Kia Cerato Si sedan 2013 review

Hyundai releases a car then within 12 months Kia does it that bit better. This is as immutable as earth's orbit and the timing of the tides; as inevitable as Tony Abbott starting his morning run from The Lodge come September. So it has come to pass with the new Cerato, Kia's take on Hyundai's Carsguide Car of the Year runner up i30.

The i30, or Elantra as it's known in sedan guise, should be toward the top of any small car shopping list. Logically, therefore, the Cerato ought to be at or near the top. Yet even the uppermost echelons of the small car class are too crowded for comfortable decisions, so it's no slight accomplishment that the Kia makes itself heard above the throng.

Value

Well, some of them do. While the range kicks off at the inevitable $19,990 for the symbolic entry level manual (plus $2K for the auto everyone will buy), the steel-wheeled Cerato S is very much the fleet favourite. Doubtless a nice price will be done for the mass buyers, because from $500 less Holden's Cruze Equipe provides a lot more for someone shedding their own cash.

Explore the 2013 Kia Cerato range

• Kia Cerato Si sedan 2013 review
• Kia Cerato sedan 2013 review
• Kia Cerato S and Si 2013 review
• Kia Cerato SLi auto sedan 2013 review
• Kia Cerato Si 2.0 GDI 2013 review
• Kia Cerato S hatch 2013 review
• Kia Cerato hatch 2013 review
• Kia Cerato 2013 review
• Kia Cerato SLi auto hatch 2013 review
• Kia Cerato Si sedan 2013 review: snapshot

The mid-level Si is where we'd put our dough. From $23,990 for the rather sweet six speed manual, it gets the full cream engine and kit including 16-inch alloys, rear view camera, Bluetooth, artificial but pleasing leather wrapped dash, auto headlights, small touchscreen and six airbags.

The SLi adds yet more fruit, but no more substance. The very top model chucks in sat-nav but moves the sticker price north of 30 grand. Yes, Kia has moved on and then some since the driveaway-then-chuck away days of only last decade (there are waiting lists for some models), but are you quite ready to drop the price of a decently equipped Volkswagen Golf on a Cerato? No, didn't think so. And there's no real need.

The Si is the sweet spot and a tasty package for the price. It's all sedans until July when the hatch comes online. The Koup (yes, they're staying with that) lobs by year's end.

Technology

Let's begin with the three mode steering setting that moves the feel through the wheel from ultra-light to vaguely substantial. Then let's move on, because we instantly forgot it. The real story is not knobs and buttons with which German carmakers feel compelled to festoon their cars, but that which you'll never see and will feel daily.

An acronym that goes unexplained in car head publications is NVH. It stands for "noise, vibration and harshness" and its absence in the Cerato relative to the previous generation of small cars (we're talking last evade again) is remarkable.

Much labour has gone into deadening the roar of Australia's roughhouse roads in the cabin. The Cerato Si has the refinement traditionally expected of something larger and lusher. Even the A pillars (those at the front between the roof and the fore of the front doors) are fitted with an acoustic deadening foam. This and sundry measures besides work so well you'd never know they were there.

While the base S makes do with an uninspiring 1.8-litre petrol four, the Si and those above get the altogether better direct injection 2.0-litre four. Good for a solid 129kW/209Nm, it returns an acceptable 7.4 litres per 100km and  a reasonable acceleration time of 9.3 seconds from 0-100km/h as an auto. This alone is worth the ask over the rather wheezy base model.

Kia claim that the 50 litre tank will furnish some 650km for the "average" driver between refills. While some Japanese manufacturers, at least those that went to ground during the GFC, still push out five speed transmissions, it's six cogs and nothing less for Kia in manual or auto form. The latter is said to be the "world’s most compact six-speed transmission”, which is nice, and, though laid out in a straight P-R-N-D arrangement, can be manually shifted by moving the lever towards the driver when in D mode. We didn't bother.

Kia’s local product team has made the ride and handling characteristics as bespoke as parent company Hyundai will allow. You may not know or care that there are gas-filled dampers front and rear, but you'll appreciate the ride comfort and stability they deliver.

Design

The sedan will sell on looks alone. Kia make much of the futuristic styling, but really it's a case of melding a multitude of contemporary designs into a singular whole. There are, if you care to look hard enough, bits of Focus, Mazda3 and Elantra therein to say nothing of Audi tail lights. Somehow the Cerato succeeds in being its own thing, clearly a smaller sibling of the head-turning Optima sedan.

It's tight in back of there, though, where 185cm me has to hunker down to save scraping his scone. Nor could I comfortably sit behind me. Inmates won't complain of the quality. The Si is already at the front the class, a Neil Armstrong stride from the previous model and a good deal more pleasant than the $50k BMW 1 Series we handed back this week.

Safety

Though yet to be crash tested the newbie has been engineered to meet the newly tightened standards of both the European and Australian crash test authorities. Five stars are confidently anticipated.

Driving

It's painful even for the neutral that in the week poor sales of the Cruze cost 500 Australian jobs another base model car arrives that does not match it. By no means is the Cerato S much in the wake of the Cruze Equipe, but its value deficit is exacerbated on the road. Riding on 16 inch Nexen rubber it can't adhere with the same tenacity as the Holden with its 17-inch Bridgestones. Nor does the six speed auto on offer redeem it in the same way as its fellow Korean sourced but Australian built rival.

Kia's localisation work is more evident in the mid-spec Si. This is the point at which the Cerato becomes more than yet another smallish car and begins to stake a pace at the A-list table.

Its better (alloy) wheels and rubber are abetted by a bigger and better (direct injection) engine, one that doesn't trouble the Cruze SRi's turbo four for outright performance, but is very much in keeping with the unflustered gait of the very similar unit in Ford's Focus. Dynamically the Kia treads more gently than either, sitting flat and handsome through corners but conveying more information in its body movement and we'd warrant this will please more of the people most of the time.

Verdict

Spend the right amount - neither too much or too little. The Si is toward the top of a hard fought class.