Kia Rio 1.3

I once drove a Kia Rio as a courtesy car and really liked the car so when it came to buying a new car we decided to have a look to see if there was one out there within our price range. We found our car at a local second hand garage and paid £1400 for it on a 53 plate which I was really pleased with.

The car is a 5 door hatchback with a 1.3 litre engine in metallic blue, the car is sleek to look at and although it has got some scratches which considering the age of the vehicle you would expect it has stood the test of time and is still an attractive vehicle. The car runs on unleaded fuel which is fine for me as I don’t drive much further than doing the school run and the 7 mile journey to work but it does seem to scream out for a 6th gear when you are on the higher speed roads.

The car is in insurance group of 3A so it is not too expensive to insure although at 157g/km the tax is £165 for the year or just over £80 if you only want o buy 6 months at a time. The vehicle houses a 45 litre fuel tank so costs around £60 to fill and on this with doing short journeys the car does about 380 miles.

Inside the car there is plenty of room, the car is medium in size so you can comfortably have adults in the back even when I am driving the car and I have long legs, the front seats move back and forwards and the drivers backrest has a lever to bring it up straight or lay back. The back seats are quite uncomfortable to travel any sort of distance as they are rather slanted rather than the backrest being straight and as I like to sit straight up I don’t like this and do avoid having to be in the back of the car. The vehicle doesn’t have any extra storage space than door pockets and the glove box in the main body of the car but does have extra pockets in the side panels in the boot.

The car is quite basic in the fact that there is no electric windows or central locking but it does have air conditioning but I find it is more than a pain that anything else as it automatically turns on when you start the car unless you have the blowers turned off and if you forget to turn it off than it uses more fuel.

The boot has room for a large buggy plus some shopping or even two Staffordshire bull terriers although I do find the parcel shelf is a pain as it is a roll up one and often comes out of it's fixings if pulled too hard.

The car has alot of the usual things that we come to expect from technology, you get beeped at when you try to get out of the car with your lights on, the fuel gauge shows red when starting to get low and the car has two trip computers although doesn’t give any statistics such as mpg.

I have read on forums about alot of peoples timing belt snapping on these vehicles well off the 105000 miles it is supposed to last so at 75000 so I have just had this changed to be on the safe side. Apart from this all we have had to do to the car is tyres and servicing so no major problems.

A nice family car of a decent size.