2005 Kia Amanti review from North America

I have a Carbon Gray Amanti that has the leather package and does not have the electronic stability control (ESC). ESC should be standard on this car because of its weight. The Amanti handles smoothly during highway cruising, however, it tends to "float" when encountering humps in the road.

On a few occasions the transmission didn't shift out of low gear. When I started to accelerate slowly from a full stop, the car stayed in low gear for what seemed like a prolonged period of time. I let off of the accelerator and the car shifted into the proper gear.

At 30,000 miles, I had the required maintenance (Transmission fluid changed etc.,.) performed by the KIA dealer, and have not experienced the problem since.

The lunging that others have experienced, I've experienced also, however, since the 30K service, I haven't experienced this again either.

These foibles in the cars performance have been negligible.

I believe that the car could get a little better fuel mileage than it does. It's rated at 27mpg and gets about 22mpg. It could be the low octane fuel causing the low gas mileage. Maybe I should use medium grade and see if there is any difference! Then again; with the price of fuel rising?

There needs to be an arm rest for the left arm. I find that I rest my elbow on the little space where the window inserts into the door. That's not wide enough! After a long ride with my elbow on this tiny ledge, it starts to hurt. With the window down, this isn't a problem. Just drive in warm weather with the window down ;-}

The amenities more than make-up for the shortcomings of this car.

I've been delighted with this car and get nothing but accolades from folks about the looks of this vehicle.

People just can't figure out what they're looking at... Mercedes 300 class, Jaguar S-Type, or a Bentley Continental Flying Spur. That last one is quite ominous!

Someone in Korea must have a relative that works at Bentley Motors :-}

My neighbor has had several Jaguar's and purchased an '07 S-Type recently. We parked them side by side and checked them for similarities inside and out. All I can say is "amazing!" There's more room in the back of the Amanti than the Jaguar. See for yourself. There's also more room in my wallet for $$ too.

For the price and the warranty, this car is an exceptional value by anyone's standards.