Thread: Kia to Dissapear in 2011 (speculation)

If you ask me, whoever wrote the article is a moron. Why would KIA dissipate after putting up sales better then most of GM, European companies since last April? Anyway, take what you will.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0...8.html#s102289

Sales do not necessarily equate to profitability or success. It doesn't matter if your sales are through the roof if you have reliability issues and have to spend most or all of your profits on warranty work and/or on advertising to repair your previous image of being unreliable.

I'm not suggesting that the SOUL or other KIAs are unreliable, but they do have a past reputation for it and it may be costing them too much to repair that image. Further, unless I'm missing something, they aren't at the forefront (or even middle of the pack) of creating fuel efficient or alternative fuel vehicles which is going to be a huge stumbling block for them, IMO, if they don't get on it soon.

All that said, I hope they pull things out since I'd like to be assured my warranty will be honored in the years to come and would love to see what they can continue to do with models like the SOUL.

I do wonder what kind of collector's items our SOULs could become if KIA went away and the SOULs turned out to be really reliable and popular (good signs of both so far). But I'd honestly prefer for it to not go that direction.

Kia is mostly owned by Hyundai ... hence all the Hyundai parts .... And Hyundai is doing very well ..... Kia is in the middle of the pack on reliability according to JD power

Don't forget, Hyundai had a very poor reputation in the US for several years at the start.

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/04/26/r...it-quadruples/

interesting..... anybody worried yet? I don't think I am. For all those Saturn owners, their warranties are being taken care of by GM. I think ours would do the same with Hyundai.

Kia is mostly owned by Hyundai ... hence all the Hyundai parts .... And Hyundai is doing very well ..... Kia is in the middle of the pack on reliability according to JD power

I don't think it matters that much if Hyundai is doing well. While that might give them more funds to support KIA if they don't do well, that doesn't mean they wouldn't drop them. KIA reliability has certainly improved recently (or I wouldn't have bought one). But perceived reliability is important to. There are still a LOT of people out there that have the perception that KIAs are crap. I'm guessing most of us are working to change that perception along with KIA.

Don't forget, Hyundai had a very poor reputation in the US for several years at the start.

Yes they did. I actually owned a 1987 Hyundai Excel that I managed to drive into the ground. I actually fared better than a lot of others as I got over 100k miles out of it and you sure couldn't beat the price at the time. It's important to note that it took Hyundai almost 20 years to go from "cheap and inferior" to "quality and recommended". Here's hoping KIA pulls it off more quickly.

mattmc, I like that link a lot. Hopefully they can sustain that pace and I hope that if/when the economy recovers people don't go back to buying land barges!

I hope I'm not giving the impression I think the article posted by the OP is definitely right. I think things could go either way and hope they go the way of KIA being successful since that will lead to us getting the best support as owners.

Sounds more like individual perception without any merits. If a company is to "disappear" why would they have so many new models in the pipeline mostly for US and China [largest market]. Huge investment just to go out of business? company that are currently in financial problem is Nissan [many articles about this] but KIA is not one of the company. KIA is breaking records and actually getting recognition for quality and value. Sorento is one of those vehicle and they are expecting the same for new K5/Optima and Sportage. Actually Sportage is predicted to be top selling small CUV when it hits the market soon. KIA is selling these vehicles with no to little incentive not like previous models. Hyundai is closely following Toyota business model of sharing components with different "skin" and they are kin to sticking with the plan that is currently working.

I think Kia, as one of the fastest growing companies, will continue to offer "more for the money" and that there will always be a market for that. Not everyone can afford a Honda or a Toyota.

And to think that KIA is the MAJOR Sponsor at the FIFA World GAMES watched by almost the WHOLE World.

Personally, I think KIA is in for the Long Haul