Motorama Kia: Australia's number one dealer

Motorama Kia: Australia's number one dealer

Motorama Kia has recently been awarded the award for the number one dealer in Australia.

With several award-winning cars now in the line up, we took a quick look at Kia’s journey to the top.

When Australia was first introduced to Kia, it was as the cheap and cheerful alternative to the mainstream brands, making its name with a budget alternative to light hatches, small cars and SUVs.

But you can only coast on being a budget brand for so long, so beginning in the early 2000s, Kia Australia set out to change their image from throwaway vehicles to cars that you can depend on once the warranty ended. Not coincidentally, the head office in South Korea decided to extend the warranty on all Kia’s to five years, with unlimited kilometre coverage – and in 2014, extended it to 7 years of warranty coverage, with 7 years roadside assistance and 7 years of capped price servicing to go with it; and still with unlimited kilometre coverage.

To keep their momentum going, Kia decided to revamp the design language that had kept them from fully being accepted as a mainstream brand. Peter Schreyer, a former Audi/Volkswagen designer, accepted a role as chief design officer and changed the game for the cars out of Seoul. His trademark ‘tiger nose’ grille and sleek designs brought Kia from an carmaker who was often down the list of alternatives to suddenly offering a line-up that stood shoulder to shoulder with mainstream brands, with cars that looked better than their price tag would suggest.

But smart designs are useless if you don’t have the engineering to match. So to make sure it remained competitive, Kia Australia contracted Graeme Gambold, a former rally driver and engineer specialising in vehicle dynamics, to head up a program to tune their entire range for Australian roads. This partnership produced benefits for the entire Kia range including revised suspension for the Cerato Koup, the Rio, Sportage as well as the new Sorento – which reportedly proved difficult to balance between a family cruiser and a dynamic SUV, but ended up winning awards for its

And globally, in 2015, Kia was voted second overall in an industry-wide survey of initial quality. In the first 90 days of ownership, Kia owners are more satisfied than any other car brand – except for luxury carmaker Porsche, whose sports cars and SUVs are considerably less affordable, with a much smaller customer base.

Maybe this is why the entire Kia range continues to win industry and people’s choice awards including:

Sorento: Carsguide Car of the Year (Overall) (2015), Drive Best Family SUV (2015), Australia’s Best Cars Best AWD SUV $50,000-$65,000 (Sorento Platinum, 2015) & Best Family Wagon (Sorento SLi, 2015)Optima: Australia’s Best Cars Best Medium Car under $50,000 (2015)Carnival: Drive Best People Mover (2015)Cerato: Wheels Magazine Gold Star Value Award Small Car under $25K (Cerato S, 2015)

In the last two years, Motorama have moved to anticipate the increasing interest in Kia, with new car showrooms at both Moorooka and Browns Plains. To test any of the Kia range for yourself, come into Motorama Kia to get into the latest model built in Korea and made for Australia from our award winning team.