Is Kia a better company than they used to be? Are they reliable? Opinoins please.

I have a few friends that have Kias, and they love it. Yet in some of the Kias forums on the net there have been a few complaints with the service departments. They have a great warranty and their vehicles are not bad. The owners seem to think its reliable.

:1: The policies seems to have grown better. But customer satisfaction all varies from dealeraship to dealership

Kia and Hyundai seem to have both gotten better as time goes on. Kinda like a late 70's/early 80's Toyota and Honda. They are better then they were, but they still arn't quite up to par with the rest of the industry. I wouldnt buy one right now. It seems that there only advantage is the low price. Reliability has improved considerably, but still below industry average. Power, almost non existent except in the Hyundai Coupe/Tiburon (same car, different names in different countries), which has some, but not much...

Think of them as you would the Japanese companies during their early days in America. They arent all that great now, but at the rate there goin, they could compete with American and Japanese cars in say 10 years or so.

One would think that the Kias and Hyundais would be both at the same level since Kia is part of Hyundai, but they are not. According to the JD Power and Associates 2004 Initial Quality Study the top auto maker is
Toyota with 101 problems per 100 vehicles, Honda and Hyundai are next, both tied with 102. Kia is at 153. See image below.
Source from J.D.Power and Associates (http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/jdpower/12213/).
http://www.santafemods.com/images/Other/JDPower2004IQS.jpg