NEW YORK The front end looks like a Mercedes-Benz, particularly the Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan. It’s so blatantly, brazenly imitative, the only thing missing is the Mercedes-Benz three-pointed star.
The interior is everything Lexus — plush, perfect fit and finish, ergonomically sensible. The Korean car company even got the leather seat covering right. It’s supple and soft — exactly the way leather seat covering ought to be.
The suspension is something else. It needs work. That is, it needs a cultural adjustment. Consumers in South Korea and China seem to have one thing in common when it comes to cars. They want soft rides. Perhaps it has something to do with the rural roads, which still account for most of the roads found in those countries. They are anything but smooth.
And so the Koreans and Chinese, from an American perspective, are given to overcompensation in the matter of suspensions. Thus, we have this week’s test car, the 2007 Kia Amanti sedan, an automobile with ride and handling so soft and squishy, it is reminiscent of a 1950s Buick, Chrysler Imperial or Lincoln Continental. Anyone buying the Amanti absolutely should buy it with Kia’s optional electronic stability control, which gives the car some semblance of disciplined road behavior on long drives.
But if you are getting the impression that this column is a knock against the Amanti, you are wrong. Here, I and my associate Ria Manglapus strive to tell you about cars and trucks as we see them, as we and our many passengers have experienced them on the road, often on round-trip drives as long as 500 miles.
What we found in the Amanti was a happy automotive amalgam — happy because it, hmm, “borrows” so much from so many different cars and does the “borrowing” so wonderfully well that, after a while, you don’t care that you’re in a car that is a mixture of everything else. And that happiness turns to unadulterated joy in consideration of the Kia Amanti’s base price, which is substantially under $30,000.
In short, the car is a very good value. Maybe it’s the very best value available in the U.S. market segment for full-size family sedans. In a troubled national economy, one in which sales of homes and new cars and trucks are falling, that is a good thing for Kia and a very good thing for the Amanti.
After all, what do most families shop for when they are shopping for a car? Do they have an automotive buff-book mentality, one that frequently elevates horsepower, speed, racetrack handling and exoticism above everything else, including common sense and affordability?
No.
Families shop for space. The Kia Amanti offers them lots of space — enough room to comfortably seat five big adults; and more than enough space to accommodate their luggage. Families shop for reliability. We drove the Amanti a total of 800 miles — 300 of which were accumulated by Ria in Northern Virginia commuter traffic. Eight hundred miles won’t tell you everything about a car. But 800 completely trouble-free miles are enough to tell you that a car certainly is worth considering.
Families shop for safety, and the Kia Amanti does a very good job there, with high crash-safety ratings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
And while most families have no intention of ever putting their car on a racetrack, they do want an automobile with enough get-up-and-go to get out of its own way. There is no problem in that area with the Amanti, which now comes with a new 3.8-liter, 264-horsepower V-6 engine mated to a five-speed transmission that can be shifted automatically or manually. The car can run.
And we really don’t mind Kia’s penchant for imitation and “borrowing.” We just wish that it would “borrow” a better suspension — maybe, say, one from the Mercedes-Benz E-Class or Cadillac STS. We’d be happy with that, especially if Kia kept the Amanti’s base price under $30,000.
NUTS & BOLTS
2007 Kia Amanti
Complaints: The suspension needs an upgrade. It’s way too soft for our tastes. Kia needs to get its mind out of the 1950s when it comes to the Amanti’s ride and handling.
Ride, acceleration and handling: Ride and handling are marginal. Acceleration is very good — rather zoom-zoom in fact.
Head-turning quotient: Ria said it best: “It looks like a lot of cars all at once.”
Body style: The Kia Amanti is a front-engine, front-wheel-drive, full-size, entry-level luxury family sedan of steel, unitized-body construction.
Engine/transmission: The standard engine is a 3.8-liter, double-overhead cam, 24-valve V-6 that develops 264 horsepower at 6,000 revolutions per minute and 260 pound-feet of torque at 4,500 rpm. The engine is mated to a five-speed transmission that can operate automatically, or be shifted manually.
Capacities: There is ample seating for five adults. Maximum luggage capacity is 15.9 cubic feet. The fuel tank holds 18.5 gallons of recommended regular unleaded gasoline.
Mileage: We averaged 16 miles per gallon in the city and 25 mpg on the highway.
Safety: Standard equipment includes four-wheel anti-lock brakes, side and head air bags. Electronic stability and traction control were optional at this writing. We strongly advise that you buy both for this car.
Price: The base price for the 2007 Kia Amanti is $25,495. Dealer’s invoice price on base car is $23,250.
Price as tested, excluding available rebates, is $31,375. That price includes $5,200 in options and a $680 destination charge. Dealer’s price as tested is $28,370. With customer rebates and other incentives, the Amanti with the cited options has been selling for under $29,000. Prices sourced from Kia and www.edmunds.com.
Purse-strings note: It’s a buy, soft suspension notwithstanding. The Amanti is a very good value. Compare with any full-size family sedan.
