Sensibly Spirited Driver
Active Member
I had a vision, of sorts, that I should get a Stinger. So I went online, researched it, and the car seemed to tick a lot of boxes (sadly not a wagon, though). After being disappointed by so many other cars with good reviews and good spec sheets, I didn't have high hopes. Before doing a test drive, I got approved on Kia's site, so I could drive home with a car if I liked it. Kia's site said it could save time, although as you'll read, that wasn't the case. After being approved, I used the site's option to get dealers to contact me. There are half a dozen dealerships within reasonable driving to my house, so it's a competitive area. The first reply came from a dealer that didn't have the color I wanted, then came a dealer that had the color I wanted, but with the 18" wheels/130mph speed cap. I actually wanted 18" wheels, but didn't want to lose the potential performance. The dealer made various calls to see if anything could be done with it, but there wasn't. So, 19" was going to be the only option, and only one dealer had the color I wanted. Luckily, they had it in multiple trims, so I could try each.
I spoke with a nice sounding salesperson, Brian, on the phone, who (obviously) told me to stop by that day. I told him the next day would probably be best, as I wouldn't be able to get there until near closing time. He said that was not an issue, and just to come. He scheduled an appointment time a half an hour before I said I thought I'd get there, "just in case you'll arrive early", but I arrived--as expected--about 30 minutes before closing. Brian had said the earlier scheduling was to make sure the car was out and waiting for me when I arrived. When I got there, I was greeted by a different salesperson, who said that Brian had left early, and the car wasn't out. I had a bad vibe from the start, but I was there to buy a car, not him. My lips were a bit parched, and I asked if there was anything to drink. The sales person said they had a vending machine. "You're not going to buy me something to drink?" I said, smiling. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pile of quarters. That was nice of him. However, I think dealerships should have free beverages as standard, that seems sensible. At least their sales people were ready to offer coins, should someone request it.
They had each of the trims in the colors I wanted, and I started with the GT. The first thing I did, after buckling my seat belt, was to change the drive mode to "custom", set the steering to "sport" and turn off the fake engine sounds. As I drove out of the dealership, to put the car through its paces, my hopes had gone way up. The steering feel in the "sport" setting was excellent, at least at low speed. This could be it. On the highway it was smooth, and passing acceleration was brisk--as one would expect with 365HP. After a minute on the highway, we pulled off for a winding road. There, I put the hammer down. Doing full lane-to-lane driving and power sliding, the car handled it all effortlessly. Around one turn, there was a large pile of something in the middle of the lane, and the car danced around it confidently. The heavy weight of the car actually made it fun, tossing it's rear around. Critical for me, the steering feel was superb. I was sold. The Stinger did what I cared about, and in the manner I wanted. The "sport" weighted steering in "custom" gave me 90% or so of the Renault Sport steering feel I craved, and a huge sigh of relief was exhaled. Finally, a car had been released in North America that I wanted...my wait for Renault to magically start selling cars here had ended. All those disappointing drives in Audi's and Acura's and so on could all be forgotten.
After the GT, I tested the GT2. While the salesperson said the headroom in the roofed GT was as much as a Forte5, it was not. In the GT (w/out sunroof), if I sat up straight, with the seat upright, my head was pressed against the roof and I needed to angle it to the side. I wish the seat could be lowered further. It's lowest setting is still an 1" higher than I need, and 2" higher than I'd prefer (I hate smacking my head on the roof over every bump. Better the padded roof than glass, though. I'll probably get a custom seat for it. My shoulders are touching the headrest, to give you an idea. The design of the sunroof, unlike some cars, had more headroom, albeit with the sunshade opened. With it closed, they height is the same. In both of my Saab's, I'd had a sunroof, which I didn't like, because they added road noise. I knew that I didn't want a sunroof on my next car, but was saddened that the roofed version of the Stinger had less headroom, because often times the roofed car has more. While I prefer to have my seat full upright, if I tilted it back a bit, it was workable. With the sunroof, if I pulled the interior cover back, I could comfortably sit with the seat fully upright. My hair was pressed against the glass, but at least my skull wasn't touching it (by a matter of millimeters).
The GT1 they had was equipped with a sunroof, so I skipped to the GT2 for the GT vs GT1/2 comparison. My main concern was road noise. We did a short loop in the GT2 and then another loop in the GT to compare. The noise was significantly lower in the GT, so the GT2 was crossed off the list of contenders. Keep in mind, my head is right at the level of the glass, so for most people, the difference would probably be less noticeable. Further, many GT buyers apparently want their cars to be noisy, which is why Kia added fake engine sounds pumped in through the speakers (thank goodness you can turn them off). There were some other things I preferred about the GT, which I didn't know about until test driving. The first thing I noticed was that the GT had a sport-shift T stick. I'd only seen pictures of the ham shifter in photos of the car, so didn't realize a rally-style up/down shifter was available. I've never been a fan of Audi's shifters, but intended to live with it on the Stinger. Thankfully I didn't have to, that was a breath of fresh air.
Another thing I noticed was the GT had a mechanical tilt/shift control for the steering wheel. I adjust my steering wheel somewhat regularly, along with my seat, especially on very long drives. It's just nice to be able to reposition a bit, for the muscles. I like to be able to make those adjustments quickly at a red light, so prefer the simple lever-grab-move-done approach. The main feature the GT2 had that I wanted was an L.S.D., but that was something I could add later, and wasn't something worth losing the driver-oriented conveniences of the GT for. I didn't have to debate much at all, and decided the GT was the obvious choice for my tastes. One thing I didn't compare was the stereo of the GT1. If it blew me away, I'd likely have gone for that trim. However, they didn't have a roofed GT1 to test. The stereo is the same as in the GT2, but all of those have a glass sheet on top as well. Since I was leasing, I was at the whims of what dealers had in stock. I didn't want the "DriveWise" package that the GT had, but all dealers I'd spoken to had added that option on their GT's for greater margin. However, I'm glad it came with that, because the the blind spot warning is very handy with such limited visibility. Seeing the mirror light up let's me know someone is approaching without careening my neck. I prefer to drive my car, not have my car drive me, so lane assist, adaptive cruise control and so on weren't of utility, but they were all easily disabled with a few buttons to the left of the steering wheel.
Although I'd done the Kia financing pre-approval online, that was apparently only sent to the nearest dealer, and not them. So, I had to redo that process, but it had to be done on their computers, rather than through Kia's site. They had Windows computers, which were frequently freezing. A few letters would be typed in, then computer would freeze for two minutes, type a few more things in, computer freezes, wait a couple minutes, and so on. It was ridiculous. After that I started asking the sales person some basic questions about the leasing process, which he didn't know anything about, just as he hadn't known much about the car. After each question, he'd walk across the dealership to the sales manager, talk to him for a minute or two, then walk back. The next question, the same thing. It was like he was a malfunctioning Windows computer too.
Following the approval, the salesperson printed out some paper with pricing. Absurd. The car's sticker was $43,525 (GT, AWD, DriverWise, and some other things), and the paper he brought said $47K+ something. It was loaded with all kinds of nonsense the sales person never discussed and I had no interest in. Perhaps they hope people would either be: a) dumb enough to sign at that price, or b) use the fictional price as the "anchor" to start going down from. I asked him how on earth the offer he was making was higher than the sticker price of $43,525. He looked confused. "What do you mean $43,525?" I told him to look at his website. "Oh, I see, it is listed as $43,525." Good lord.
At that point, I just got up and walked to the sales manager, to deal with him directly and wrap things up. I repeatedly stated I could just come back the following day, as they were past closed, but each time I said that, they told me not to worry about it. Getting the deal done was more important for them than going home quicker, I guess. It didn't make a difference to me, and I'd almost just walked out anyway, when the salesperson dropped the laughable piece of paper in front of me. From their end, once a person walks out, sans car, they may never see them again. I get that. I asked the sales manager to print out the invoice ($41,224), offered a dollar over the invoice, and then moved on to the paperwork signing. The whole process, from the time I walked in, took about 90 minutes, which I thought was absurdly long. The person who prepared the documents for signing said people actually often spend 4-6 hours, so my purchase was way shorter than usual. Yikes.
After that, I drove home, happy to have finally gotten a car with the French sport steering feel I'd so craved since my laps on the Nürburgring in a Clio RS 220. The cars may handle radically differently, given their different size/weight classes, but the steering feel is incredibly close. The size and shape of the steering wheels are similar as well.
I don't think I can review the dealership in broad strokes, because I think the salesperson you deal with makes a big difference. I have a feeling that if I'd dealt with Brian, things would have been smoother. The sales person I was dealing with said he'd just moved to the US, was new to a lot of words (I had to explain the meaning of the questions I was asking), and so on. His lack of training was also likely the dealership's fault and not his, but, whatever. The insane price he started with could be standard there, or might not be. I don't know.
As I'd never signed a lease before, I read up about it online prior to contacting dealers. One post I read, from a salesman, said that for the car price you should just offer $100 over invoice, and leave if they say no. According to that post, a lot of people don't ask the dealer for the invoice (dealer paid price), but they legally must show it to you on request. After that, you can negotiate other fees and bonuses. The sticker price is irrelevant, just work off the invoice price. $41,225 was the "agreed upon value of the vehicle.", so $2,300 under the sticker price (in this case the sticker price was the same as MSRP). The lease rebate was $5,300, which is what other dealers had quoted me for the same trim/package. The adjusted capitalized cost was $35,818. I asked if the $150 "documentation fee" was paid to the sales person. The sales manager said, "yes", so I told him that was fine. He should get something as he bought me a soda. The sales manager laughed.
Anyway, I thought the salesmanager was decent enough. If you're going to buy a car there, and your salesperson seems incompetent, just go to the sales manager to finish up and save yourself a lot of time. They are not supposed to do the salesperson's job, but their job is to oversee the sales of cars. If you're there to buy a car, and he or she is simplest point of contact to sort out a deal and get on your way, then so be it. That should ideally encourage them to better train their staff.
The after sales support was non-existent. I emailed to ask about the cost of an oil filter, and got a response from the salesperson, four days later, telling me to call their parts department. I'd already done that by that point. So, if you expect them to answer any questions after you get your car, forget it. As stated in many online reviews, there isn't any "relationship building" as would be customary at an Audi or BMW dealership. You're going to a place where most people are picking up cheap SUV's that cost half of what a Stinger does. So, as great as the Stinger is, don't expect Kia dealerships to have suddenly risen to the level of higher end dealerships. There are probably some great Kia dealerships out there, but I wouldn't classify this as one of them. It's not a terrible place to buy a car, but it's not a great one either. Probably average. I don't know. It's my first Kia.
I spoke with a nice sounding salesperson, Brian, on the phone, who (obviously) told me to stop by that day. I told him the next day would probably be best, as I wouldn't be able to get there until near closing time. He said that was not an issue, and just to come. He scheduled an appointment time a half an hour before I said I thought I'd get there, "just in case you'll arrive early", but I arrived--as expected--about 30 minutes before closing. Brian had said the earlier scheduling was to make sure the car was out and waiting for me when I arrived. When I got there, I was greeted by a different salesperson, who said that Brian had left early, and the car wasn't out. I had a bad vibe from the start, but I was there to buy a car, not him. My lips were a bit parched, and I asked if there was anything to drink. The sales person said they had a vending machine. "You're not going to buy me something to drink?" I said, smiling. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pile of quarters. That was nice of him. However, I think dealerships should have free beverages as standard, that seems sensible. At least their sales people were ready to offer coins, should someone request it.
They had each of the trims in the colors I wanted, and I started with the GT. The first thing I did, after buckling my seat belt, was to change the drive mode to "custom", set the steering to "sport" and turn off the fake engine sounds. As I drove out of the dealership, to put the car through its paces, my hopes had gone way up. The steering feel in the "sport" setting was excellent, at least at low speed. This could be it. On the highway it was smooth, and passing acceleration was brisk--as one would expect with 365HP. After a minute on the highway, we pulled off for a winding road. There, I put the hammer down. Doing full lane-to-lane driving and power sliding, the car handled it all effortlessly. Around one turn, there was a large pile of something in the middle of the lane, and the car danced around it confidently. The heavy weight of the car actually made it fun, tossing it's rear around. Critical for me, the steering feel was superb. I was sold. The Stinger did what I cared about, and in the manner I wanted. The "sport" weighted steering in "custom" gave me 90% or so of the Renault Sport steering feel I craved, and a huge sigh of relief was exhaled. Finally, a car had been released in North America that I wanted...my wait for Renault to magically start selling cars here had ended. All those disappointing drives in Audi's and Acura's and so on could all be forgotten.
After the GT, I tested the GT2. While the salesperson said the headroom in the roofed GT was as much as a Forte5, it was not. In the GT (w/out sunroof), if I sat up straight, with the seat upright, my head was pressed against the roof and I needed to angle it to the side. I wish the seat could be lowered further. It's lowest setting is still an 1" higher than I need, and 2" higher than I'd prefer (I hate smacking my head on the roof over every bump. Better the padded roof than glass, though. I'll probably get a custom seat for it. My shoulders are touching the headrest, to give you an idea. The design of the sunroof, unlike some cars, had more headroom, albeit with the sunshade opened. With it closed, they height is the same. In both of my Saab's, I'd had a sunroof, which I didn't like, because they added road noise. I knew that I didn't want a sunroof on my next car, but was saddened that the roofed version of the Stinger had less headroom, because often times the roofed car has more. While I prefer to have my seat full upright, if I tilted it back a bit, it was workable. With the sunroof, if I pulled the interior cover back, I could comfortably sit with the seat fully upright. My hair was pressed against the glass, but at least my skull wasn't touching it (by a matter of millimeters).
The GT1 they had was equipped with a sunroof, so I skipped to the GT2 for the GT vs GT1/2 comparison. My main concern was road noise. We did a short loop in the GT2 and then another loop in the GT to compare. The noise was significantly lower in the GT, so the GT2 was crossed off the list of contenders. Keep in mind, my head is right at the level of the glass, so for most people, the difference would probably be less noticeable. Further, many GT buyers apparently want their cars to be noisy, which is why Kia added fake engine sounds pumped in through the speakers (thank goodness you can turn them off). There were some other things I preferred about the GT, which I didn't know about until test driving. The first thing I noticed was that the GT had a sport-shift T stick. I'd only seen pictures of the ham shifter in photos of the car, so didn't realize a rally-style up/down shifter was available. I've never been a fan of Audi's shifters, but intended to live with it on the Stinger. Thankfully I didn't have to, that was a breath of fresh air.
Another thing I noticed was the GT had a mechanical tilt/shift control for the steering wheel. I adjust my steering wheel somewhat regularly, along with my seat, especially on very long drives. It's just nice to be able to reposition a bit, for the muscles. I like to be able to make those adjustments quickly at a red light, so prefer the simple lever-grab-move-done approach. The main feature the GT2 had that I wanted was an L.S.D., but that was something I could add later, and wasn't something worth losing the driver-oriented conveniences of the GT for. I didn't have to debate much at all, and decided the GT was the obvious choice for my tastes. One thing I didn't compare was the stereo of the GT1. If it blew me away, I'd likely have gone for that trim. However, they didn't have a roofed GT1 to test. The stereo is the same as in the GT2, but all of those have a glass sheet on top as well. Since I was leasing, I was at the whims of what dealers had in stock. I didn't want the "DriveWise" package that the GT had, but all dealers I'd spoken to had added that option on their GT's for greater margin. However, I'm glad it came with that, because the the blind spot warning is very handy with such limited visibility. Seeing the mirror light up let's me know someone is approaching without careening my neck. I prefer to drive my car, not have my car drive me, so lane assist, adaptive cruise control and so on weren't of utility, but they were all easily disabled with a few buttons to the left of the steering wheel.
Although I'd done the Kia financing pre-approval online, that was apparently only sent to the nearest dealer, and not them. So, I had to redo that process, but it had to be done on their computers, rather than through Kia's site. They had Windows computers, which were frequently freezing. A few letters would be typed in, then computer would freeze for two minutes, type a few more things in, computer freezes, wait a couple minutes, and so on. It was ridiculous. After that I started asking the sales person some basic questions about the leasing process, which he didn't know anything about, just as he hadn't known much about the car. After each question, he'd walk across the dealership to the sales manager, talk to him for a minute or two, then walk back. The next question, the same thing. It was like he was a malfunctioning Windows computer too.
Following the approval, the salesperson printed out some paper with pricing. Absurd. The car's sticker was $43,525 (GT, AWD, DriverWise, and some other things), and the paper he brought said $47K+ something. It was loaded with all kinds of nonsense the sales person never discussed and I had no interest in. Perhaps they hope people would either be: a) dumb enough to sign at that price, or b) use the fictional price as the "anchor" to start going down from. I asked him how on earth the offer he was making was higher than the sticker price of $43,525. He looked confused. "What do you mean $43,525?" I told him to look at his website. "Oh, I see, it is listed as $43,525." Good lord.
At that point, I just got up and walked to the sales manager, to deal with him directly and wrap things up. I repeatedly stated I could just come back the following day, as they were past closed, but each time I said that, they told me not to worry about it. Getting the deal done was more important for them than going home quicker, I guess. It didn't make a difference to me, and I'd almost just walked out anyway, when the salesperson dropped the laughable piece of paper in front of me. From their end, once a person walks out, sans car, they may never see them again. I get that. I asked the sales manager to print out the invoice ($41,224), offered a dollar over the invoice, and then moved on to the paperwork signing. The whole process, from the time I walked in, took about 90 minutes, which I thought was absurdly long. The person who prepared the documents for signing said people actually often spend 4-6 hours, so my purchase was way shorter than usual. Yikes.
After that, I drove home, happy to have finally gotten a car with the French sport steering feel I'd so craved since my laps on the Nürburgring in a Clio RS 220. The cars may handle radically differently, given their different size/weight classes, but the steering feel is incredibly close. The size and shape of the steering wheels are similar as well.
I don't think I can review the dealership in broad strokes, because I think the salesperson you deal with makes a big difference. I have a feeling that if I'd dealt with Brian, things would have been smoother. The sales person I was dealing with said he'd just moved to the US, was new to a lot of words (I had to explain the meaning of the questions I was asking), and so on. His lack of training was also likely the dealership's fault and not his, but, whatever. The insane price he started with could be standard there, or might not be. I don't know.
As I'd never signed a lease before, I read up about it online prior to contacting dealers. One post I read, from a salesman, said that for the car price you should just offer $100 over invoice, and leave if they say no. According to that post, a lot of people don't ask the dealer for the invoice (dealer paid price), but they legally must show it to you on request. After that, you can negotiate other fees and bonuses. The sticker price is irrelevant, just work off the invoice price. $41,225 was the "agreed upon value of the vehicle.", so $2,300 under the sticker price (in this case the sticker price was the same as MSRP). The lease rebate was $5,300, which is what other dealers had quoted me for the same trim/package. The adjusted capitalized cost was $35,818. I asked if the $150 "documentation fee" was paid to the sales person. The sales manager said, "yes", so I told him that was fine. He should get something as he bought me a soda. The sales manager laughed.
Anyway, I thought the salesmanager was decent enough. If you're going to buy a car there, and your salesperson seems incompetent, just go to the sales manager to finish up and save yourself a lot of time. They are not supposed to do the salesperson's job, but their job is to oversee the sales of cars. If you're there to buy a car, and he or she is simplest point of contact to sort out a deal and get on your way, then so be it. That should ideally encourage them to better train their staff.
The after sales support was non-existent. I emailed to ask about the cost of an oil filter, and got a response from the salesperson, four days later, telling me to call their parts department. I'd already done that by that point. So, if you expect them to answer any questions after you get your car, forget it. As stated in many online reviews, there isn't any "relationship building" as would be customary at an Audi or BMW dealership. You're going to a place where most people are picking up cheap SUV's that cost half of what a Stinger does. So, as great as the Stinger is, don't expect Kia dealerships to have suddenly risen to the level of higher end dealerships. There are probably some great Kia dealerships out there, but I wouldn't classify this as one of them. It's not a terrible place to buy a car, but it's not a great one either. Probably average. I don't know. It's my first Kia.
