    2012 Kia Rio EX Sedan. Click image to enlarge |
What the suspension lacks in road-noise isolation, it makes up for with a fantastic balance between comfort and body control. When I tested a Rio hatchback in March 2012, I described the ride as “a touch too firm,” but I’m going to revise that assessment here to call it pretty close to perfect. This Rio was fantastic at filtering out some of the worst bumps and dips on the roads I drive daily, without ever feeling floaty or disconnected from the road in highway driving. I prefer the ride here to that of the Hyundai Accent, which is ostensibly tuned for more comfort but – in my opinion – feels less sophisticated at the same time.
My Rio EX tester confirmed one thing for me: 16-inch wheels look great on this car (and its Accent sibling), but the suspension can’t handle their extra unsprung weight (that being anything the suspension isn’t holding off the ground) or the added stiffness of the lower-profile tires. The result is a rear end that skips around on rough pavement; I noticed it in this car and in an Accent GLS (both cars wear 16-inch wheels), but not in the lower-spec Rio LX hatchback (with its 15-inch wheels) I tested last year. (Basic Accents have dorky-looking 14-inch wheels that are visually too small for the car.)
The Rio’s seats are decent and the interior roomy enough all around to make it a practical daily driver. This is an easy car to like from the inside, with its no-BS dash and controls that are easy to wrap your head around. I did wish for a little more reach from the telescopic steering, which I couldn’t get quite as close to me as I’d have liked.
The UVO stereo interface is the only remotely fussy bit; my only serious complaint was that its dimming function (which is separate from that for the rest of the dashboard illumination) does little. There are day, night and automatic functions, the last of which lets you tailor the brightness to your preference, but I could barely tell the difference between any of the settings, which were all too bright for me on a 45-minute late-night rural drive.
Cargo space measures out to an average-sounding 387 L in the sedan’s trunk, next to the hatchback’s 425 L. It looks much larger, though, likely due to its wonderfully practical squared-off shape; this seems like the next-best trunk to a Volkswagen Jetta’s. All you lose here is the hatchback’s ability to handle the big, bulky stuff that would never fit through the sedan’s admittedly large trunk opening. The back seat folds in a 60/40 split, but, annoyingly, not at all flat with the trunk floor. If you want to open the trunk from the outside, you have to actually turn the key in a lock. There’s a trunk release inside the car (a cable-operated lever by the base of the driver’s seat), but no remote release on the key fob. It all seems a bit archaic in a modern car, even if it’s an entry-level model.
Other subcompacts do some things better than the Rio: the Mazda2 is more fun to throw around corners; the Ford Fiesta and Chevrolet Sonic boast extra refinement; the Honda Fit maintains an edge for its amazing interior space. However, the Rio is charming, overall, for its classy looks, nicely-scaled interior and a generally grown-up nature that belies its sub-$14,000 starting price. Hyundai always gets the credit as the driving force behind Kia’s recent surge in quality, but the folks at Kia have built on Hyundai’s hard work to create a car better than the Accent it’s based on, not to mention one of the most well-rounded cars in its class.
Pricing: 2012 Kia Rio EX
Base price: $17,195 ($17,395 – 2013)
A/C tax: $100
Freight: $1,455
Price as tested: $18,750
Competitors
Buyer’s Guide: 2012 Chevrolet Sonic
Buyer’s Guide: 2012 Ford Fiesta
Buyer’s Guide: 2012 Hyundai Accent
Buyer’s Guide: 2012 Nissan Versa
Buyer’s Guide: 2012 Suzuki SX4
Buyer’s Guide: 2012 Toyota Yaris
