Modified KIA K5 – What Can You Change In Your Korean Sedan?

KIA is a well-known Korean car manufacturer that offers incredible vehicles with great features. But sometimes we still want more than the stock equipment can offer. KIA K5 (formerly known as KIA Optima) is a pretty popular family sedan that is sold in America for quite good money and is a good competitor for many other mid-sized sedans.

We know for sure that many owners will want to make this car more beautiful and more powerful. And we have some precautions to tell you about. Before you start investing money in your new KIA K5, you should be ready for some problems that may occur. It's KIA, it's not a Lexus or something even more reliable, so you have to follow some simple rules.

Here's what we'll be talking about:

1. KIA K5 - is it a good car when it's stock, with no mods?
2. KIA K5 tuning - what can you change in appearance?
3. KIA K5 mods - changing your vehicle's technical side.
4. What problems can you get after modifying your KIA?

Let's get started!

What do you get when you buy a KIA K5?

For a lot of people buying a KIA K5 is not a good idea because this car is just an average vehicle in terms of power, speed, longevity, design, and all other features. It's just an average normal car that will not surprise you with its specs or something else. But it's still a good car when you compare it with anything else you can buy for this money.

It looks pretty good. The vehicle was developed in 2019 but it has been sold in the US since 2021 in the current style. The style is pretty fine, but someone will still not love this strange shape of the headlights and too aggressive body design that is not justified by the aggressiveness of the engine.

Here are key features of the new KIA K5:

• all engines belong to the new lineup called Smartstream - we know about the 1.6L (180 horsepower) and also 2.5L (290-horsepower) engines that are available in the US;
• an eight-speed automatic transmission is a single option available for buyers on our market, it's pretty good, but the reliability is limited, we suppose;
• technologies are just wonderful - you get much more value for the money than in any other brand offering family sedans with a sporty appearance;
• driving KIA K5 is really fun - it's very quick, comfortable, quiet, and it can offer you the kind of ride you want, although it doesn't provide any expensive adjustable suspension or something;
• the interior is not rich at all, but it looks beautiful, we would say it's even more modern and technological than many more expensive vehicles;
• with the 1.6L turbocharged engine, you will get about 31 mpg (combined) - the gas mileage is shockingly economical.

Well, let's be honest - this car is really good. Its MSRP is about $24,800, and sometimes you can even find cheaper options with some discounts and promos. You will probably want the GT-Line trim that costs over $27,000. Or you will choose a more powerful GT version that costs more than $32,000.

Even if you look at the most expensive versions of the K5, they don't seem to be expensive compared to their counterparts. But all these modern technologies have one problem - modifying your vehicle is not only hard, but it's also actually very dangerous. If you don't want to get into trouble, you should read our article carefully.

Visual changes - can you make your K5 more beautiful?

We don't think that tuning the design features of your K5 is a good idea now because the car is new and fresh, and it looks pretty nice without any changes. But if you want to have a project car, you can try to find some parts and ideas for modifying the design of the vehicle.

We still see some problems with any visual changes:

• the range of tuning parts you can buy is limited - producers still don't offer a lot of options for you;
• the quality of tuning parts for the exterior and interior of your K5 is not the best, very often they are just the cheapest parts from China with low quality;
• very often, the modified exterior of the K5 looks much worse than the original design;
• you will need professional help with your modifications which can lead to big expenses on your way to a more beautiful KIA car;
• you can just make it worse and will have no chance to get everything back;
• sometimes, these changes may void your warranty which is very bad news for a car owner.

If we wanted to modify the KIA K5 visually, we would only look at some KIA original accessories. For example, GT-Line KIA K5 has some accessories for its exterior that are not presented in the cheaper KIA vehicles. Maybe, we would look for these parts.

But when you look at the KIA K5, you understand that right now this car doesn't need any sharp design changes. It still looks beautiful and very fresh among other cars.

KIA K5 mods - what can you change in its equipment?

When it comes to KIA K5 mods, owners think about the engines. And here we have a lot of things to tell you.

First of all, you should understand that modern KIA engines very often work at the top of their abilities. In previous generations, KIA used very reliable blocks that could withstand much higher torque and power, so modifying your vehicle's engine wasn't a big problem. But now things have changed a bit.

Also, other parts will suffer if you try to gain more power and improve other important specs of your car.

Mainly, you will have these problems:

1. Engine blocks and heads. The engines have small displacement - the base version is only 1.6L which is not a lot at all. This small block will not be able to withstand any more power or torque. The bigger 2.5L engine is also extremely powerful and we don't think it's a good idea to tune it or modify it.
2. Transmission. The automatic dual-clutch transmission doesn't seem to be very durable. Especially, the clutch will need to be replaced once every 100,000 miles. It's expensive and long, so you are not going to love this procedure. But with the higher torque of the engine, the clutch in this transmission will be damaged much more often. And the transmission itself will not be very reliable.
3. Suspension. When you have a lot of power, you need to have a stiffer suspension. KIA K5 is made for comfort, not for sport. If the suspension of your vehicle is soft and comfortable, you will not feel any good emotions when accelerating sharply.
4. Brakes. Want to add another 50 horsepower? Your brakes will not be able to support safe driving anymore. You will need to invest and change the brake rotors and pads which are not very cheap.
5. Interior quality. You probably know that when you have an aggressive engine, you are going to drive aggressively no matter what. If you act aggressively in your KIA K5, you will need to repair the interior very soon. Just because it's not of the highest quality we have seen.

As you see, modifying your KIA K5 may lead to problems. And while some of them can be solved by additional investments, many problems are going to follow every modification of your K5.

The main problems are relatively weak engines. They are OK if you don't modify them and don't get more power, but they will fail very fast if you try to tune them. So, be careful with your decisions.

Tuning the ECU - is it OK?

When we talk to some KIA K5 owners and tell them these things that you have just read above, they say something like this: OK, I see that installing a bigger turbocharger is a bad idea, but can I at least change the ECU settings to tune the engine? The answer is very simple: Yes, you can, if you are OK with 50,000 miles longevity of your car.

The problem is that the engines in the KIA K5 are tuned at the maximum of their capabilities but considering longevity. The 1.6-liter engine will go around 150,000 miles while the 2.5-liter one can live over 200,000 miles. But when you tune them by changing the ECU settings, they start dying much faster. And after 50,000 miles you will just have to replace your engine.

Final words

We are not fans of tuning. If you feel that the 1.6-liter KIA K5 is not enough for you in terms of power and acceleration, just go for the GT trim with the 2.5-liter unit and with much more power. If the 2.5-liter K5 is not enough for you, choose a Porshe or a Lamborghini instead of killing your KIA.

It's not obvious whether tuning and modifying your KIA K5 will be much cheaper than getting a more powerful car because you will lose the vehicle's longevity and will have to repair it all the time in the future.