Kia Rio SX Review – The Cool Mom Car!

That’s a pretty snazzy ride, right?

I think I’d be hard pressed to find someone who disagrees!

After the delivery guy dropped off my Kia Rio SX review loaner car last week, I knew right away that my daughter would love it. Angeline is always complaining that my car is old and not cool enough. Not that I’m very concerned with what a 15 year old girl thinks, mind you, but I knew it would be fun to see her reaction when she saw me picking her up from school in the Kia Rio SX!

The very first things out of her mouth were “THIS CAR IS SO COOL, MOM!!!” and “CAN WE KEEP THIS CAR FOREVER?!”

When she got inside and started fiddling around with the stereo system while I drove us home, she fell even more in love with the Kia Rio SX!

The Kia Rio SX truly is a fun car.

From the sleek and sophisticated stereo and hands free system to the sporty seats, you can see why Angeline was so impressed when she got into the car…

I thought my car was fancy when I bought it in 2006 because of the built-in satellite radio…boy have the times changed!

In order to write this Kia Rio SX review, I test drove a fully-loaded model that had the new UVO stereo system built-in! I had never heard of UVO before, so the delivery guy had to explain it to me.

The Kia Rio SX is basically a smart car. UVO is powered by Microsoft and is an infotainment system – the UVO system allows you to control your radio, satellite radio, cell phone, and playlist with the sounds of your voice AND it also has a rear-view camera with a display built into your dash for backing up!

I’ll be honest, my favorite part of the UVO system was the Jukebox function: after syncing your cell phone or iPod playlist, you can just hit the jukebox button and UVO takes care of the rest!

Now, as cool as the inside of the car was, the outside of the Kia Rio SX was equally impressive!

I loved this little hatchback’s funky shape – you can tell that the designers put a lot of thought into making it aerodynamic and FUN at the same time!

You probably want to know more about the Kia Rio SX than how cute I think it is, huh? Here are a few of the manufacturer’s specs:

• 17 inch alloy wheels
• sport-tuned suspension
• 2 lens multi reflector headlights
• LED tail lights, front LED accent lights (looks super cool at night!)
• dual exhaust tips
• turn signal indicators on the rear view mirrors

Now, I was a little worried about the trunk space because as a mom, I know that cargo space is super important to me (half the reason I bought an SUV in 2006, even though I only have one child!). With a hatchback, you don’t usually get much space in the cargo/trunk area.

The Kia Rio SX had a pretty roomy trunk! I was able to fit all of my groceries in it when I went grocery shopping with a little space leftover. If you are traveling, you can remove the top portion so that you have more space for things to stand up – or you can put the backseats down for a lot more space!

My husband’s favorite part of our Kia Rio SX review loaner car? The wheels!

As a mom, one of the most important things I look at when driving a car is the safety of the vehicle. I grabbed a snap shot of the safety features from the Kia website to illustrate the different safety features…

• dual front advanced airbags
• front seat belt pretensioners
• lower anchors and tethers for children
• dual front seat mounted side airbags
• full-length curtain side airbags
• 3 point seat belts for all seating positions

That’s a lot of safety, right?

In addition to being super cool, having an awesome infotainment system by UVO and having great safety features, the Kia Rio SX also gets great gas mileage! I drove it all over Miami for a week and only used 1/2 a tank of gas! The Kia Rio SX is estimated to get about 30 miles per gallon in the city and 40 on the highway!

Pretty awesome, right?

Check out the Kia Rio SX, which starts at just $13,600 at Kia.com!

I was given a loaner car for a week to facilitate this review, but all opinions are my own!