I’m in the market for a new car. Regretfully, being in the market for a new car means doing ALL THE THINGS to make the right purchase: research, test driving, more research, more test driving, arguing with your wife about whether or not 2nd row captain’s chairs should be a dealbreaker, more research, arguing with your wife about whether or not the V8 is a necessity, more test driving.
In the midst of this process, someone suggested I test drive a Kia Telluride. I thought: KIA? Really? Those are trash cars (don’t get triggered yet, KIA drivers – read on).
See, I actually remember when KIA came on the scene in the 2000s. Their vehicles were cheap. Unfortunately, they were also cheap. Meaning, they were priced low, but the quality of the vehicles was also low. The motors were weak and unreliable. They rated consistently at the bottom of all the ratings lists for a long time. They simply were not good vehicles.
Having been out of the market for several years, I did not realize how far behind the times my Kia knowledge had become. Over the past decade, they have become highly popular, well-regarded vehicles. Instead of being rated near (or at) the bottom on reliability lists, they are now rating near (or at) the top. In fact, alone among their peers, they offer a 10 year / 100,000 mile drivetrain warranty on their new vehicles. This massive shift over the course of just one decade is impressive, and it deserves some consideration as to how an entire brand and product was re-made in a decade.
Relentlessly Pursuing Quality
Kia COO Michael Cole says the reinvention of the branding began with KIA focusing on “craftsmanship, dedication to continuous improvement and a commitment to customers.” When it became clear that the market space and brand reputation occupied by KIA in the United States was consistently poor, the leadership at KIA made a decision. Instead of slapping lipstick on a pig by merely re-branding with new marketing strategies and tactics, they first dedicated themselves to making a quality product.
In fact, KIA spent a billion dollars in research to improve the quality of their vehicles. A Popular Mechanics article detailing the transformation process says that:
“This pricing tactic [increasing prices] reflects a transformation beyond quality. On the factory floor, I wondered if there was a particular moment, a turning point when an executive in Korea pounded a fist on a conference table and issued a decree to beat Lexus in the IQS. It took a few weeks for Kia, writing from Korea, to issue a response stating that there had been such a decision: ‘Yes, over a decade ago, Hyundai Motor Group, which includes Kia, made a conscious and deliberate decision to concentrate on quality rather than volume.’”
What exactly this looked like still involves some speculation, but the outcomes are not speculative. JD Power’s survey results in 2022 show that KIA has shot up from the bottom to the top of the list for fewest problems reported by owners in the first three years of ownership, beating out even the renowned Toyota. Again, KIA puts its money where its mouth is, offering significantly longer warranties than other manufacturers. Perhaps this was done initially, in part, as a marketing strategy and it may have cost them some money as the lower quality engines improved slowly. But now that warranty is backed up by actual reliability and longevity which is recognized by consumers and peers.
So the resources and attention poured into quality are real and have had real positive results.
The People Touch
KIA also invested in the right people. They poached famous car designer, Peter Schreyer, from Audi in 2006, and he revolutionized the feel and look of Kia vehicles. Simply observe the difference between, say, a 2000 Kia Sephia or Sportage and a 2025 Sportage or Telluride. Whereas a manufacturer like Toyota famously focuses primarily on its drivetrain (and so the tech and “feel” of the Toyota is often behind its competitors), Kia decided to invest in both the drivetrain and design. The result is a product whose interior feels like a luxury vehicle compared to its peers.
Additionally, beginning in 2014, Kia retained Lebron James as a product ambassador. At the height of his fame, James may have helped change the brand perception of Kia. Simply the fact that a famous, wealthy athlete was eager to drive their vehicles meant that Kia was no longer a “bargain” brand.
On the other end of the “people” part, Kia seems to have a very human-oriented production process. In an in-depth article from Popular Mechanics, industry writer, Ezra Dyer, noted that Kia’s training process for its workers is fairly robust, with even something like two-thirds of employees traveling to Korea for part of their training. As we will see below, it looks like Kia’s human “hands-on” quality assessment is a unique supplement to automated processes that have become industry standard.
Rigorous Process
Dyer notes several interesting and unique processes that ensure quality of Kia vehicles before they leave the factory. For example, there are 39 paint code quality assessments. This includes a “stoning” inspection of every tenth door conducted by human hands. Such detail on just the paint indicates a notable concern for quality. Similar processes are in place at various stages in production. Some of these are similar to what, say, Honda does, but other parts of the process are similar to what high-end manufactures are doing. Clearly, part of the billion-dollar investment into quality focused on getting rigorous and precise processes in place to create and protect their products.
The Kia story is an interesting one not only in re-branding, but in re-invention. It’s rare that a widely known product can re-make itself in significant ways (significant enough to see “unprecedented growth” within the industry, according to Dyer). However, with a laser-focus on quality, along with getting the right people and processes in place, it seems that is just what Kia has done.