With a seven-year warranty the Kia Cee'd is a safe bet but is the sporty three-door 'Pro Cee'd' worth considering?
Three-door hatchbacks are always marketed as the sporty alternative to the standard five-door. By losing the back doors, designers tend to be able to lower the roofline and make other tweaks to the exterior styling in an effort to make a sensible machine look edgy. The exterior of Pro Cee'd is new from the windscreen back with only the bonnet and front wings carried over from the five-door Cee'd. Yes, Kia has made a good few modifications to the outside to make the car appear more menacing and youthful but really the overall effect is quite average when compared to say the Opel Astra GTC three-door.
While Pro Cee'd looks sharp, the interior has not been compromised too much and even manages to retain Cee'd big boot. The cabin is still a large area that is versatile and practical. There is plenty of rear headroom and access is quite good. The only downside when using the back seats concerns access and egress. The front seats don't slide back to the position they were in prior to moving them. I like setting my seat correctly, but once is enough; sadly the Pro Cee'd annoyed me in this department.
Cee'd was runner up in the 2008 Semperit Irish Car of the Year awards as voted by members of the IMWA (Irish Motoring Writers Association) and is a fine car. It isn't outstanding in any one area but very competent in most. The Pro Cee'd continues on in the same vein. The exterior, while smart, is hardly going to have the baseball hat brigade racing to Kia dealers but it is none the less a decent looking car. With the recent tax changes process will fall when the July VRT changes kick in but remember so will the value of your trade in (car dealers are no mugs and have families to feed!).
Behind the wheel the build quality is impressive despite some hard plastics and all controls are effortless with a quality feel. The cabin is relatively hushed making the Pro Cee'd fell at home in the city or on the open road. Handling is short of a Ford Focus but solid enough, with no surprises; apart from the fact that the car feels German in terms of build. In fact the chassis, which is slightly shorter than the Cee'd's, was tuned in Germany for European roads.
Korean company Kia shook up the Irish car business in 2007 when it launched the Cee’d with an 'industry first' seven-year warranty. With many European companies offering just two years peace of mind and even the Japanese offering three years, it has taken a relative newcomer to the Irish market to make the competition blush with embarrassment. Cee'd's warranty also stays with the car for the duration, so resale values will be kept high by this endorsement of build quality by Hyundai’s sister company. Hyundai whose i30 is a sister car offers a credible three-year warranty still falls well short of Kia's.
Kia's state of the art car plant in Zilina, Slovakia is the reason the Korean company delivers this seven-year warranty. I'm going to inspect the plant in January to find out exactly why Kia can be so confident of its work practices. Watch this space.
May I wish all Motors readers 'Safe Roads' for the holiday season.
Michael Sheridan
