[Quicksilver85]

Originally Posted by TusharK

India has emerged as the fourth largest market for Kia, with local sales contributing to 10% of the brand's global sales.

Since Europe is not a single country but a region, I presume India should be number 3 in their sales numbers.

Originally Posted by GTO

The company treated India well and hence, vice versa happened. Kia has launched top-class products, one after another. Their execution & marketing skills are also exemplary.

The Koreans were always good at adding features & tech. They then brought in A+ engines & transmissions. In recent years, their suspension tuning skills have vastly improved. Now, they have to work on the "safety" front. The Verna scored a full 5-stars and we want that extended to others in the model range.

IMHO, we still do not know the long term reliability of the KIA engines/transmissions/mechanicals. I have noticed strange whistling noise from one of my colleague's Sonet's engine and also few Sonet's when they passed by me.(Not sure if they sound as such brand new) Their shoddy safety is well documented in previous crash tests. I feel their build quality inside out is below average. Their sheet metal bends on flex on all the cars (Carens/Seltos/Sonet). Went to check out the facelifted Seltos for a friend and was checking out Carens, the dashboard plastic in front of the driver flexes on light touch, which I had never encountered in many years of my driving/owning experiences.

I believe, there is ample cost cutting in places where it is not noticable by an average customer (Chassis, Sheet metal, Quality of parts in engine/transmission etc). Where they excel is making the customer feel good in places where his/her eyes and touch senses fall.

Contrary to this, the Japs (Honda & Toyota) & Europeans (VW group) put their money in places such as engines/transmission/sheet metal and do not have much budget for the engineers working on interiors to spend. That is why the interiors end up looking downmarket in front of the Koreans. As they say, there is NO FREE LUNCH. OEMs seem to allocate different budgets to different parts and unfortunately, the ones who are investing in reliable/quality parts and robust builds are at the receiving end of the customer's preferences. An average customer thinks, what else(features) am I getting in addition to the mechanicals. But, if the mechanicals are not great, no matter what features one gets, the customer ends up paying to replace those parts.

[invidious]

Kia has learnt its lessons the hard way. It was often derided in North America as being unreliable and pretty pathetic. That's when both Hyundai and Kia started offering 10 year / 100000 mile warranties on power terrain and engine and 5 year / 60000 mile warranty on all parts and labor as standard. They loaded their cars with more features at cheaper price points. They earned their stripes there. Since neither the Kia and Hyundai brands had the reputation of being duds in India - they could replicate their North American success relatively quickly.

[fastestindian]

Kia has to be thanked from bringing a fresh design sensibility to India. For some reason tatas, mahindras, marutis and even Hyundais espouse a very "Indian" looking design but Kia was just something different and it very deservedly took the fancy of car buyers.

I don't think too highly of Kia/Hyundais and they're not cars that I would buy (primarily because of poor driving experience and questionable safety) but I have to admit Kia cars, especially Seltos and Sonnet are beautiful. I guess in the early days that's what attracted most people to it and they sealed the deal with lots of tiny gizmos that speak directly to an Indian's inherent sense of points system (how many features does your car have? 4, well mine has 5. a very similar emotion to how much did your child score in the class test). I too went to test drive Seltos in late 2021 and it was an unexciting experience but boy did the car look pretty in real life.