and surprisingly at the end of the journey, I was not tired. The seats are comfortable. I personally love the adjustable lumbar back support, something that you will only get on a high end car models. The other feature that I like is the organ type accelerator pedal, another feature that usually on a high end models. With that type of pedal, you basically “rest” your whole foot on the pedal. This reduces both driving fatigue and the chances of the driver stepping on the wrong pedal when quick reaction needed.

Organ type accelerator pedal on the right. Parking brake lever all the way to the left. No handbrake on this car.

A very busy steering wheel, which I like very much. The auto cruise controls are on the right. Radio controls (on/off button, channel change and volume control) are on the left. You can connect your smartphone via bluetooth and you can make or cancel your phone call by pressing the buttons on bottom right. There is a mic on the car's roof and you can hear the phone conversation though the awesome Infinity sound system. To save fuel, you can press the ECO button which is located at the bottom left. At the same location you have trip meter and reset buttons. There are paddle shifters as well. You can set light to auto, which will automatically turn on or off the lights based on light intensity. Wipers can be set to auto as well, and you guess it, it will automatically turn on your wipers when there are rain droplets. It will increase or decrease the wipers' speed based on rain intensity. 

Seat on the driver side is electronically adjust. You can even set two separate setting for the seat position. I like this feature because I can set one setting for "normal" driving (I'll be seating low) and the other for "aggressive" driving (I'll be seating a bit higher and have a better view of the surrounding). "Aggressive" setting is for when I'm in the mood for speeding. 

There is a lumbar support to help increase comfort to another level.

Plenty of room for the rest of the family at the back. Note the air conditioning vent for the rear passengers. Beneficial in the hot Malaysian weather.

There is a sunroof and a moonroof. A nice feature to have for the long drive at night or a cloudy day.

That's how the dash looks like. It is slightly tilted (9 degrees if I'm not mistaken) to the driver side, to help assist the driver to get better access to the multiple controls. Busy dash which I really love. Note the dual control air conditioning. That is good if your passenger wants the air to be cooler or hotter than what you the driver wants.

Note the push start button. Totally keyless. No physical key needed.

A total of 8 speakers inside the car. Audio system provided by Infinity.

I do not want to delve too much on how the car handles. I’m just a family guy who has a responsibility to keep my family safe while I’m out driving on the road. So yes, you guess it right, I rarely exceed 110km/h while on the highway and will stick to the recommended speed limit while using the trunk roads. I did however go as high as 140km/h a couple of times but I made sure that not a lot of cars around and the roads were clear. The car felt planted at 140km/h. Heck, I did not feel like I was driving at 140km/h. What I can suggest is arrange for a test drive. You can contact KIA at the link here (Test drive request link) for a test drive. Better still, if you are lucky enough to have relatives or friends that own a K5, ask them to drive you around on one. If you are really really lucky, you might get permission to drive their car on the highway at high speed. Judge it for yourself. I do not want you to simply believe what people say about how K5 handles, I want you to experience it by yourself. You might be surprised at the end of the day. Once again, my advice is to go for a test drive.

Price

RM143,888 OTR with 5 years unlimited mileage warranty and comes fully loaded with all the bangs and whistles. You can download the brochure here (Kia K5 brochure link). Please compare what you are getting for that amount of money with other competitors such as Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Mazda 6 and VW Passat. I just updated the link to Honda Accord (updated on 5th Sept 2013), and I honestly feel sad that for a car worth RM172,800 only comes with 4 airbags and ANCAP rating of 4 stars. The base model (2.0 litre versions) are only equipped with 2 airbags. Here are the links for the competitors.

Toyota Camry

Honda Accord

Mazda 6

VW Passat

Fuel economy

I’d been tracking the fuel consumption of my K5 from day one. I’m currently using an iPhone app named Fuel Log 3 to keep track on my fuel usage. Basically from day one, I made sure that my fuel tank was full. When I went for my next fill up, I will fill it up to max again. From there, the app will help calculate for me on my consumption. So, after travelling more than 11962km, my fuel consumption is now averaging at 11.54km/l. I did bulk of my travelling from mainland to Penang Island. I need to pass through the bridge 5 times a week. If you talk to Penangites, they will tell you that the traffic on the bridge is horrible, especially on a Friday. So getting 11.54km/l for me is very good. I was getting 14.17km/l when I was still driving my Nissan Grand Livina and 13.15km/l for my Suzuki Swift. Not bad at all considering K5 is a 2 liter car.

So, there you go, an honest opinion from a K5 owner. I will not say that K5 is the best car out there, but for value for money, I’ll say you will get bangs for your bucks. But, please do not trust me on this, go and check it out for yourself. Request for a test drive and make your own opinion. Please and please compare what you are getting for that money with other models out there.

Hmmmmm......what name should I give to my K5? Since I am The Batman, I will call it Tumbler!

Adios, and thank you for stopping by this humble blog. 

**An update...my K5 is now 50,000km old. Check out my review at the link**

Kia K5 - an owner's experience after 50,000 km