Test Drive Kia Rio Cinco 2001 - 2005

From six to ten

I have decent work and stable salary, but I could not afford to buy a normal car for a very long time. All the time I took the samples of the times of Ochakovskiy and conquering Crimea from the fifth hands. They poured. I with pain in my heart passed them in scrap metal. Now I'm tired of it, and I have already accumulated a little money. I want an inexpensive, but high-quality new car!
The problem of choice torments anyone who wants to buy a car and not going to lay out invested. Our market is overflowing with suggestions, sometimes very tempting, about the sale of one or another four-wheeled technology, both new and not very. What to advise a person who decides to buy a new car and has a number of from 6 to 10 thousand dollars? I put myself in his place, and the hair on the donor zone had ended the options turned out to be too much, which significantly complicates the choice is a great risk of mistaken and long to listen to the chants of the spouse about the memorial spending money. Let's try to figure out together. We call the troika completely unlike each other at each other: our homeland is represented by the Kaliningrad Kia Rio and, of course, the VAZ-2112, and from the Basurman's side there is a Turkish-French beauty Renault Clio Symbol. Two hatchback, former sedans, and one sedan, former hatchbeck.
Kia outwardly, due to the originally completed rear, it looks more like a hatchback, but to a wagon. From the point of view of modernity, the lines of the unconditional leader in our company. Large front headlights on the beserved hood and massive bumper give the face of the Korean-Russian car sports and bloodthirsty. Original and feed with large lamps, similar to form on the Egyptian pyramids, and a fifth door with a break through the bottom edge of the glass. Our dozen, despite the long 20 years, who have been developed to the conveyor, with the advent of the fifth door began to look much more modern, but still visual inconsistency of the semi-self-adjustable front and a thick tail violate the integrity of the picture. The French also did not search for heavy paths and just attached to the elegant nose of crumbs Clio's completely rear. It turned out the lady, who began to lose weight from the face, and then this occupation was abandoned.
Under the hood, all cars are similar in volume, but the gasoline engines are different in terms of characteristics and power. Rio has a 16-valve motor of 1500 cm3 with a capacity of 103 hp, a Togliatti car is also a 16-valve 1.5-liter, but with a capacity of 94 hp, and finally Clio Symbol hides under the hood 8-valve engine 1400 cm3 with a capacity of 75 hp (In the Arsenal Frenchwoman there is a 16-valve engine of the same volume with a capacity of 97 hp).
Penetrate inside. Kia Rio sample is inexpensive, but quite a high-quality car. The cabin is decorated with soft plastic and shake the cloth, the joints into the finger of the thickness and burrs are not detected. The gentleman's set of this modification consists of air conditioning, power steering, driver's pillow and immobilizer. Electric drives and central locks in our car were absent, but are possible on more expensive modifications. The instrument panel is typically Asian: compact, with all the necessary dials, buttons and handles. The dials are formed by the visual eight, read the information is easy and pleasant. Beard is given under three arms of adjusting the microclimate, audio preparation, electronic clock and smoking accessories. A plump 4-spoke steering wheel due to lack of adjustments does not overlap the devices. The Branca itself is quite pleasant to the touch and made of the material that prevents hands preventing. With my 182 cm, it is convenient to get a job on the driver's seat in just a few seconds. The back and pillow are adjustable in five directions. There is also a balanced side support, and adjustable lumbar roller. You can live in the back seat too, only the head rests away just at the place where the roof is dropped to the fifth door. Lovers of big poppies will be crowded and in front, and behind: they will constantly touch the KP handle, then the shoulder of the neighbor. It grips the narrow opening of the luggage compartment and the lack of useful tanks, and in general, the trunk is quite spacious for the hatchback.
In the toolkit for the VAZ-2112, I would definitely have included a file and a set of proper. What for? In order for the owner to independently remove countless burrs, bully and other joys of the Russian quality of production. Salon Twelfth is a kind of plastic puzzle for children over 18 years old. The instrument panel consists of eight fragments made of plastic of different degrees of softness and shade, and if something suddenly falls out (and it will surely fall out), then it will not be easy to return this fragment in place. The standard equipment includes windows of all glasses and a central locking. In order to justify the high price, the dealers are forcibly installed alarm system of the crocodile Super Faiter 3000 Do not come, cut!, Electric mirrors or heated front seats and anticorrosive. Moreover, the anti-corrosion composition is watered, including a plastic spoiler on the fifth door and seats sled. To buy the twelfth without these utilities is almost impossible. Nevertheless, the positive in the Salon of Lada is also enough. Very good thing Combination of devices from VDO with a pleasant green backlight and the same greenish shooting hours. The steering column is adjustable in height, and the driver's seat is hard and comfortable. Rear sofa is ready to take three citizens of medium height and a set. Persons in the rise above average will inevitably be headed towards the ceiling, and full of people even together will feel more than constantly. The trunk is not very big, but wide. A small loading height allows you to load heavy things without any problems.
Renault Clio Symbol in the basic configuration RN is deprived of everything you can and can not. There are no handrails on the ceiling, the cover on the glove box, the central lock and head restraints in the backseat. All this is on other, more expensive modifications. But in the presence of a driver's airbag and immobilizer. The interior of the cabin is made of high-quality materials and fabrics. The compact instrument panel contains a speedometer and two pointer plus an electronic odometer and clock. The driver of the symbol (as well as its passengers) must have an increase of no higher than 185 cm and a small foot size. Otherwise, he himself will feel permanent discomfort, and the other lives will not give. If four averages in the car will be located in the car, there will be no problems, and behind the heads in the ceiling do not have to rest. In a wide luggage compartment (for some reason, without any upholstery), one more passenger can be transported (which we, sorry, and have done at the first acquaintance with CLIO Symbol).
For the culmination part of our road test test, we drove on an empty country highway with long straight and steep turns. Kia Rio, rustling with all sixteen valves, starts quite cheerfully. The transmissions are turned on clearly, and soft clutch grabs when the pedal is almost in the floor. The car confidently accelerates and travels throughout the range of revolutions, but from 3000 to 3500 there is a failure that needs to be waited. At the entrance to the protracted lifts, the engine has to help the transition to a lower gear. On the long straight lines after 90 km / h, the RIO hydraulicel rents its positions and transmits the driver management: the reaction on the steering wheel becomes sharp, even unnecessary. The object of the obstacle turns into a sufficiently serious test for nerves, since the rear axle is clearly underway, and the wheels even at the easy discharge of gas willingly go to the skid. The suspension is rigid, any coating defect beats the body and head. Brake pedal Extensive informative. The degree of braking directly depends on the strength of the press, and during the emergency braking Kia freezes, as a statue from Easter Island. The character of her (cars, not statue!) It is not easy to describe. The rigid suspension and acute steering are combined in it with a powerful, but weakly low-rise engine that can upset the novice Schumacher. Such is an Asian cocktail of tigrin milk with the addition of vanilla.
VAZ-2112, embroidered with plastic, drove to the start. Trokan from the place on the new Zhiguli wonderful plot for the television program. The clutch is squeezed, it's time to turn on the transmission, and it turns on with a third time and two hands immediately. With grief in half the car rows from the spot. Subsequent acceleration shows that all transmissions are included with the gigantic effort. And here is the last jerk before departure directly, and at that moment the gas pedal is sticking out ... the engine will cry out, on the tachometer far over 6000 revolutions, and in the language, except for non-neutral pearls of the Yuz Aleshkovsky era. The shoe shoe to the pedal returns to the place, and the engine subsides. It is good that the highway is empty ... enter the turn at high speed and go around the moose on the twelfth unsafe. It seems that the steering wheel, scratching his arms, is in no way connected with the chassis of the car, and the suspension is not attached to the body, but simply hangs like Dennis Tito, in airless Moscow protony. Having calmed down a bit, it was possible to find out that the 16-valve engine has a good burden in the lower range of revolutions and does not require frequent switching drivers. Brakes are also good, informative and effective.
Otherwise, the next disappointing disappointment. No, not in the car, it would be very good if it was collected by hands, growing from the top of the body. Maybe we still got an instance collected on December 31 after the time program? God would ... CLIO Symbol, neatly and not in a hurry, accelerates to the laid maximum. There is no tachometer, and the overclocking limit on each transmission determines the revolt limiter, which shaves, as always, at the most inopportune moment. A 75-strong engine allows you to change the transfers and manipulate only the accelerator. You can go on the fifth gear of 60 km / h, and at the end of the protracted lift, press the gas, and the car, as if nothing has happened, will begin to accelerate confidently. And this is a simple 8-valve motor! Easy steering with good feedback, the clarity of the inclusion of the gear is all in a plus French car. The suspension works just great: real French, moderately rigid and comfortable. Even the most serious road irregularities are practically not transmitted to the body and passengers.
What to choose? Eternal Designer VAZ-2112 or Rio? Or maybe inexpensive Euro-Turkish Clio Symbol? Vazik scares quality (more precisely, its absence) and clearly overestimated price. I believe in the Kaliningrad assembly, I believe unconditionally, but I'm not ready to immediately spend so much money on it. But Symbol on a loan for two years exactly what is looking for a reasonable Russian man for reasonable imports ...
 
Maxim Rakitin
Photo by Alexander Nosdrin
 
How do they look:
Nikita Rozanov
 
Outside:
It was so necessary that the design assessment is usually referred to as the discharge of the subjective. However, in this case, it is very doubting in this, so unanimously negatively all reacted to the design of the small sedanchik Renault Symbol. It is curious that Renault in the form of a hatchback is a very stylish and harmonious car, artificially increasingly increasing the volume of insulated trunk is by no means evidence of the non-professionalism of the team of Stylists Patrick Le Kemann or the inferiority of those who like it. Sorry, this is a modern design, and the form exactly follows the function, behind the market and for the fashion of the countries of any of the worlds: the first, second or third.
Sincere VAZ-2110 style admissors are also a bit, because the twelfth is a modification of the not quite successful drawing of dozens and, the main thing, its morally outdated form (VAZ-2110 was developed in 1987, and, for example, Renault Clio ten years later). Korean Rio looks most modern, and in some fragments of this car, you can see even advanced style of New Edge, and in the plastic of the main volume of new-fashioned tendencies of mixing the composition of the sports hatchback and the functional wagon. Although in front of cars and are deprived of any permanent trademarks, their faces are characteristic and easily remembered. Silhouettes especially. The large rear spoiler vase looks again archaic, since the modern aerodynamic setting of the ordinary hatchback is usually more imperceptible and is organically integrated in the main form.

Results:
Kia Rio is quite stylish and solid design, accurately associated with the purpose and class of the car. However, the silhouette of the car is unnecessarily dynamic, and the body shape in its back loses rationality. Renault Clio Symbol Stringing and friendly exterior of the car well corresponds to its destination. The unusualness of the lateral silhouette on the edge of the foul, which, however, can someone like. VAZ-2112 Losses from morally obsolete design can not compensate for any other type of body, nor the appearance of such parts in the arsenal as a powerful rear spoiler. But thanks to this, the stylistics of the VAZ-2110 donor will look a little fresh.
Inside:
The interiors of the whole triple are very different from the friendly-indifferent style of Symbol to technocratic spiny VAZ. Rio instrument panel, perhaps the most modern both in shape and plastic and the philosophy of its organization. The focus on the workplace of the driver is made tactfully, but stylish. In comparison with it, the design of the instrument panel of the twelfth, in their care about ergonomics and the functioning of various devices and switches, too intrusive. Today, all this is the same for a long time is made more accurately for style and humane towards a person. The steering wheel is completely trouble, and its shape and graphics on the central button of the signal resemble the 70s of the last century. The upholstery of the doors and design, and the technology of the whole triple is approximately the same as the same and the shape, and the seats finish. It is still highlighted by SYMBOL, colorful upholstery of which is quite consistent with the shocking silhouette.

Results:
Kia Rio stylishly, modern and quite corresponds to the rank of the first vehicle-universal or sporty vehicle. Even the predominance of the interior decoration does not seem deficient. All high quality and quite solid. Renault Clio Symbol is amazing, but the interior and appearance of this car are very organic, and even attached to the hatchback the trunk is quite consistent with the expansion of the central console and the unrestrained colors of the seat upholstery. VAZ-2112 style is the interior from another car. In addition, the designers of the first half of the 80s were presented to themselves a thin steering wheel and a separately executed combination of devices. The style of the beginning of the XXI century is different, at least according to the quality of execution.
 

A source: Cars