Saturday, May 29, 2010

KIA Forte vs Honda CIty 2009

KIA has certainly come a long way to design beautiful cars. I reckon that Korean cars don't get much recognition as compared to Japanese cars. Design wise, so far Japanese and European cars beat them hands down.

Photobucket

Photobucket

But I guess, KIA realised this, recently KIA started to have some design revolution. In order to do so, they employed ex-German Audi designer Peter Schreyer to design their cars.This let to the birth of the KIA Forte. Evidently, the Forte looks so much better than previous Korean car. And for the price you are getting with the specs that come with it, sure is a winner.

I was contemplating of changing into a more comfortable car, before that I had my eyes on the Honda City 2009, which looks delicious from both outside and inside. Soon, the Forte was introduced and I decided to take a look at it. For a car bigger than a City and with better specs, it was priced so much cheaper than the City. This was an eye catcher. I decided to put the City against the Forte to feel which is a better bargain.

Photobucket
Forte
Photobucket

Photobucket

Design wise, both the Forte and the City looks good. But City has too much plastics which makes it a bit cheaper looking as for the Forte it gives out a more elegant feel.

Photobucket

Photobucket

The interior of the City looks simple with a few buttons, but as for the Forte the cluster of buttons makes it look very 'techy'. The best part is the Forte has a push to start engine button (for the SX series) and makes it a key-less entry car, pretty cool huh.The Forte comes with 1.6L and 2.0L engine while the City comes with 1.5L engine. But then again Honda engines are famous for its power.

So, the next thing to do was to test drive both cars. Starting with the Forte. Sound pollution in the car, is very minimal, I felt that it handles Malaysian bumpy roads pretty well. Accelertion was good, slightly slow in the beginning but not too shabby. The power steering was a bit heavy at low speed which was a bit of a sad thing. As I didn't drive the car for a very long distance, I am not sure about the fuel consumption part. But at high speed say 100km/h the car is still pretty much stable many thanks to the car's heavy body.

The city is nevertheless a great car too. Acceleration was great for this car, it handles well on the Malaysian bumpy roads not too shabby. The power steering for this car is much better than the Forte but I felt that noise insulation Forte still beats it hands down.At 100+ km you can hear the engine roaring but acceptable.

Spaciousness, Forte still beats the City.

After with considerations of the pros and cons for both car. I can't wait to get my own Forte. Sorry City


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

how's your experience with the forte to date?

is it the 1.6L SX?

simply Ed said...

Hi, I felt that the Forte is a pretty great car. Smooth and pretty quiet car.

Power wise is not bad just the power steering is a bit diff.

Anonymous said...

any tyre noise or stiff ride?
should i buy the EX?

simply Ed said...

The tyres are ok. makes slight noise but acceptable.

The difference between the EX and SX are the specs, whereby SX is full specs and the price difference is not much of a difference. For me I would go for the SX but it all goes down to individuals to determine what they want.

If you like your car to be more 'techy' SX would be good. If you want it simple then you may go for the EX series.

Anonymous said...

I would like to exchange links with your site www.blogger.com
Is this possible?

Anonymous said...

good write up, but you could use some better grammar checking. just some thoughts.

for example, by saying "this let", i think you meant "this lead"

just some of the few things you should be careful of.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.