About the Kia Forte

The Kia Forte is a compact, four-door sedan powered by either a 2.0-liter normally aspirated four-cylinder good for 147 horsepower, or a 1.6-liter turbo with 210 hp. The Kia Forte is current in its third generation. Prior generations included a small five-door hatchback along with the sedan body style, but that car has been discontinued.

What are the advantages of the Kia Forte?

Sharp styling in and out
A roomy, comfortable interior
A long list of standard features

What is the best Kia Forte model year?

While the Forte has been on sale for three generations all the way back to 2008, you’re better off looking at the current generation. Available since the 2019 model year, the current generation Kia Forte not only improves performance but provides a lot of modern safety technology that the earlier generations simply didn’t have.

What are the disadvantages of the Kia Forte?

The Forte’s biggest disadvantage is that while it looks great and has decent engine power, the car’s handling doesn’t quite match the looks. On the other hand, it doesn’t have a punishing ride like some of the vehicles at the performance end of this class. The Forte is also offered in a GT trim level with a six-speed manual transmission, but it’s at a $600 upcharge versus the seven-speed dual clutch automatic, which seems counterintuitive.

Comparison: Is the Kia Forte better than the Honda Accord?

The Accord is a bigger car on the outside, but it appears that the Kia Forte makes much better use of its dimensions. Most of the interior dimensions (headroom, shoulder room, leg room) are within decimal points of the Accord. Only hiproom is larger by an inch in the Accord. The Accord beats the Forte out in cargo room, but only by a cubic foot, hardly enough to argue about. Where the Kia beats the pants off the Accord is in price: New, a Kia Forte starts at $19,760, while you can’t buy an Accord LX for less than $27,895. You could fully load a Forte GT Manual with cargo nets, floor mats, Rusty Jones and Teflon paint treatment, and still come in under the price of the least expensive Accord.

Is the Kia Forte a reliable car?

As of this writing, there have been two recalls of the Kia Forte in the current generation: One for a badly welded lower control arm on 2023 Fortes, and one for a steering knuckle that’s prone to cracking, also on the 2023 model year only.

Is the Kia Forte worth the cost?

The Kia Forte isn’t one of America’s least expensive cars, but starting under $20,000 and capping out at $26,000 is remarkable in today’s overheated marketplace. It’s a terrific little car that shares a lot of family resemblance with the K5. What you will have trouble with on the used market is finding one with the 1.6-liter turbo. We searched locally within fifty miles of our location and found well over 300 Kia Fortes for sale but 100% of those were equipped with the rather underwhelming 147-hp 2.0-liter engine.