I had an excellent experience when buying my Sedona. Mine was purchased from
Laurel Kia in Laurel MD. I was kinda skeptical at first because it's a
smaller dealership compared to a lot of the huge dealerships out there, and
I wasn't too sure about how I'd be treated at a "value" brand's dealership.
I was very happy. I took the Sedona out for a drive as they were getting the
appraisal on my 99 Windstar. Had a nice drive, and the salesman actually
knew about the van he was trying to sell (I'm very used to salesman who know
next to nothing about the cars they sell). We got back, and I told the
salesman how much I'd pay for the van, how much I wanted on my trade, and I
already had my financing locked in at 4.9% (all of my numbers were very
reasonable figures from the Bluebook pricing guides). They came back only a
few hundred dollars apart between my numbers and theirs and they had a
better interest rate for the financing, so we split the difference. And, NO
HARD SELL ON PAINT AND FABRIC PROTECTANT TREATMENTS! I hate that stuff. All
in all, I'd definately buy from them again.

Jamie

I feel your pain.   The Toyota dealers around where I live are snots, plainly
put.  They act like sleazy liars and cheats.  One woulldn't even let me look
IN the car(unlock it) to check without first verifying that I was going to
buy *today*.

OTOH, the vehicles are great.

Mercedes used to have this problem as well, but has been better overall
since the merger.

Wow, it's almost like reading about my buying experience.  Currently my
credit is terrible because of my ex-wife.  And yes I relize that this sound
like most horror stories, "it's not my fault" etc...
I have bought 3 used cars from reputable dealers since my divorce was
finalized, but now relized that I needed a new vehicle with a strong
warranty.  To be honest, KIA was the farthest vehicle from my mine.  
They're too new to the market, I was thinking about friends of mine who
bought DAIWOO's or YUGO's.  But when i went into the KIA dealership in
Waukegan, Illinois, Ron (my salesman) came up and the first thing he asked
me was "would you like a cup of coffee"  It was snowing outside and cold.  
"Sure", he showed me where the free coffee machine was and said if I had
any questions to let him know, THEN HE LEFT ME!  This took me by surprise,
I looked at the Sedona, then the Sorento, and the Optima, took some notes
on my palm pilot, and left.  About a week later I came back to the store,
and once again Ron said welcome back, and said the coffee machine was
working fine, if I had any questions to let him know.  HE LEFT ME AGAIN.  
This really took me by surprise.  I left again.  Two days later, I came
back and Ron was with another customer, I know he saw me walk in the door.  
I went to "my" coffee machine, hit strong brew with regular sugar.  I must
tell you that the cups have the poker game on the sides, with the wild card
on the bottom.  I never had a good hand.  A diffrent salesman came up to
me, and I told him that I was waiting on Ron.  When he was available, I
told him that I was interested in the 04 Optima.  I drove the Optima off
the show room floor, this never happened to me in the past,  I know that I
asked Ron to verify at least 5 times during the test drive that this car
was covered by the warranty that we all saw on tv.  That was the main
reason why I bought a KIA, the warranty, the second reason was because I
didn't feel pressured by the "leeches".  Car salesman have a worse
reputation than ambulancing chasing lawyers.  

So in short, if I had to share a horror story about my KIA experience, then
it would have to be losing at the coffe cup poker game three times in a
row.  Or that there was now KIA ballcaps in stock.

Shawn Reynolds, KIA owner.