2013 KOH in Eagan, MN

[Carbon]

Recently bought a Kia Optima Hybrid and was pleasantly surprised it was fairly easy to beat the EPA combined rating by 10% with my commute.

Looking forward to tracking this car's economy and learning.

And wow... you can't post pics in your intro thread. Classic.

[Carbon]

LOL... you can't tag them, but apparently you can attach them...

[Daox]

Welcome to the site. I think you're one of if not the first Optima hybrid owners here. I've been waiting for one of you guys to come around and show us what this car can really do.

[Carbon]

Yeah... I was a little wary about posting in the Hybrid section seeing as how it was all Prius, Prius, Insight, Prius, Prius, Insight, etc...

[Daox]

How do you like the car thus far? What did it replace?

[Carbon]

I love the car... but I bought it with almost 13,000 on the clock and had realistic expectations. It's not a Lexus.

The car it replaced was a 2003 Pontiac Grand Am GT. The last straw with that car was the exhaust valve rocker stud on cylinder #2 liberating itself from the head. Turned out that this was a relatively common problem, and either it happens or it doesn't. In 2003, GM switched from 10mm studs to 8mm studs and if the new ones are over-torqued, they can pull the threads with time. Well, mine happened.

After some careful drilling, a tap, a helicoil and some red loctite, I decided I didn't want to do this up to 11 more times.

I only looked at two cars... this and a Chevy Sonic LT Turbo. The fuel economy ratings are actually pretty similar, but the Kia is sooooo much more of a car. Mine is an optioned out LX not an EX, but looking at the feature list there's nothing missing that I really would want to pay more for. So with the $3400 the dealership gave me for my 105,000 mile basket case, I only ended up spending around $16,500 for a year old $26,000 car. Kia/Hyundai made significant changes in MY2013 to correct the drivability issues of the MY11/12 and so far it has been great, since June anyway.

I've only had one fill up under my control but I was able to go almost 708 miles on 16.7 gallons. I could barely make 300 miles on a tank in the Grand Am and it usually took about 13 gallons to fill.

I will admit having a game on the dash has modified my driving habits and that I bought the car for ECOnomy not for ECOlogy.