2023 Kia Cerato (inc. 0-100 & autonomous test) review

CarExpert

This little missile is on the warmer side of hot - is it worth considering if you're after an affordable 'hot' hatch? Paul Maric finds out what the 2023 Kia Cerato GT is like!  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Kia content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/kia More Kia Cerato content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/kia/cerato  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 00:47 Interior: 03:18 Infotainment: 04:40 Safety Tech: 06:12 Practicality 06:56  On the Road: 10:04 Driver Aids: 15:24 Performance (0-100) 17:25 Verdict: 19:52  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #kia #cerato #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. Now, this is a car that you guys keep asking us to review, and then when I saw it coming through the garage,

00:06 I'm like, "Oh, gotta get onto that, get it onto video." It is the Kia Cerato GT.

00:12 So this is the warm/hot hatch from Kia.

00:16 This competes with things like the Hyundai i30 N-line, the Volkswagen Golf R-line, and Mazda 3 as well.

00:23 It's priced at just under $36,000. Today, we're going to do a detailed review of this car,

00:28 so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes on the screen,

00:32 or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below,

00:36 and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon,

00:39 so you can find out every single time we drive one of these, and sorry about the flies and also the

00:44 noisy things in the background as well.

00:47 Righto, let's talk about the exterior.

00:49 So, this has nine colors you can pick from, all but the base white is going to cost you just over $500.

00:56 Just on the design, I reckon this is a really good-looking car. So down the front here, you have the new Kia logo.

01:02 Looks fantastic on the front there. A little bit of red highlight here as well with the GT badge just there.

01:08 Big cooling ducts down the bottom here. When I say warm hatch,

01:12 when I refer to things like a hot hatch, I'm thinking Golf R, Golf GTI. They're all sort of pretty potent stuff.

01:18 This is kind of one level down from those, so they still try and give it a bit of exhaust note, a bit of pep,

01:23 but it's not quite at the level of some of those hotter hatches. But today, we'll take it for a pump,

01:28 we'll see what it's like. Maybe it is going to surprise me, who knows.

01:31 Over here, you have a set of full LED headlights with LED daytime running lights. Whip around to the side here.

01:38 Down here, you've got yourself a set of 18-inch alloy wheels. That's on a Pilot Sport 4 tire,

01:45 so it's not a bad tire at all. I like the design as well.

01:47 So, machined finish on the outside and a graphite finish on the inside there. A bit more of that red highlight in the center cap.

01:53 Your brake rotors are bigger here as well. They're just over 300 mm in diameter and

01:58 kind of shows you that they've actually put a little bit of effort into this. Instead of just

02:02 winding the wick up on the turbo, they've actually gone and put bigger brakes on here.

02:06 It has a sportier suspension tune and a sporty steering tune as well. So, we'll see what that's

02:11 like in real life conditions when we do go for a bit of a spin. Up the top here, you have an indicator

02:16 built into that wing mirror. You have piano black on the top section there. Sunroof up the top here.

02:21 Let's whip around to the back. So, around the back here, you have another GT logo down here.

02:28 Cerato over here and a new Kia logo just there. LED tail lights as well. Love that design. It is

02:35 very impressive. Now, the interesting thing is you can see this is all red. So, where is the indicator?

02:40 Well, the indicator is buried down here, which I know that I love because it is a little bit

02:44 tricky to see when you are following the car. So, not a huge fan of that, but it's the way that it is.

02:49 Dual exhaust pipes as well and then piano black down the bottom here too. Just on the exhaust,

02:55 Shaun was moving the car just before and it actually sounds pretty good when it's idling.

02:59 So, this is what it sounds like when it revs.

03:00 So, there you go. It actually sounds not too bad. Let me know what you reckon about the design in

03:10 the comment section below. Do you think that this is hot enough for a warm hatch or were you

03:15 expecting a little bit more? Let me know your thoughts. So, we're inside the Cerato GT. Let's

03:20 start off with the key. Yeah, never gets old. So, Kia logo down the bottom there. You have lock,

03:26 unlock, boot, blank on the back. It's a proximity sensing key, so you can leave that in your pocket.

03:33 Once you're inside, you have a push button start just over here. Look, it is a nicely presented

03:38 interior. The thing I will say though is it feels like Kia of old. If you have a look at

03:44 things like Carnival, Sportage, they've really stepped it up a notch in terms of interior quality

03:50 and fit and finish. This kind of reflects where Kia used to be with the analogue gauges and all

03:55 that sort of stuff. So, I'm looking forward to the next generation of this and hopefully they

03:59 go to town on making it look a little more special. But look, it is fine for what it is.

04:03 Up the top, you've got that big infotainment screen. These materials are okay, but as you

04:07 get closer to the bottom, they get a bit scratchy, piano black around there as well. So,

04:11 it is what it is. In terms of your touch points, this is firmish but soft and then soft on the

04:18 doors. How soft are they? We've got our durometer. We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If

04:23 you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before, have a look at the link

04:26 in the description below. Build quality, what's that like? A little bit wonky in the centre there,

04:32 but for the most part, that's fine. And our door slam,

04:38 sounds really nice and solid. Righto, let's talk infotainment. So, I did mention before that

04:44 while the interior feels a little sort of outdated in terms of design compared to other Kia products,

04:49 the infotainment is still pretty good though. So, 10.25-inch display, it is really high resolution.

04:56 You have satellite navigation built into there. It's pretty quick as well, which is good news.

05:00 In addition to that, you have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Both of those are wired. I'll show

05:06 you what Apple CarPlay looks like. Here it is there. So, really nice and sharp display there,

05:10 very quick and easy to transition between those screens. So, that's all

05:14 very impressive. If we jump over here, I'll show you what Android Auto looks like.

05:19 Yeah, it's not great for some reason. It only sort of displays on half the screen. Sometimes

05:25 with Android Auto, when you press the home button, maps then come up here, but for some reason,

05:30 this is all compressed into there. It is nice and fast, but that's strange. It is odd that the

05:35 Korean car company can't work with the Korean phone manufacturer to make this stuff work. So,

05:40 anyway. And on the radio front, you have an eight-speaker JBL-branded sound system,

05:46 and it also has AM/FM and DAB digital radio as well. Other features you have in here,

05:53 you've got voice memo for recording great ideas while you're out on the road, quiet mode if you

05:58 do want to keep the car quiet while the kids are asleep in the back. Outside of that, it's all

06:02 pretty straightforward to use with a manual built into there as well. Head of the driver, you have

06:06 a much smaller digital display there as well for trip computer and drive status, but outside of

06:11 that, it's all pretty straightforward. Let's talk safety tech. So, you have autonomous emergency

06:15 braking with pedestrian detection. You have an auto-dimming rear vision mirror, blind spot

06:20 monitoring built into the wing mirror. You have radar cruise control. You have a lane centering

06:25 and a lane keeping assistant. We'll test that later on to see how well that works. Rear cross

06:30 traffic alert. On the parking front, you have both front and rear parking sensors and a reverse view

06:35 camera. I'll show you what that looks like. There it is there. So, really quite good quality as well.

06:39 I can clearly see what's going on there, and then you can also go in for a zoomed view as well. So,

06:44 yeah, not a bad setup there. It's just a shame that it doesn't have a 360 camera.

06:48 And what about the horn? Have a listen. It's got a meaty note to it.

06:56 Let's check practicality and we'll start off with your connectivity. So,

06:59 where can you charge your phone? Down the front here, you have a 12-volt outlet. You have a USB

07:04 port. You have another USB port as well, specifically for charging. That's about it

07:09 there. In terms of storing your phone, you have a wireless charging pad up the top there, which is

07:13 great, but then your phone can live anywhere else. There is actually a decent amount of storage in

07:16 this car. Coffee cups. So, fits into there without too many dramas. You've got teeth in there to hold

07:23 it in place. We'll try our bottle in there as well. No problems. Bottle inside the door. Let's

07:29 see what that feels like. Yes, good. Can it fit our big bottle? Let's have a little look. No,

07:37 it can't, unfortunately. In terms of other storage, you do have center console here that is pretty

07:41 reasonably sized. You have a glove box over here as well that is pretty reasonably sized too.

07:46 And finally, a sunglasses holder up the top. Let's talk about comfort. So, you have dual zone

07:51 automatic climate control. You have heated and cooled seats for the front row. In terms of the

07:58 driver's seat, it is electrically adjustable. Passenger seat is manually adjustable. But,

08:02 with the driver's seat, you can go forwards, backwards. Backrest can go forwards, backwards.

08:06 You can lift the front. You can lift the back. You also have seat memory as well, just over here,

08:13 along with lumbar adjustment. Seats, they are actually pretty comfortable. I like these

08:19 perforations as well, so they service the seat cooling. And then you have a GT logo just there

08:24 with red piping as well. On the steering front, the steering offers both tilt and reach adjustment

08:29 as well. And on our reach test, all of this stuff is easy to reach while you're driving.

08:34 Second row of the Cerato. Look, it is a little cramped on space here, but my seat is pretty far

08:39 back and it's actually better than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be

08:42 terrible back here. So, knee room is a little tight. Toe room is tight as well. Headroom is

08:47 okay, but not amazing. You do get air vents back here though. A USB outlet,

08:52 map pocket on the passenger side, center armrest as well. So, two cup holders there.

08:56 Bottle fits into there without any dramas. You also have bottle storage inside the door too.

09:03 In terms of baby seating, you have two ISOFIX points and three top tether points.

09:09 Finally, our window test. Does it go down all the way? So close.

09:16 So, cargo space. Let's have a little sticky beak here. So, obviously being a hatch, it does eat

09:21 into your cargo space a little bit. Just over 400 litres available there. If you look under the

09:26 cargo floor, you've got a little bit of extra storage there. And then beneath this, you have

09:30 a space saver spare tyre. Just having a little sticky beak if there's any 12-volt outlets in

09:36 there. It doesn't look like it. I'll show you what it looks like with our bags in there. So,

09:40 laptop in there, suitcase there. Look at that. Nice little fit, so no dramas at all.

09:48 You can expand the space a little bit if you want. So, you can turf this from here and then

09:55 you have pretty much a flat load floor.

10:04 So, we've just hit the road in the Cerato GT. Immediately, I'm noticing how firm this ride is.

10:12 We'll get to that in just a second. Under the bonnet, you are using a 1.6-litre turbocharged

10:19 four-cylinder petrol engine. It makes 150 kilowatts of power and a little over 250

10:26 newton metres of torque. And that's all mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. So,

10:33 look, I kind of had this complaint when we were driving the original Seltos because it also had a

10:38 dual-clutch transmission with this engine. And the issue with that is when you do come to a full stop

10:43 and then you go to set off, it has just this moment of slip where it's just a little bit

10:49 elastic and weird. It's not really smooth. And then you notice that as well when you're

10:53 reversing on a hill. It just can be a little grabby at times and just not very well resolved.

10:59 But, you know, it is what it is and you just kind of have to live with it. Hopefully, at some point,

11:03 they actually upgrade this to a torque converter as well like they did in the Seltos because that

11:08 really transforms the character of the car. The interesting thing with the GT version of the

11:14 Cerato as well is that it not only has a sporty suspension tune, but it also has a sporty steering

11:19 tune. So, right here, even in the normal drive mode setting, and I'll run you through the other

11:23 modes in just a sec, it is still pretty heavy. It's not over the top, but you do notice that

11:27 especially at low speeds when you're trying to park that it has a bit of weight to it.

11:31 And the ride is very firm in and around the city. It's all you notice. And I don't know,

11:37 I reckon it could just be a little too firm for this application. I know that this is meant to

11:41 be a sporty car, but they have gone pretty hard on the ride. And that means that when you are in and

11:46 around the city, you do feel it a lot. Same goes for road noise with the Pilot Sport 4 tyre on it.

11:51 There is a fair bit of road noise that comes into the cabin, especially on course chip services,

11:55 really sort of echoes through the cabin and doesn't make it the most pleasant driving

11:59 experience on highways. Now, what about your fuel economy? So, Kia claims a combined average

12:04 of under seven litres per 100 k's. We are currently sitting on 9.5. And I will caveat that by saying

12:13 I had a few laps this morning, we had to change the order that we were shooting things today,

12:16 and I did a few laps around here this morning just for fun. And that has crept the fuel consumption

12:22 up by a little bit. I actually thought it was going to be way higher than that. So,

12:24 that's pretty impressive in my opinion.

12:26 So, given the ride is so firm, let's jack the speed up here to maximum legal speed in Australia

12:35 and the speed that we test on our sine waves here to see what this is like if you're going

12:40 to be doing an overtake in the country on a shoddy road. It is so firm. That's okay, though.

12:47 That should mean that it sits pretty much dead flat over the sine waves. So, there's 130.

12:52 You don't even notice it move. That is really impressive there from a body control point of

12:57 view, but you obviously pay the price for that body control at lower speeds with the firmer ride.

13:04 So, how does all that feel behind the wheel? So, even though the gearbox can be a little

13:11 fussy at low speeds, once you are moving, it is actually pretty responsive and it feels like it

13:16 has a stack more torque than the 265 Newton metres that it does. I also love the note,

13:22 I showed you the exhaust note at the intro there, but it actually sounds good once it's up and

13:25 moving. In terms of your other drive modes, you have normal, eco, sport and smart. It's popped

13:31 it into sport. Let's see what it's like around our track. I'll put the gearbox over to S mode.

13:35 Okay, brakes feel good.

13:38 It has got some road holding. Holy crap. I was not expecting that. So, Pilot Sport 4 tyre means

13:49 that this thing is holding on for dear life. I can literally stay planted to the board there.

13:54 This doesn't have a limited slip differential up the front there, but it's not getting into

13:58 any situations where, wow, it is absolutely hammering. Brake pedal feel actually on second

14:06 glance there isn't amazing. The pedal is a little wooden, but once you do get stuck into it,

14:11 it actually pulls up the car nicely. Far out. I was not expecting this. This is absolutely

14:18 hammering. So, on this back section here, it's a little bit quicker. Normally, front-wheel drive

14:22 cars struggle a little bit. Holding on really nicely. Let's see what it's like coming onto the

14:30 back straight here. I've got that planted to the board now. It is moving. Jeez. About to nudge 180

14:40 there. Wow. Okay. That is seriously impressive. This is meant to just be a warm hatch, but this

14:50 absolutely hauls ass. And it is great through the corners. The steering feels good. It has stacks

14:56 of front-end grip as you plough it through a corner. You have lots of traction there as well.

14:59 I wasn't expecting it to be as sort of wide knuckle as that. That is bloody cool.

15:08 Now, what's your visibility like? So, I can see clearly down the front of the car there,

15:11 wing mirrors are pretty decent sized. I have a blind spot monitor built into those. Visibility

15:17 at the back is pretty good as well. It's a big enough envelope and the headrests don't get in

15:22 the way. So, time to do some testing of the autonomous systems here in the Cerato. So,

15:29 what I'm going to do is set our cruise control to 70 k's an hour on our banked oval. The whole

15:34 purpose of this particular test is for us to see how well the car actually centres itself in the

15:41 lane. And this simulates a highway. The thing is, as we move further and further out, yes,

15:46 the banking does increase and we're not testing to see how well the car banks. It's more to see

15:50 how well the system will apply torque to the wheel to hold it in the lane. So, I'm going to push this

15:55 button here. It comes up with the steering wheel symbol and then I'll also bring up our lane

16:00 markers there as well. So, once that's all green, it means the car's in control. You do still have

16:04 to hold the steering wheel, but for the purposes of this test, I'm just going to hold it really

16:08 lightly. So, we're pretty much dead centre in that lane there, which is great. So, that is all good

16:12 news. Let's jump over to the next lane where it's a slightly tighter turn. The car has to work a bit

16:17 harder to achieve everything. Wait for that to go green. So, we've got green steering wheel,

16:22 green lanes. I'll let go of the wheel. Awesome. So, I can see it falling to the lane, but it's

16:28 now pushed itself back into the centre here and that's holding quite nicely as well. Awesome.

16:34 Alright, let's jump into the third lane. This is where the cars without decent systems tend to

16:40 struggle a bit. So, we'll see how this performs up here. So, I'll just wait for that to go green. So,

16:44 we've got a green steering wheel, green lane marker. I'm going to slowly let go of the

16:49 steering wheel there and see if it'll hold itself in position. It's not applying enough torque.

16:55 We'll go back up once more. So, it's detecting the lines. It's giving us green for the steering

17:03 wheel, but as I slowly let go of that steering wheel, it's not applying enough torque to the

17:07 wheel to hold it in the lane and that also then translates to on-road driving where it's not going

17:11 to be able to hold the vehicle in a tighter turn either. So, pass for lane one and two,

17:16 fail for lane three. If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested,

17:20 have a look at the link in the description below.

17:25 So, there is no official 0-100km/h time and this doesn't have launch control either. So,

17:32 I'm just going to mash the throttle and we'll just, I guess, see what happens and see what

17:35 the number is. I'm going to go all the way to 120 as well so we can see what our

17:38 80-120km/h overtaking speed is. Then we're going to do a 100-0 too. So, here we go.

17:43 Actually, it wasn't too bad off the line. There was a flash there of traction control.

17:52 Okay, actually moving really nice and fast. There's 120. Come to a stop and have a look at

17:59 our figures. I'll actually do it once more as well with traction control off this time just

18:05 to make sure that wasn't slowing us down. 0-100, 7.43 seconds which is not too bad and our 80-120,

18:13 4.85 seconds as well. So, some pretty healthy numbers there. I'll give this one more crack

18:18 from 0-100 with traction control off this time. We'll see if the numbers are any better.

18:23 Okay, as promised, here is another crack at 0-100. This time though I'll turn

18:27 traction control off just to make sure that wasn't affecting our ability to accelerate. Here we go.

18:32 All right, that felt good. No torque steer either which is nice. Run all the way through to 120.

18:45 All right, there it is there. Come to a stop. 7.71 seconds. So,

18:52 turns out that having traction control off didn't actually help us whatsoever.

18:56 Okay, and now 100-0. Let's see how it goes. We'll get this to just above 100 k's an hour.

19:04 Slam down the anchors. There it is there and here's our marker.

19:15 Hazard lights have come on. So, 100-0, 37.41 meters in 2.7 seconds and like I said,

19:23 we're going to build out a database here. So, if you have a look at the link in the

19:25 description below, we'll start populating that with every other car that we test as well so you

19:30 do have a valid comparison. So, time for our reverse test. Line it up here, see how quick

19:36 it is in reverse. Here we go. All right, 50 k's an hour in reverse and it got there pretty bloody

19:47 quickly as well. So, the Serato GT, I was genuinely blown away with how quick it was around our ride

19:57 and handling track. Like, it is an absolute weapon and it has so much road holding and a huge amount

20:03 of traction and grip from those tyres too. So, it is a pretty impressive package. Look, I think if

20:08 they do ultimately move to a torque converter for the gearbox like they did with the Seltos,

20:12 I think that it's probably going to only make it better. It is let down though by the ride.

20:16 The ride is incredibly firm. So, if you are going into this, please make sure you do like a 24-hour

20:20 test drive because if you're happy to live with the ride, you're actually getting a really sporty

20:24 car with heaps of punch off the line and it's a car that you can throw through a few corners and

20:28 have some fun with. Inside the cabin, you're getting all the latest tech and stuff like that

20:31 so you do feel like you're getting value for money. So, let me know in the comment section,

20:35 have you bought one of these before? What are they like to live with day to day? Are they

20:39 enjoyable? Are they cheap to run? I'm keen for your feedback. If you did enjoy this video,

20:43 please make sure you like it and share it with your mates. And if you haven't done so already,

20:46 subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. But until next time, take it easy.

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