1 Air 1.1 CRDi 74 5dr Hatchback

Roomy, Economic No Frills Hatchback

When looking for a tax free, affordable, economical car, there aren't many used options. Fortunately the KIA Rio is one of those cars, used prices are extremely competitive and its hard, if not impossible to find a comparable car for the same money.

The KIA Rio offers good, practical space and is extremely fuel efficient - reporting over 70mpg on a motorway run. It is very quiet on the motorway with no audible noise from the diesel engine, but it doesn't cope so well around town with potholed roads.

Acceleration isn't what I would describe as rapid, in gear acceleration isn't too bad once you're up to speed but expect to have to anticipate hills or you will struggle, when you're 3 up in the car, this is even more pronounced.

The steering is very light at low speed which makes parking a breeze, but you do get a little weight to it when you're on the motorway so it doesn't feel too floaty at speed.

The ISG on my car works well, simply move the gear into neutral and let the clutch up and the engine cuts out, dipping the clutch restarts the engine and off you go, this has failed me once making me look like a lemon at the traffic lights which was quickly resolved by manually restarting the car.

Air conditioning works well as does the Bluetooth integration on the audio system, this is the first car I've had with this functionality and it was very easy to set up, a nice side-effect of this, is that you get spoken directions over the in-car speakers if you're using a Satnav on your phone.

Overall I'm happy with the car, however I would suggest that if you were looking to buy one, I would be tempted to choose one with a slightly higher quality interior, the plastics in the 1.1 Air are quite cheap and nasty and the dashboard rattles a lot when going over bumps.

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