Great looking car.

 

We get it, We also get that your Acura looks just like a Honda.

 

They really are gorgeous cars... front to back. My ex-lady of 3 years gave me a call one evening before coming home from work and told me she was considering financing a new car that night. I wasn't very happy about it... she owned her current car. When she told me it was a Kia, I *really* couldn't see the point. Then she pulled up in the new Optima (I had never paid them any attention on the road... probably thought it was a Lexus). WHOA. I've been a fan ever since.

 

I don't know if I'd ever mistaken one for a Lexus (since I hang around them all day :P), but I give Kia big, big props for how far they've come in competing with luxury marques with their higher-end sedans whilst remaining affordable. Their advertising team is really on point as well with capturing your attention.

Great looking car.

 

Thank you! Kia has indeed stepped up their game.

Thank you! Same here, I always thought they were crap till my wife bought this. I was truly impressed.

Thank you very much buddy!

 

Got the bumper back from the body shop. He lowered the price because it took him 3 weeks to finish after he kept pushing it off. The paint work come out great! They fixed the crack and filled all the license plate holes. He told me not to install the bumper for another week due to it's super cold outside and we are getting more snow. After wards he's going to buff the bumper once it's installed on the car.



This side had the crack which ran an inch up

Bracket holes fixed.




She got to test fit a new carbon fiber product for this bumper.


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Nice, it will look nice not having the holes in the bumper. That CF piece looks great. You going to be installing it on the wifes car?

 

Yeah, it's nice that they fixed it up really well. She doesn't want to put on the front plate again. I will be doing the swap over. It's not terrible, just the lower & upper grills, fogs and installing the new emblem. It's been way too cold outside. The wind is brutal today.. 45-60 mph plus it's about 12 outside so feels like -10. Doing driveway work indeed sucks. For those that have garages, I won't lie, I'm jelly.

 

Nice I know the feeling of those temps. It was 3 deg yesterday with 40+ mph winds, and because we have those temps in the winter my garage is heated so i can play year round. My garage was a balmy 70 deg yesterday

 

Wow.....sweet!

 

I cleaned up the wifes car today. It was freezing out there but I couldn't stand to see her car caked with Salt. Wax the outside including wheels, polished the exhaust tips, detailed under the hood and the interior.

 

Looks fantastic

 

Car looks great, I applaud your dedication to keeping the car clean in these temps. I have a hard enough time convincing myself to go out and get the mail.....lol

 

Thank you buddy!

Thank you!! I wanted to put another layer of wax on them before winter ended. Her car has more marks in the paint now due to the car washes this winter. The salt has been terrible. Today it's going to 43 which will feel like summer to use since we been about 0 or under. It also snowed again last night about 6 inches worth..

 

Looks great, keep up the good work.

 

I finished up the Car today and another quick detail with a photo shoot. I Love the new front end look now. Really transformed everything nicely.



















View of NYC Skyline

 

Wow, your cars looks great. I have noticed a few more on the road since this thread and I can't believe it is the same car, very clean.

 

Looks fantastic.

 

looks great, nice job...

 

Very nice.

 

Someone needs to make a CF trim piece for the grille to get rid of the chrome that stands out

 

That is the nicest Optima I've ever seen. Nice job with tasteful mods.

 

Absolute beauty

 

Thank you very much! In my area, there's a ton of them. Mostly in white, followed by black. Very rare to see a red of blue optima.

Thank you buddy!

Thank you!

Thank you buddy!!

Yeah I agree! There amount of carbon fiber accessories for this car is outstanding! I wish the TL had the same support in carbon fiber accessories. Karbon Koncepts just made a grill, which looks great but is a bit much. If he made the chrome part cf only, I'd be all over it.


Some carbon fiber items. Kia Optima Carbon Fiber | Karbon Koncepts

Other websites has the oem style deck lid spoiler in carbon fiber and some misc items in cf.

Thank you very much!

Thank you buddy!! We may go to Myrtle beach this year, if we do, we will stop by


A small update. The roads have been horrific with giant pot holes. We went out Saturday night to meet up with the photographer and talk about wedding stuff, we nailed a pothole on Route 80 which thankfully, didn't blow out the tire or damage the rim but was hard enough to cause a bubble. She has warranty on the tires, so we have a new tire on the way. KIA dropped the ball by NOT supplying a spare tire for this vehicle. Instead, she has "Fix a flat" with an air compressor... I ordered the KIA tire spare kit which cost 160 shipped from an on-line dealership. I couldn't risk any chances of not having a spare in the trunk. More pictures coming soon.

 

Damn, sorry to hear about the tire At least the car didn't suffer any more damage!

 

Small update.

Got the new tire installed and spare tire kit done as well. I noticed the dealership never installed the carpet trunk mat when the vehicle was sold to us. They had the rubber all season trunk mat installed. After a short visit to the dealership, we got the new carpet mat for free. Some not so exciting pictures.

Pothole hit



New tire installed.


OEM Spare tire kit installed.



The OEM carpet mat install.



Some piece of mind now that there's a spare tire kit. Good thing is, we were able to also put the oem tire emergency kit (Compressor and tire fix a flat) in the tire spare well.

 

I'll be honest and say that the car really grew on me the more the thread went on. My wife would be like, WTF would you mod my car? It runs, right?

Was at a Kia dealer on Friday, and couldn't help but notice how damn nice all of them were (except for the new Sedona, I don't know what they were thinking with that dash). I unfortunately also notice how much they were. $37k for an Optima, I didn't look at the trim level.

 

Wow, car came out great!

 

Thanks for the awesome words. It's the wife that browses her forum and says "dear, look at this" Aka let's do this to the car haha. Unfortunately, they did go up in price. When we got the optima the 2013 SX-L new were going for 29,995.00 . It was a special promotional price for 2 months to make room for the minor revised 2014+ versions. If we had more wiggle room, she would have gotten a blue 2013 SX-L. This has been a pretty solid car. Great on gas, great options, great aftermarket support and overall we got it for a great price. The car is CPO, had 5,000 miles and out the door for 21K. The Sedona isn't terrible (The new 2014 version) but I agree, that center console is terrible. I like the 2013 Sorento, though the 2014 Sorento has a better refined look, but that center console is terrible..

Thank you buddy!

 

I love the Optima!

I would have been an Optima owner if the dealer wanted to budge on the $35K price. I ended up getting my TSX for less.

 

Still loving the mods and good call on not doing that grill. My neighbor, just got a new undercover Kia Cadenza and I have to say it looks great. He said he was very impressed with it and can't believe what Kia has done.

 

Thats nice looking. Not too bad i guess, but still up there. Find someone to hydro-dip it maybe? or wrap it in vinyl?

 

I took mine (2012 SX) into a Merlins shop to have them check out the brakes and let me know where the pads are at. The mechanic checking me in (yes, he was one of the mechanics) asked me what car it was and when I said Kia, he said, "What?! Really?! I thought that was a Lexus or Audi." I was thinking, and you're a mechanic? I don't want you working on my car anymore. I was surprised to hear it because by now I figured everyone has seen Optimas on the road. These comments made more sense back when I first got the car. These have been on the road for 4 years now.

 

Back from the dead.

Glad the weather has been decent lately. I need to take a weekend and compound the paint due to the horrific winter. I haven't put summer wheels on either car, waiting for New Jersey to repair potholes. Did a quick wash and spray wax to the wife's car last night and snapped some photos today. I really love the Carbon fiber upgrades done. They look amazing in the sun light!! Got to turn on those cooled seats today, with the pano sun roof open.


That Carbon fiber! Looks stunning in the sunlight






Carbon Fiber license plate and Carbon rear diffuser




Carbon Fiber side skirt extenders.


That Spicy Red




Love the Wood grain steering wheel.






The latest thing ordered from Korea is the OEM wood trim accessory that goes above the glove box. I'll have to wait about a month, but will see if it's worth it.

 

Love the detail man. Keep it up!

Wheels+height is like perfect.

 

Looks absolutely fantastic as always Gus! The attention to detail is amazing

How's the TL doing?

 

Come back to ramblings, we miss you !

 

Thank you buddy!! Amazing work you've done to the subi! Keep up the great work as well. I agree with the height, but wifey wants lower..

Hey brosk!!!! Hope all is well! You already know, with my OCD nothing is left untouched. The TL can be seen in the background, under the cover hahaha. I did a serious detail to it and covered it. Hasn't moved much or at all since 2015. Maybe 50 miles at most?.. With the wedding coming up quick, I don't have much time to enjoy the TL and take it to shows. How's everything with you? the wedding planning? Did your job ever fix the TL?

 

I totally missed this thread.. Looking good Gus!

 

Don't hold your breath brotha... I'm waiting for Los Angeles to fix their crappy roads too..