Kia Rio Review (2017-present)

You could be forgiven for not having heard of the Kia Rio, because it’s hardly the UK’s best known or its most popular small car. Rivals such as the Ford Fiesta, the Volkswagen Polo, and the Vauxhall Corsa, not to mention the Skoda Fabia, the Toyota Yaris and the Renault Clio tend to steal more of the limelight in the small hatchback arena.

The Rio deserves a second look, though. It’s competitively priced and, if you pick the right version, it offers more equipment for less money than most of its rivals. Then there’s Kia’s seven-year/100,000-mile warranty, which none of its rivals can match.

Climb aboard the Rio and it soon becomes clear this is a car that prioritises pleasing the head over the heart. The interior is inoffensively bland, and finished almost exclusively in dark grey plastic, but the controls are well laid out, and the buttons and switches move with satisfying clunks and clicks.

There’s lots of space in both the front and rear seats, and the 325-litre boot (it expands to 1,103 litres when you fold down the back seats) is not at all bad for this class. There's a clever sloping lip up to the rear seats, too, which means there’s no sharp step when they’re folded flat.

It’s functional, if not all that much fun on the road. Around town, the Rio is easy to drive, though the mild hybrid version’s electronically actuated clutch (we’ll explain this below) doesn’t have much feel, which can make quick getaways tricky.

It’s pretty comfortable, too; the ride is occasionally flummoxed by bigger ruts, but most of the time, the Rio deals with imperfections more smoothly than the majority of its rivals. It lacks the verve of a Ford Fiesta or a Seat Ibiza when it’s hustled along at a pace, though. It’s a bit roly-poly in corners, and while there’s plenty of grip, the steering reacts quite slowly, and doesn’t give you much feedback.

The cheapest 1.2-litre engine is rather slow, but the 1.0-litre turbos are much better, and the most powerful of these, with its hybrid boost, feels very perky indeed.

The Rio line-up isn’t too tricky to understand, thanks to Kia’s straightforward naming system. The entry-level model is simply called the Kia Rio 1, and while it only gets steel wheels, you do at least get front electric windows, Bluetooth, and air-conditioning as standard.

Next up is the 2, with alloy wheels, cruise control, and a touchscreen infotainment system with Android Auto and Apple Carplay as standard, while 3 gets heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, climate control, and satnav. The top of the range is not called 4, but GT Line S; the sportier nomenclature goes with its sportier looks (there’s a bit of body kit) but as it gets the same engines as the other Rios, it’s actually no sportier to drive.

There’s a big central screen for the satnav and entertainment system, and this is easy to use, with an intuitive menu system and clear graphics, even if it doesn’t have quite the aesthetic flair of some of its rivals’ screens.

Realistically, fuel economy will be pretty similar regardless of which version of the Rio you go for, and you can expect an average from a mix of town and motorway use of around 45mpg. You might see one or two extra MPG from the hybrid model, but the difference in the real world will be marginal.

Compared with its rivals, the Rio’s fuel consumption is respectable but not outstanding. The mild hybrid version loses out to the equivalent Ford Fiesta, which is a little more efficient, despite also being more powerful.

However, the Rio’s affordable servicing costs make a lot of financial sense. Depending on your mileage, you may find that the extra cash you spend at the pumps is mitigated by the money you save at the garage.

All Rios of this generation were built after the tax rules changed in 2017, so they all incur the standard rate of car tax. The mid hybrid is cheaper to tax because of its lower emissions, though.

The Rio came third of 75 cars in 2022 Auto Express Driver Power reliability survey, was highest-ranking car in its class, and the publication summed it up as “does consistently well in all categories”. It didn’t fare quite so well in the 2021 What Car? reliability survey, where it finished a middling 10th out of 17 in the small car class, but that’s not terrible, while Kia as a brand came ninth out of 30 manufacturers, which isn’t bad at all.

As we’ve already mentioned, Kia also offers one of the longest new car warranties on the market as standard, which means the Rio is protected for seven years. In the first three of those years, the warranty has no mileage cap, while in the final four, cover for certain items reduces slightly, and the mileage is capped at 100,000 miles. Buy a second-hand Kia up to 18 months old with less than 18,000 miles on the clock from a main dealer, and the manufacturer will top up the warranty to its original level, too – i.e. the full seven years.

On some Rios built between April and June 2017, the child locks on the rear doors might not work correctly, because the cable that operates them was incorrectly installed. There is a recall out for this fault, which means any affected car should have been fixed for free at a Kia dealership.