Has to be said that Kia (and Hyundai) have been there or thereabouts for quite a while now (since about 2006 I'd say) but as you say they just haven't been given that final finishing-off that isn't really noticed in most markets, but is something that Europeans are very fussy about.

The problem for them is where to go from here. Mitsubishi and Nissan have learned the hard way that having a good product in Europe isn't enough -- it has to "feel" right, and Europeans will go for a less well-engineered product at the same price if it has better showroom appeal.

So the Eastern makes are caught between a rock and a hard place -- compromise engineering, put the price up, or lose sales due to image. Nissan have done the first, Honda the second, Mitsu the third. Honda seems to be doing the best of the three, so the Koreans are probably going to go the same way.

I recently had on lease a kia rio on a 09 plate which was reliable and fine for the job, but the staff kept commenting how dated it seemed inside.

The venga was impressive, it was a european car, a quality car, and at £10 grand for a 60 plate diesel with 5k on the clock middle of the range, it was an absolute bargain.

The Rio was dated when it arrived both in interior and exterior, it was designed as a world car and therefore had to appeal to low and high cost markets at the same time. It had merits, such as the 1.5 diesel and the spec for the price.

The Cee'd started the big swing to european desired design, if you look at the Venga's interior its almost identical. My dad has a Cee'd and its agreat car, they however still use really cheap plastics in places, not up there yet with Toyota or Honda in certain ways but have surpassed them in others. Toyota and Honda are no longer reasonably priced or ok looking, they were going in the right direction with the old Corolla and Civic but the latest models were a step back, Kia and Hyundai have take their places.

I tried a Venga, nice car, great visibility, but suffers in the same way as the Honda Jazz, that of not allowing the front seat to go down lower or far enough back, therefore making the rear seat space and boot larger than they otherwise would be. The diesel engine wasn't great though, lack of power and does less than the Cee'd which is a larger car.

Edited by carl_a on 09/03/2011 at 00:03