Kia Ceed review

Since you've currently only got one engine option, you'd hope it's a good one. It's by no means a characterful powerplant, but the 1.5-litre unit stays impressively hushed and delivers a healthy slug of torque. Kia claims 158bhp, 186lb ft and 0-62mph in 8.4secs. It's enough for a regular hatchback: unstressed at a cruise, and able to overtake caravans and tractors without your life flashing before you.

Getting it going at all though, is a problem. The Ceed suffers from a familiar Kia and Hyundai disease: soggy clutch-itus.

That sounds contagious...

Honestly, you'd be forgiven for thinking someone had installed the transmission from a 150,000-mile Honda Jazz here. There's no biting point to be found in the clutch and the shift is notchy, so even after a week together, we were still stalling it and struggling to pull away smoothly. A Focus or a Leon simply doesn't feel so mushy when you're getting to grips with it.

What about the handling?

Well the ride's mature and doesn't suffer from that 'hollow' crashiness you got in the old Ceed. But there’s not much connection between driver and machine, and everything feels a bit synthesised.

It’s arguable that this doesn’t matter on a family hatch and it’s certainly far better than Kias of old. But the last little bits of chassis finesse are missing, despite the inclusion of a torque vectoring system that brakes the inside wheel in a corner.

Is that really an issue in a sedate family hatch?

Picture that one time where a back road opens up in front of you, all the drudgery of life clears away and you fire up the tarmac, adjusting the car as you’d like with either a throttle tweak or a steering shift. Not quite Vanishing Point, but you get the picture.

The Focus has this sort of manoeuvrability but the Ceed doesn’t, and it’s these fine margins that the Ceed can’t quite nail. Plus, the overly light steering means this car needs managing more at a cruise than some rivals.