A few years ago my husband and I were in need of a good, reliable, affordable family car to replace our older model Chevy. We found a used Kia Optima in our price range and decided to purchase it after a test drive. This was possibly the single worst decision either of us has ever made. There's no two ways about it, the 2002 Kia Optima. It handles like an irritated cow on roller skates being steered drunkenly around a dance floor. The pick up is slower than an elderly woman knee deep in quick sand. It has all the style and appeal of a Luke warm breakfast burrito. I think the single worst thing about this car though was the god awful "manu-matic" transmission style. This feature is meant to marry automatic and manual shifting, but provides you neither the control of a manual or the ease of an automatic. While in manu-matic mode, the car will down shift automatically, but has to be shifted up manually, meaning that you will drop to first gear every time you have to stop at a stop sign, and then have to bump the car back up in to third or fourth gear again. Worst car ever.