I had a salesman I trust (questionable statement, I agree!) tell me a few
years ago that the reason KIA can offer such a generous warranty is because
they use tried & true power trains from Toyota, Hyundai, etc. where the
longevity & reliability is known.  Doing that means a brand new KIA may have
drive train technology that is five years old - in this case when 30mpg was
of stellar performance.

OTOH, the publicity department knows Americans tend to look at the bottom
line of the invoice as opposed to specifications such as mpg.  If car "A" is
$19,999 & gets 30mph and car "B" is $20,999 and gets 37mph, the customer
tends to see the "19" in the cost (meaning less expensive down stroke) and
the "3" in the mpg (meaning "the same" as the other car).  When I worked in
the public sector & had to bid vehicles, many on my boards would have the
same type of focus even though I could prove with in-house real life
experience documentation the more expensive (up front) vehicle was
considerably less expensive in the long run.  Americans, in my experience,
pay much more attention to initial cost as opposed to the actual long term
value.

Sorry to be so long winded.  Wife drives an '02 Optima SE, currently with
113,000 miles on the clock.  Even though it gets 3 to 4 mpg less than my
Chrysler Sebring LXi, in the long run it has been significantly less
expensive to drive because of a pleasant lack of repair (other than
preventative maintenance).

Rich

$2.00 a galleon??? come to the UK buddy. At current exchange rates our
fuel works out at $5.93 a gallon (imperial). and diesel is even more
expensive. Count your blessings is all I can say.

Finally there are two things in life that are guranteed, Death and
Taxes (uk at 15%).

As for the Kia Soul. Really like the car (Kia Soul Shaker) and hope to
get one in the near future once things have settled and any bugs have
been ironed out. But MPG could be an issue as you quite rightly say.

are clean

enough to

Honda Civic

embarrassing.

Th
Civic is also a smaller car than the Soul, correct

What would be the best comparisons to the Soul? The Scion xB, th
Nissan Cube, maybe the Honda Fit?  What's the mileage on those cars