We leased an Optima, pretty good car overall, nice size trunk, downside rear seats don’t fold down, and some roads pick up a lot of road noise. Newer models have a more adjustable passenger seat, ours did not.
I just read your article
Nice write up!
Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought Kia loses its value quite rapidly, versus Toyota and Honda. Clearly Kia is not making the same junk it was making 15 years ago, but I thought the brand hadn’t caught up yet, in terms of value retention, as a used car
Were I in the market for a nicely equipped mid-size car, value retention would be a factor for me. I may not be the average motorist, though
I don’t quite understand the higher price, versus the roughly equivalent Camry and Accord, which you mentioned
This may sound insane, but is it possible that Optima you tested might also/actually be competing with the Lexus ES and the equivalent Acura . . . is it the TL?
Then why didn’t they phase out the spare tire back in the 80’s. Toyota and Nissan and Honda have met the new Café standards several years ago…yet they are now phasing out spare tires. Obviously NOT to meet the standard since they already have.
Thanks @db4690. I just looked up the retention value at NADA. The Optima is third overall behind the Accord and Subaru Legacy. Legacy is number one. Camry is fourth. Only 1.5% of the MSRP separates the Accord and Optima after 3 years. Now that is just the 3 to 5 year retained value. Longer term it is very hard to get accurate date. Here is the link, I am not sure it will work though. Your last comment is something that I think about and that I mention in reviews, and I am one of the only ones. Yes, Kia does reach up and overlapp Acura for sure, Lexus maybe. The same is true for Mazda, who does reach up to match Audi in some models. Most reviewers won’t face the truth and admit that the premium brands in many cases have lost their magic. I can’t defend the price of the Optima. It does seem about $1500 higher than the equally-equipped Accord V6 EX-L with Sensing.
1 Like
$1500 difference over 5 years means nothing if that is the vehicle you want.
I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them. Perhaps they felt the buying public would respond negatively. I know I did.
Donut spares are not mandated. They’re simply a response by manufacturers to the fuel shortage of the early '70s and the resultant CAFE standards. Manufacturers strived to reduce weight and to reduce size, which reduces both weight and aerodynamic efficiency opportunities. And, as cars shrink, getting back a bit of the lost utility becomes an additional goal. Most people don’t respond well to a car with a tiny trunk.
I clearly remember all the debates and discussions in and out of the media when donut tires originally came out. A lot of buyers, myself included, insisted that dealers replace the donuts with full service spares before signing on the dotted line. Acceptance of the donuts took a long time.
The standards continue getting tougher. The new goal is what, 54 mpg? The technologies to eliminate spares, namely “run flat” tires and “inflation in a can” are now being used to try to use every possible trick to squeeze as much mpg as possible in preparation. I would argue that they’re definitely using these technologies to comply with the new, tougher CAFE requirements. The financial incentive is there, but I doubt if they’d be making the changes were it not for the new CAFE standards.
What’s your theory on why they’re doing it?
I have a 2005 Camry, Before buying my wife’s 2013 Sonata I test drove the 2014 Camry and did not like it at all.
On a recent trip to the NE I got a 2015 Camry SE as a rental. The headlights were pathetic. Something that was a plus and a minus was that the car was very similar to my 2005 Camry just the brakes are a bit improved. It had the entune system that does the work but nothing special.
We bought the Sonata used at a substantial savings over a similarly used Camry, so that is a big plus for me.
I think a Kia/Hyundai is as reliable as a Toyota “on average”. If you get a lemon with any of them then the bets are off.
I would not count on any car to make it to 200K miles without some repairs unless it is really only hwy driving. My Camry needed a full suspension overhaul at 160K miles and now the steering rack is leaking. It has been over-maintained but I can tell that the transmission shifting esp in cold weather has deteriorated.
I think the Optima is as good a choice as the Camry.
Interesting point about wives; when we were shopping we also tested a 2012 Accord and my wife felt the car was “old”. We used to have an 1989 Accord for a short time and my wife felt that the car hadn’t changed much at all.
Talk about cars looking old, a bud and I went to play virtual golf, 60 mile road trip, I have an 03 trailblazer and he has an 09, and he was like all the guages and buttons are exactly the same as mine, and I replied I have not seen one with other than gray seats either. What difference does it really make, stuff that works, or not as I replaced all my stepper motors for the guages, did not do the bulbs, but should have, still have the bulbs that came with 7 stepper motors for $22, so one of these days.! 4 guages were non operational.
My 2005 Camry has had a “wet” steering rack for years
Let me clarify . . . the bellows are grimy looking, but over the years only a slight amount of fluid has seeped out. I’ve not had to top it off, except once, when one of the hoses got replaced
No drops have ever hit the ground, and the power steering system works great
IMO it’s not worth replacing at this point
I can’t see your steering rack, and can’t judge its condition, versus mine
Mine was like that for a while but now it is getting fluid on the suspension parts under the bellow, still not on the ground though.
Eliminating 30 lbs is NOT going to get them there. They’ll have to work on other solutions besides small weight decreases. There are many cars today that that weigh considerably more then vehicles of the 70s and get 50%+ better gas mileage.
I heard this same argument in the 70s from the big 4. Cafe standards will be impossible to meet and we’d have to build much smaller and lighter cars. Yet here we are and the cars are not smaller and gas mileage is far better with far better performance along with significant decreases in emissions.
Sounds like your steering rack and mine are in the same boat
But I still see no point in replacing mine, not unless/until it gets bad enough that drops hit the ground, and I’m topping off all the time
Just below the rack, it’s a little grimy, but not wet. It’s been like that for years, and for now seems to be holding its own, and has been for some time now
No single item is going to “get them there”. But it all helps.
Mike, if you don’t believe that the need to satisfy CAFE standards was a factor in the switch to compact spare tires or to the current elimination of spare tires, all I can say is I disagree. No sense going on debating this forever.
1 Like
Oh we’ve disagreed before and probably will again. I still respect your opinion. We can agree to disagree.
The same back at you, my friend. 
And now, let’s find someone to help!
What model Accord did you drive? We have an 03 Accord V6 similar to yours with 255,000 miles, and we recently had a 2016 Accord Sport to drive for 5 months. The 16 was so much more quiet than the 2003. There should be fire storm deals on out going 17 Accord soon. Did you know there’s a 2018 Accord coming out soon that will probably have the blind spot monitoring on the drivers side?
Other than the Accord, I would only recommend the Camry, since I have seen some taxi cab models with over 350,000 miles, and I have family with high mileage examples that have proven reliable.
I have friends that regret buying the Optima, and friends who have had serious reliability issues with the sonata, and a friend who has issues with his 2012 Mazda.
In the upper midwest, I researched Honda, Toyota, Kia, and Hyundai after 5 years and theres a huge difference. You can buy a 2011 Accord w/leather V6 for $15k 60k miles, some base Lx’s with 40k miles for 11-12k. I saw some Sonata’s, Optimas for roughly 8-10k though. That’s quite a difference in price.
1 Like
thanks for the discussion. We eliminated the sonata (look/body/wood grain), mazda 6 as too tight in the seat/sporty, accord with no blind side on drivers mirror/rough ride and ugly dash/rims, the Altima as just being cheap although it was peppy. Came down to the camry (which I’m a fan of with 3 camry’s and rav 4 under my belt) but she didn’t like the dash (boring). The optima was very nice and for 2K more than I paid for my Rav 4, I think we got a good deal. I added the 10yr/100K bumper to bumper as only the oil part had 100K/10yr and all the rest had 5yr/60K warranty (for 1500 bucks). I think I threw away 1500 like I did 2K for the rav to go 7yr/100K warranty but it’s covered and over with. I’m worried about the 2nd 100K, not the 1st. There is no spare and no lug wrench, no jack. I have bought a OEM rim and new tire. It fits inside the trunk perfectly. The wrench and jack have to sit in the trunk with my pump. Wife is happy beyond a clam in mud. Don’t like the skirt to remove to change the oil/trans fluid but I’ll get used to it. It got good remarks in consumer reports and was very close to the camry.
Automakers include what people want or think is important in their vehicles. Spare tires sort of fell off that list. A majority of drivers today could not put on a spare tire if they needed to, they just get out the cell phone and call for a tow.
A full size spare is useless for most of us. In the old days when a set of tires lasted around 20k miles, if you were lucky, people would buy three new tires when the time came and swap the spare for the “best” old tire. Today, the spare would probably be too old to use for that, and more likely, that model tire will have been replaced by an updated one.
For the minority that can still mount the spare, a donut spare is good enough to get us to a shop where we will probably have to buy 4 new tires anyway, what with all wheel drive and the reluctance for anyone to patch and plug a hole anymore.
BTW, if they can save $100 by eliminating the spare, and they make a million cars a year, that’s a LOT of extra profit.
You make rational arguments
But I will personally never see it your way, as far as spare tires are concerned