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Posted 2/20/2004 1:56 AM     Updated 2/20/2004 2:03 AM
USA TODAY auto writer
James R. Healey
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Kia goes big, lush and cushy
If you pine for your dad's Buick, or your granddad's, then the 2004 Kia Amanti could be your ride. Kia benchmarked Toyota's large Avalon sedan, says Ralph Tjoa, product strategy manager for Amanti.

But Amanti came out more like the Buick LeSabre. Either way, it's a spacious, fancy-looking, well-appointed four-door sedan with a spunky engine and smooth transmission — a package aimed at old-schoolers who value cushy more than taut.

Amanti is loosely based on the Hyundai XG350. Hyundai owns Kia, and the two brands are developing different-seeming vehicles using shared hardware to keep costs down. Amanti stretched the XG platform a couple of inches, widened the track and overhauled the sheet metal.

Amanti's not exactly sloppy-handling, but the softness and the accompanying body lean grew old in a week of test driving a well-furnished, $28,200 version. Before you decide you've finally found your faux Buick, be sure you won't pine for a smidgen of automotive crispness.

Here's what else stuck out during the Amanti test drive.

Power steering, tuned for ease and lightness, is overly helpful at low speeds. You find it too easy to turn too sharply and nick a curb now and then. Works great for whipping around the parking garage center helix like a hellion, however. That low-speed snappy turning is how some people define handling, believe it or not, so Amanti could win agility points among the innocent. Steering seems acceptable at highway speed; no sense of being twitchy.

The suspension that's so generally good at coddling unexpectedly transmits to the occupants quite a bit of whunking noise and impact harshness traversing potholes and wrinkled asphalt.

The interior is a generally comfortable and appealing mélange of pluses and minuses. For example, the optional leather seems exceptional. It's soft, yet stretched fairly taut on the seats, steering wheel and gearshift knob, and that combination of a soft fabric pulled tight feels pleasant. On the other hand, the main dashboard lighting is an unappetizing yellow. And the blue-white screen of the trip computer complements that yellow dashboard lighting not at all.

The trip computer displays a nice array of facts, but one at a time. You can't, for instance, view fuel economy and outside temperature simultaneously.

A remarkable eight air bags are standard. That's a lot, more than most rivals at any price. Amanti has the usual dashboard and steering wheel bags for front-end crashes. Four more bags are mounted in the outside edges of the front and back seats as side-crash protection. Two ceiling-mounted, head bags drop down to guard front and back seat occupants.

Yet the safety-mindedness isn't as kid-friendly as you'd like. It's hard-to-impossible to secure an infant seat in the center of the rear because that slot is elevated, convex and narrow — as in most sedans. The middle rear seat is the safest one in a car and the least likely to accommodate a child seat.

While there are nice audio-control buttons on the steering wheel, not one is for selecting radio stations. A running change is under consideration to fix that. A 12-volt cell phone plug inside the console storage bin is thoughtful, but mounted too high, so that the console lid smashes some plugs.

Still inside, we find nice-feeling controls, glide-open doors and drawers, handsome instruments — but enough fake wood trim to outfit two cars from phony-lumber fetishist Toyota. To get the level of plastic pine down even that low, Kia's U.S. crew had to fight like cornered critters.

The South Korean bosses wanted the ugly stuff pretty much everywhere, including on the ceiling-mounted grab handles.

Memo to Kia: You've gone to the expense of setting up a U.S. product unit. Trust it.

Moving outside, we find these examples of class vs. crass:

The doors open and close with the smooth heft you'd expect in a fancier brand. But the V-6 engine sounds rackety and coarse on start-up. The engine sounds smooth under hard acceleration — a mode the engine seems to enjoy as much as the driver does.

The front fenders curve and bulge and tease like a classy Jaguar. But small trim panels on the rear doors just aft the windows are garnished with fake carbon fiber that could have come from the Chee-Zee Auto Parts, Live Bait & T-shirt store. Besides, Amanti's not a carbon-fiber kind of car. That belongs on sporty machines, to evoke the real carbon fiber used on race cars because it's light and strong.

Kia understands it shouldn't put "Kia" in your face, because the brand's image isn't equal to the status sought for Amanti and cherished by buyers of premium sedans. So, tastefully, there's no Kia badge on the front. But there's a good-size one on the back and on the center of each wheel.

What you wind up with in Amanti is a car with a bit of the "yes-but" character. Yeah, you say, but it's only $28,790 with everything (which doesn't include navigation because Kia doesn't offer it). Amantis are selling at near full sticker price, according to online car-shopping services.

A high-end Toyota Avalon (sans navi) is selling at a discounted $31,000-$32,000, the shopping sites say. A decked-out Buick LeSabre is about $29,000, helped greatly by $3,500 factory rebates.

Avalon and LeSabre both are on the Consumer Reports magazine list of recommended cars. That means they performed well in driving tests and have a history of average or better reliability. Amanti is too new for a track record, but the Hyundai XG on which it's loosely based is recommended by Consumer Reports.

Amanti is generally handsome and comfortable, an attractive package for fans of the traditional Detroit-style cars you seldom find any more. But its Buick and Toyota rivals deliver that same chemistry and are priced low enough that Amanti isn't the no-brainer it might first seem.

2004 Kia Amanti

What is it? Premium, front-wheel-drive, four-door sedan, loosely based on the Hyundai XG350; manufactured in South Korea.

How soon? Since November.

How much? Starts at $25,535, including $540 destination charge. Only available options come in three packages. Leather package, $1,805, includes leather upholstery, memory settings, upgraded stereo with six-CD changer, trip computer. Convenience package, $900, consists of sunroof, heated front seats, auto-dimming rearview mirror, HomeLink remote controls. ESP package, $550, is anti-skid and traction controls plus brake-assist for faster emergency stops.

Expect to pay near full window-sticker price, according to CarsDirect.com and Edmunds.com.

What's the powertrain? 3.5-liter V-6 engine rated 200 horsepower at 5,500 rpm, 220 pounds-feet of torque at 3,500 rpm on premium fuel.

Kia initially rated the engine 195 hp and 200 lbs.-ft. on regular fuel. The decision to recommend premium came from South Korean managers just before Amanti went on sale in the USA. No changes were made to the engine.

Five-speed automatic transmission with manual-shift mode is the only available transmission.

What's the safety gear? Eight air bags (two conventional front bags, two head-protection side-curtain bags for front and back seats, two front and two rear seat-mounted side-impact bags); active, anti-whiplash headrests; anti-lock brakes with brake-force distribution.

What's the rest? AM/FM/CD/cassette stereo; dual-zone automatic climate control; power steering, brakes, windows, locks, mirrors, seats; cruise control; tilt-adjustable steering column; leather-wrapped steering wheel; ski pass-through opening in back seat; 225/60R-16 tires on alloy wheels with matching spare wheel and tire.

How big? A little bigger than a Toyota Avalon, a little smaller than a Buick LeSabre; 450-600 pounds heavier than either. Amanti is 196 inches long, 72.8 inches wide, 58.5 inches tall on a 110.2-inch wheelbase. Weight is listed as 4,021 pounds. Trunk space is listed as 15.5 cubic feet.

How thirsty? Rated 17 miles per gallon in town, 25 mpg on the highway. Premium fuel is recommended; regular is OK. Test car's trip computer showed 12.9 mpg in 120 miles of suburban driving, including some winter idling to keep the interior warm.

Overall: Pleasant premium package at a mainstream price. But has Kia solved its quality problems, and will its economy-car image undercut Amanti's hoped-for status?

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