Day-by-Day Review: 2010 Kia Forte EX Sedan

By James Bergeron

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2010 Kia Forte EX Sedan

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I’m back in a Kia Forte this week; just over a month ago I tested the 2010 Forte Coupe and it garnered a lot of attention from readers. This week I’m behind the wheel of the sedan, which should be a more popular car for the masses and be Kia’s volume seller for this model.

The base model LX sedan has a starting price of $15,695; my tester is an Electric Blue ($150) EX model ($17,995) with sunroof ($800) and automatic transmission ($1,200), for a total of $20,145 before taxes, levies and delivery.

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The EX model I am driving this week has a smaller engine than the SX I drove in Koup form. This car is powered by a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine that produces 156hp and 144lb/ft of torque, which is channelled to the front wheels via a four-speed Steptronic transmission.

You do get a host of interesting and perhaps unexpected features from a vehicle in this category in the Forte, including: heated seats, voice-activated Bluetooth hands-free, front windshield wiper de-icer, side-curtain, front seat-mounted side and dual front mounted airbags, four-wheel disc brakes with ABS, traction control and stability control.

Although typically I would prefer a manual transmission, with the Forte I’m glad to be driving an automatic so I can avoid the stalling situation that seems to plague manual-equipped versions.

2010 Kia Forte EX Sedan
MSRP as tested (excluding destination): $20,145

For more information on Kia and the Forte visit Kia Canada

Day 2:

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I am having a hard time to remembering what the inside of the Forte Koup I drove was like, but I believe it was identical to the EX sedan I am driving this week. My main issue is the lack of elbow padding that I did not seem to note when I drove the Koup, but I find it to be a problem in the sedan. Perhaps because I do not need to shift this car, my elbow has more time to find a comfortable spot to rest — which it cannot.

The seats are different in this sedan from the Koup as well. They are unsupportive and are killing my upper back: the upper portion of the seat seems to push out further than in most cars, so I’m not enjoying the seating at all actually.

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I still like the gauges and centre stack, though. Both are well laid out and clearly visible both day and night. The controls are easy to reach and intuitive and the Bluetooth handsfree is great to have now with the recent Ontario cellphone ban in effect.

The backseat is roomy enough, with good headroom and the trunk is a good size, although the hinges intrude into the space, so be careful not to crush your potato chips when you close the trunk. The 60/40 split folding rear seats allow for more cargo space if needed and folding them is a cinch.

There is nothing spectacular, but neither nothing glaringly bad about the interior — the rattles on my tester are a little disconcerting, considering the car has about 10,000km on it. Perhaps these have been hard kilometres driven by journalists, but it still feels a little “beat up” for a relatively new car.

Day 3:

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Well I can’t remember ever doing this before with a test vehicle, but the Forte is officially parked. Ever since I picked it up, my back has been killing me to the point of keeping me up at night. Today, I drove my own vehicle and another vehicle with no issues, then hopped into the Forte for 20 minutes and complained the entire time. Sorry Kia, something about the seat doesn’t fit me.

This is not to say everyone will find the Kia Forte uncomfortable. Contributing Editor Chris Chase said the seats suit him just fine, although he did feel the “bump in the seat” that I explained to him. There is a valuable lesson to be learned here — a 20 minute test drive is probably not the best way to determine if you like a vehicle or not, and you should probably see if you can test it for at least an hour, and then sleep on it.

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Forgetting my back issues for a moment, let’s get to the driving dynamics of the Forte sedan. Road noise is average, although I would say there is slightly less road noise than in the Toyota Corolla XRS I drove a few weeks back. The Forte feels light on the road, though, and somewhat “tinny.”

The 2.0-litre engine is peppy, but the throttle tip-in with the automatic version suffers from the same problems the manual version does: you start off either very slowly or you spin the tires and shoot off like a jackrabbit. It is easier to get used to this in the automatic, though, since you do not have the worry of stalling the car.

For those not happy with Kia for putting only a four-speed automatic in the 2.0-litre Forte, here is some information to chew on: on the highway, the engine turns just slightly over 2,000rpm and is not audible, so having an extra gear here is not a concern. The torque converter seems to lock up very quickly; in fact it seems to lock up or at least change to a very high gear before 50km/h, which results in low engine revs and, in theory, good fuel consumption.

Yes, perhaps a five-speed transmission would improve mileage a little, but the four-speed is not a back-breaker.

Day 4:

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Since driving the Kia didn’t jive with me, I had my other half drive me to the gas station to fill it up. Her comments were that the brake and gas pedals were very touchy, but she found the seats were okay and didn’t feel what I was talking about — although she was wearing her winter jacket.

We averaged 9.3L/100km for this short week behind the wheel of the Kia Forte sedan; a little on the high side for a 2.0-litre engine but not overly so compared to other vehicles with similar-sized engines that I have driven. To be fair to the Kia, I didn’t put many kilometers on it this week, which makes the potential for error high in my fuel consumption calculations. The 2.4-litre Toyota Corolla XRS I had two weeks ago averaged 8.0L/100km, for comparison’s sake.

*Rating out of 5: