Kia pro_cee'd Review

Kia pro_cee'd Review

Introduced in March 2008 the Kia pro_cee'd is the three door member of the European-designed and built cee'd family. It is built at Kia's Slovakian factory along side its siblings and the Kia Sportage.

Although based on the underpinnings of the Kia 5-door hatchback it is longer, 30mm lower and lighter than the five-door Kia cee'd sharing only the bonnet and front wings.

We have already road tested the Kia cee'd and Kia cee'd SW and we were very impressed with the packaging and Kia's faith in giving the cee'd range a seven year warranty.

Currently there is only one petrol engine a 1.6 litre (124 bhp) and three diesel engines - 1.6 litre (89 bhp), 1.6 litre (113 bhp) and a 2.0 litre (138 bhp). Five-speed manual gearboxes are standard with the 1.6 litre engines, and a six-speed manual is fitted to the 2.0 litre turbo diesel engine in Sport trim. A four-speed automatic gearbox is available as an option with the 1.6 litre petrol engine.

Trim levels start with the entry level Kia pro_cee'd 2, pro_cee'd 3 and go through to the pro_cee'd Sport - prices start at £11,195.

We drove the diesel powered 1.6 litre, 124 bhp Kia pro_cee'd 2 fitted with a five speed manual gearbox.

How It Drove - Performance

The Kia pro_cee'd diesel engine produces 113bhp at 4000rpm, while delivering maximum torque across a wide band, in this case 1900-2750rpm. The 0-62mph time is quoted at 11.4 seconds; with a top speed of 117mph. Kia quotes a combined fuel economy figure of 58.9 mpg while producing just 126 g/km of CO2.

We have tested the Kia cee'd five door hatchback with the 1.6-litre CRDi engine and were very impressed - in fact so impressed this would be our choice of engine with the Kia pro_cee'd. Although it is interesting to see the split currently for the Kia pro_cee'd is running at 54 per cent petrol and 46 per cent diesel.

As with hatchback, when you start the engine from cold there is some 'chatter' but it quickly warms and quietens down. Overall the sound deadening is good and the engine relatively refined.

We averaged 42.4 mpg with the Kia pro_cee'd, which included a mixture of urban driving and some motorway travel - and as with the diesel hatchback, careful 'B' road cruising was returning in the late 50s, which is very good.