Cheap Kia Stingers are on the way

This sums up the KIA experience in one paragraph. Should’ve gotten an

When you are selling econoboxes to entry level, mostly young and/or credit challenged people I suppose that their dealer network “works” in the same way a meat grinder does, but if you are making a conscious decision as a company to step up your game and offer products like the Stinger, and you don’t do anything else with your existing network to actually get it to people and support it, I’m not really sure what they were thinking.

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The Stinger is ahead of its time, dealer-wise. Kia should have held off on the car two to three more years and worked on improving the Dealer experience significantly more in preparation for the luxury offerings.

Either that, or just go ahead and make it a Genesis, and use their “better” dealerships from the spinoff to improve the experience.

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It’s too expensive to develop and market an entirely new brand and get dealers to invest in new facilities

True, but they are already in the process of spinning off Genesis with their better dealers within the existing network. Attaching the Stinger to that project would have made perfect sense.

Agreed. I mean, the Genesis G70 is sort of the Stinger’s twin, but it’s smaller / shorter and the thing I REALLY like about the Stinger is the rear legroom (2 daughters, both > 95% percentile for height), so for example, 3-series is out, or I would probably have gotten an M3. Q50 is (barely) doable, Stinger is better in terms of room. Also tried the G80, and the center console is way wider, which I hate, and the dash just feels very “off” somehow.

The 2005 Legacy GT wagon keeps on truckin’, but it’s not what it once was - lots of little issues that I’m getting fed up with, but don’t feel like dropping $$ on a car that old.

The Stinger is so ahead of its time that even the paint has to run to keep up with it …

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So ahead of it’s time, the body shop can’t keep up, apparently.

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wow, that was quick. I guess with my ownership of 3 Kias, I’ve built quite a tolerance. They are pretty horrible, even those that had to remodel their dealership to be able to sell higher end models.

Agree that the dealer network for Kia is a big problem for the Stinger. I was thiiiis close to pulling the trigger on a GT1 back in May, but the GM of the dealership pissed me off by acting like he was doing me a favor by offering to sell me one of his Stingers. He refused to take off the $300 charge for the window etch (I don’t buy snake oil), and then told me he didn’t have to sell me the car when I pushed back. Wrong move Joe. You’re not going to bully people into buying a $48k msrp car like you can for an econobox. Gotta work on that customer service to improve the dealership experience if you want to sell cars that compete with the luxury brands.

The Genesis brand is getting the G70 off the same architecture. HQ’s goal was to get double the benefit from the same investment, ie a brand-enhancing car for the Kia brand as well.

Yeah, but are they better off like this, or having the G70 and perhaps a sportier alternative like Lexus offers, within a dealer network that isn’t as bad?

Kia tried the Cadenza, the K900… There’s just really no improving the perception when it comes to the real world experience. Then again Hyundai has done wonders for themselves over the years compared to when they started, so I guess it’s possible at some point down the road.

I don’t know but all this product planning happened 5 years ago or even earlier. Now Genesis’s focus is on filling out their lineup with crossovers.

Which could quite possibly print them boatloads if done right considering that the lineup Hyundai offers has made tons of progress.

Ugh don’t get me started on the K900. I don’t know how a single American in the hierarchy didn’t have the balls to say that any name featuring “K9” was a non-starter.

In general 900 is a terrible number to start with. How do you go up from there? Can’t use 90x or 91x because Peugeot and Porsche own those. So you move immediately into four digits? K1000?

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The new k900 look good – Max dont get your panties in a bunch over a name

What’s wrong with naming the car K9? Everyone loves dogs here.

We love cars, we love dogs. We just don’t love a car that drives like a dog which the K900 was…

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