I am now the dubiously proud owner of a 2005 / 5 speed Kia Rio. I have to junk my faithful Sentra with 250,000 miles as it is not inspect able .
I spent weeks shopping and got lots of stories … I settled on this car - Less than $2000 / less than 100,000 miles - 5 speed with 45000 on the clutch.
The car is from So. Cal + 2 years in Mass - has a new timing belt and comes with 20 day plates and a valid inspection sticker till '017. It has a fresh oil undercoating and nearly new tires too …
wish me luck
thanks
Good Luck! I Wonder Why It Needed A Clutch At Fewer Than 55,000 Miles? Did You Get The Story With It?
CSA
A lot of people don’t know how to drive manuals and can wear a clutch out would be my guess-unless it was a hot rodder. But in a Kia?
Good luck. 
Good Luck! I Wonder Why It Needed A Clutch At Fewer Than 55,000 Miles? Did You Get The Story With It?
Ehh, could just be normal. These cars don’t have the most robust clutches to begin with.
Could be a metro Los Angeles area car that spent a lot of time commuting. Think about an hour long each way freeway commute, constant bumper to bumper and shifting, jack-rabbit starts, but never reaching over 35 mph. You could easily clutch a hundred times or more just driving to work in the morning.
When I was in SoCal in my youth, we were instructed to check the brakes on cars at 25,000 miles. Half of the time they were worn out already.
Seems like a good bet. Especially since it has a manual transmission rather than an automatic. Kia’s reliability rating seems to be pretty good, at least for the newer models. As I recall Consumer Reports puts the Kia brand in the top tier, reliability-wise.
Thank you
I was puzzled by the clutch replacement too. The first owner was in Bakersfield CA and had the car two years and apparently repo ed . Then next owner was in Martinez, if you can believe car fax, and the clutch was done in 2011 @ 46000. The car also has a factory original battery as the print is written in Korean.
@“geo mac”
If that “factory original” battery is the original from 2005, you’ll want to replace it immediately. It could leave you stranded at any time, without warning
Lots of stop and go traffic around Martinez, California. And there are plenty of people who don’t know how to use a clutch. Only thing I can say is that a person who burns out a clutch doesn’t put a lot of strain on the rest of the drive line, but probably did no maintenance either.
26 $ so far besides snow tires. I have replaced the thermostat and clutch cable
A car that has been repossessed is often a car that has had much maintenance neglected. If the owner couldn’t afford the payment on a cheap car then they couldn’t afford oil changes and other routine maintenance.
A lot of people don't know how to drive manuals and can wear a clutch out would be my guess-unless it was a hot rodder. But in a Kia?
Years ago I covered a police chase where a guy stole a Kia, then bought a 24 pack of beer and casually drove by the cops while drinking it. They gave chase, and he bolted. Surprisingly enough, early Kias were not capable of outrunning police cruisers!
But it does show that some people do try (and fail) to go fast in older Kias. 
Bonus: When they caught him and brought him down for his booking mugshot, they ended up being unable to take it because he was so drunk he couldn’t stand up for it.
I don’t know what kind of car it was but last week the patrol chased a guy going 120 on the freeway. Lasted about 10 minutes with the guy going in a ditch. Half a bottle of vodka in the car.
I’ll bet that the missing half of the vodka was in the driver. Good luck with that Kia.