Of the sixteen variants of new-for-2012 Kia cee'ds on the market, this is the one that's expected to prove most popular among private buyers in the UK.It does seem to be among the more sensible choices, not least because of its very fine diesel engine and a specification which, though quite lowly by current cee'd standards, nevertheless includes alloy wheels, cornering lights, some interior leather and chrome, cruise control, rear parking sensors and something called Flex Steer for just over £18,000.Flex Steer gives three driver-selectable settings for the amount of power steering assistance provided. I like Normal best, but Comfort is useful for reducing the effort required when manoeuvring slowly in town. Sport is the meatiest of the three, but while I could see the point of it in some cars it doesn't seem to fit the character of the cee'd, which is in no way a sporty car.On country lanes it's not as lively as its very close relative, the Hyundai i30, can be. On the other hand, it's particularly good at wafting along a smooth A road, and in this case I reckon that's more important. The handling, though stolid, is good, and the ride is better, forcing me to admit that although Kia has made an unholy mess of its suspension set-ups in the past, there is no cause for complaint here.The 126bhp diesel engine can give sturdy straightline performance if you ask it to, but its real strength is its ability to deal with very high gearing in the six-speed manual transmission. The lower limit of its practical operating range without unseemly vibration is 1100rpm, which happens to be its speed at 30mph in fourth, and unless you're in a hurry there's little need to use more than double that number of revs.This, along with ISG (Kia's name for start/stop), may partly explain the cee'd's real-life fuel economy. The EU test implies that this should be over 70mpg. Not for me it wasn't. But I did find it easy to average 56mpg, and in my world that's a good figure for a medium-sized diesel hatchback.The engine is also quieter than you might imagine (it actually makes less fuss than the 2.2-litre unit in the significantly more expensive Jaguar XF Sportbrake), and in fact noise levels are generally quite low, which helps give the car a sense of quality.This isn't much enhanced by the interior design, which is less imaginative than that of the i30, though you have to hand it to Kia for making the instruments about as easy to read as they possibly could be.More bunches of flowers should be sent to Korea, or rather to the design studio in Frankfurt, for the amount of room available for chaps and chattels. There's plenty of room up front, and more than there seems to be in the rear - I honestly didn't think I could get in there, but the design of the front seat backs opens helps to provide enough legroom for a tall fellow like myself.Access to the luggage compartment is over a small sill (by no means the most awkward in its class) and once you're in there you have 380 litres to play with.That's almost exactly the same as you get in the i30, the Citroen C4, the Renault Megane and the Volkswagen Golf, considerably more than in Mazda3, Peugeot 308, Toyota Auris or Vauxhall Astra and way, way more than in the Ford Focus, which offers a miserly 316 litres. The cee'd is overshadowed in this respect, though, by the Honda Civic and the forthcoming Skoda Rapid.Frankfurt's habit of concocting stupid rear window designs is as evident here as it is in the i30. I mean, why bother putting windows in at all if you're trying to prevent people seeing out? Sind Sie verrückt, meine Herren?This is a safety issue, but not one that Euro NCAP pays any attention to. That organisation has given the cee'd a five-star rating, though it only just exceeded the lowest acceptable mark for pedestrian protection and performed well, if not spectacularly, in the other impact tests. Engine 1582cc, 4 cylinders Power 126bhp Transmission 6-speed manual Fuel/CO2 74.3mpg / 100g/km Acceleration 0-60mph: 11.5 seconds Top speed 122mph Price £18,295 Release date 15/05/2010
Our Rating
