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Thinking about buying this for my daughter's first car.....Anybody have any good reasons why I SHOULD NOT buy this car...She loves everything about it. Looks wise....I know nothing about it.....other than what I have read in consumer report 2007 used car buying guide.  It has 70,000m, one owner. Tiptronic gear, kinda cool but being a new thing I am not sure how it holds up or what.....Help!  I am sending my baby out in this....need to be sure....  

I don't know too much about this particular Kia model but if you are looking for a sedan you could check out this article I found on the
top 5 sedans for 2008.  Check out the Hyundai Sonata. Good luck finding your daughter a new car.  

If your daughter digs the style of the Kia, then it's probably a great first car for her.  

The Optima is mechanically identical to the Hyundai Sonata, and both are highly reliable cars.  If I were to recommend a car for someone who valued superior design, excellent performance, rewarding handling, etc, The 2002 Kia/Hyundai Optima/Sonata would not be on the list.  But I assume your Daughter values none of those things, especialy since she already digs the style.  And in that case, the comfort, value, economy, and practicality of the Optima is just fine: better than most American cars, and pretty close to that of the more expensive Japanese cars like the Accord and Camry.  

Regarding your reservations about the tiptronic transmission: don't worry.  All modern automatic transmissions are electronically controlled.  A central  engine/transmission computer accounds for thousands of variables (Throttle position, economy protocols, acceleration protocols, speed, aggressiveness of throttle input, etc) to select the right gear (of 4) for the moment.  "Tiptronic," which is a branded system first introduced by Porsche in the mid 90's, acquired by Audi/VW in 1997, and now the "kleenex" of manually shifting capability in automatics, is simply a manual override of that electronic transmission brain.  In practice, you put the shifter into the "tiptronic" gate, and tap it in the + or - direction to shift up or down manually.  There are no additional mechanical parts involved.  It's utterly useless unless: a) you drive so aggressively that you need to preselect a gear to make sure you have enough power to accelerate out of corners, or b) you drive in the mountains and need to have manual control over gear selection to maximize uphill speed.  

Your daughter will find it novel for the first 20 minutes, and then never use it again.  It won't fail or break, so don't worry about it.

The only reason why you shouldn't buy this car for you daughter is that it doesn't perform as well in crash tests as contemporary Camry and Accord.  But that doesn't mean it's a death trap.  Crash test video and analysis reveals that the driver's compartment deforms a bit in worst-case-scenario head-on crashes, increasing risk of foot and leg injury.  Side impact tests reveal that the side airbags (if equipped) prevent head injury, but don't do well in preventing chest injury.  

Is this something to worry about?  Probably not.  These tests are worst-case scenarios, and the Kia/Hyundai do well enough that even a major crash is very survivable. And the reality is that more safety equals more money in this case.  A 2002 or 2003 Accord with 70K miles will be thousands more than the Hyundai, so to keep costs similar to the Hyundai, you'll be looking at a smaller, less safe car anyway.  

Ultimately, A V6 Optima will be comfortable, reliable, safe, reasonably powerful, and an excellent value.  

Please let me know if you have more questions.