Honda VS KIA

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:48:25 -0600, Blue Dragon donned fireproof underwear and scratched on the wall:

Never owned a Honda Civic, but I had a friends who's son got an EX. Really liked it.

It got faster when he put some yellow stickers on it that read "powered by honda" and some other japanese characters.

Oh, and he put a spoiler on the back to keep those rear wheels down on the ground, so they could, um, well, I'm not sure what they do in a FWD car, but it was faster! I think it was, anyway.

And remember, if the drivers of these Hondas wear baggy pants it also makes them go faster.

but if they wear the baggys real low revealing 10 inches of boxer shorts the car goes significantly slower, Yo!

"Blue Dragon" wrote: > Anyone had a honda civic and a Kia, which one did you like > the best?

I?ve owned a kia and a civic and find the kia to have more space and more reliable in the engine department. also kia is way cheaper, the model I have has mazda running gear which makes it easy for parts. it uses the same cheap oil filter as the mazda 626. the honda had corrosion troubles everywhere and electrical faults which were a bitch to have.

"vaestanfors" wrote: > I've owned a kia and a civic and find the kia to have more > space and more reliable in the engine department. also kia is > way cheaper, the model I have has mazda running gear which > makes it easy for parts. it uses the same cheap oil filter as > the mazda 626. the honda had corrosion troubles everywhere and > electrical faults which were a bitch to have.

That?s interesting about the problems concerning the Honda.

Previous to my purchase of an ?05 Spectra, I had a ?99 Honda Civic Si (bought new). The car had never failed and no serious problem with the engine. Check Engine did come on a couple times due to poor fuel and bad O2 sensor but no problems with performance. The B16 being quite popular, the Si was stolen after 6½ years with me. Only mod I had on it were 17" wheel for significantly better handling, particularly compared to those crappy Michelin Energy tires.

It?s also interesting how older generations always denigrate the newer ones for what they do, what they listen to, what they wear, etc. And no, I?m not a hip hop listening gansta being in my late 30s when I had the Si.

IMO, Kia still has a ways to go in terms of engine performance. Having driven non-B16s, even the Ds seemed peppier. My ?05 Spec hits its wall at ~4500 rpm. The Hondas kept pulling (with what little horsepower they had) all the way to the line.

In other areas, I think the Kia, at least the Spectra, is the equal in fit and finish as the current model (gen 7) Civics. Only shortcommings noticable to me are the lower grade looking (and feeling) panels that cover optional switches and buttons, The plastic covered sun visors, smaller outboard mirrors. The Kia even surpasses the Civic in a couple of areas like heated mirrors (none in the gen 6 US civics, but present in the Can Civics), remote (key fob) trunk release (can?t recall if the current Civic has this now when I test drove one), grab handle on the driver side. A minor annoyance that irked me with the Civic was the small area of untinted windshield above the inside rear vew mirror. The sun also found a way to locate itself right there. On both the Civic and the Spectra, the visor does not cover the small area between it and the A-pillar which is also a sore point for me.

In short, Kia is still about a generation behind under the hood and about ½ generations behind in interior design (but not fitment). They do surpass Honda in standard equipment though (for the same price). IMO, that and the warranties are the only way that will help propel them to Honda/Toyota levels. Kia and Hyundai have a bad history to recover from and this latest generation (in all of models) has gotten them close, IMO. They are just about 1 generation behind.