Kia Optima (2011 - 2015) Reviews, Pricing & Specs

Loved this car. The EX trim has great features for a 2012 (heated and cooled leather seats, heated steering wheel, sun and moonroof, bluetooth with touchscreen, backup camera etc. Smooth ride with pretty decent acceleration for a standard sedan. LOTS of leg room in the front and back, so I never had an issue driving friends around. Great on gas. Had it for 3 years and never had any mechanical issues. It had a rattling sound in the steering wheel at first and it turned out it was a problem with the flexible steering coupler (tiny little $5 rubber piece in the steering column) Took it to a Kia dealership and it was covered under warranty since the part had been recalled. Zero issues otherwise. Overall a great carAug 11, 2022

I really like all that you get for your money. Very solid feel and very tight handling. Great "back road" driving experience. Good brakes, mediocre fuel economy. Absolutely no reliabilty issues. A lot of fun to drive and accelerates very well. I bought this vehicle as soon as I drove it. I had been shopping for another vehicle for a long while and decided to test drive an optima on a "whim". After I compared the price, drivability and overall value, the Kia won "hands down". We're talking "no brainer" here.Jul 19, 2014

In our search for a stylish but sporty looking sedan & importantly having safety in mind, we originally looked at the Ford Fusion and Hyundai Sonata. Expanding the search, just to see if there were any others to consider, brought us to include the Kia Optima in an eye opening experience after test driving it for comparison. After great consideration between all 3 models, the Kia Optima SX Turbo won hands down because of having the looks and premium option features that made it a no-brainer to purchase. Being a die-hard Ford owner for years made it a very difficult choice but the warranty especially became a tipping point in the decision making process. Ford needs to wake up because 3yrs/36,000 mi. warranties are stone age in my eyes now. That narrowed the choice between the Kia Optima and Hyundai Sonata, both of which had the 5yr/60,000 bumper to bumper and 10yr/100,000 drivetrain warranties. Although the Sonata was very comparable in many ways my daughter (college student) noticed a lot of older drivers in the Sonata. The Optima's were being predominantly driven by a younger crowd. Funny enough, I saw her observations were true and so that became the last nail in the Sonata coffin. The Kia Optima SX amazes one if you're not over-expecting this car to be something that it's not. It's not a sports car, but the 2.0L Turbo model we purchased has excellent get up & go. The handling is just right for a sedan, which is hard to believe. We decided on going the full monty and got both the premium and technology packages.This added greatly to the MSRP, but after doing so, I could see it was well worth it. While sitting inside, you just notice more & more & more conveniences. We cannot speak about reliability because the car is too new, but we're so glad that our month of homework and shopping has brought us to purchasing a vehicle that is leaving the others in our rear view mirror. UPDATE: We've just turned 16,000 miles and the car is better than imagined. We are pleased that we made the right decision in choosing the Optima SX Turbo over any of the other Manufacturers comparable models. We've had no problems except for water entering the tail light which was replaced under warranty during our recent 15K servicing. It was a sealed LED unit so that's why it was replaced completely - a $500+ part no less - crazy what lights go for on newer cars with these LED's. As typical with OEM tires (Hankook - Korean tire of course like the car), they were terrible in the rain and had signs of above normal wear for the low miles we had on them. I bought dedicated Michelin snow tires for the winter and the Optima handled snow with great assurance. In May ('15), I bought a set of Continental PureContact w/ecoplus technology and the car just handles like a whole new vehicle. Tire response around corners is really amazing and they go through rain like it wasn't even there. Will update again! Jul 05, 2014

Absolutely love this car. It has tons of features in it for the reasonable price. It has heated and cooled seats, nav system, iphone integration, push to start, and a lot more. The car has 274 hp and is a ton of fun to drive. The gas mileage could be better, but honestly who cares about mpg when you're driving something like this. I get about 20 mpg depending on how I drive. I've hit 110 in it no problem, just ran out of road. And the Corsa blue color on it is amazing. Oh and the safety is phenomenal. I actually got rear-ended and the car took it like a champ. I honestly had 2 barely noticeable scratches on the back bumper, unlike the other idiot driver whose entire hood and front fenders were broken in like 4 places and her headlight was falling out.Apr 16, 2013