Auto News 5

D.J. Auto Sales sits behind a metal fence topped with razor wire in Long Island City, a gritty swath of industrial wasteland in the shadow of the glittering towers of midtown Manhattan. "Specialist in Lincoln Town Cars," reads the bannerlike sign out front. "Lincoln Parts Sold Here At Wholesale Prices. All body parts, lights, switches, sensors, pumps & more. Bad credit. No problem. We finance all." Nearly four dozen Town Cars are parked on the lot. Black ones. Silver ones. White ones. Sedans and stretch limos. Some lightly used and some beaters with a quarter-million miles on the odometer. Cars offered for outright sale or on a pay-by-the-week basis. Cars in for routine service. Cars getting overhauled. In one of two bays in the open-air garage, a long-wheelbase Town Car is up on a lift getting new brake pads and rotors while a body man replaces a crumpled fender. Inside the mobile home that serves as an office, co-owner John Rodriguez has just negotiated the purchase of a low-mileage Town Car from Saint Louis. "I've got about 400 cars," he says. "Ninety-five percent of them are Town Cars. I'm not interested in Toyotas. They can't go 400,000 miles."

The Kia Forte 5-door is new for this year and expands upon the existing sedan and Koup body styles. I like the styling and packaging of the Forte hatchback, but the car could use a little more refinement to match up to its competitors. I drove a Forte sedan two years ago and was rather impressed, but that was a different small-car market. Compared to the latest crop of small cars available in 2011, this Forte 5-door feels cheap and unsatisfying to drive.