I think the key thing here is you own a 2015 Forte and you have limited experience with the Stinger to make any judgements which are mostly opinions in things such as design and feel.
I've driven the Stinger and having owned the Kia, to me the products look very good from the surface, but once owning them do you notice their short comings. For simplicity sake, they're not as well designed, engineered and optimised as the main Japanese brands.
This is your opinion, I feel the Stinger interior is better looking than the Q50. I am a fan of the Pop up display.
As humans, we like things in symmetrical designs, and the Infiniti interior is flush and symmetrically without any productrifng pieces. To me this is more luxurious.
I can assure you as a previous owner of a 2008 G35 which I bought new and sold a few months back that it had its fair share of abnormal wear especially the plastic parts that pealed like for example in the steering wheel. The dealer replaced it several times, only until the 2nd replacement were Infiniti was able to fix the defect. The Stinger is a new platform and on a completely different level as for an Ex. a 2015 Forte, I have no clue how you can assure us of such a thing especially 10yrs from now.
Virtually every Kia/Hyundai in the use market I've observed their interiors has worn out so much more than the equivalent mainstream Japanese brand vehicle
The Q50 interior is of much higher quality than the Stinger, no questions asked, not only that, but it's also more plush with higher quality materials used and the overall environment is more comfortable.
Paint quality issues on new cars is nothing new, the Stinger got so much attention because it was being heavily marketed and this issue was naturally brought into light. At least Kia did the right thing and immediately rectified the issues
It doesn't take much to see the amount of stone chip, cracking and other premature paint related issues the Stinger has succumbed to. Even without all these issues, I was not impressed by the paint quality of the Stinger in the showroom. AS mentioned the paint was dull and made the car look very plastic like.
As a matter of fact, even my Kia has a stone chips on its bonnet, and it's by far the newest car in the family, I was shocked when I saw the stone chips. Again - This would not be a problem if Kia used higher quality paint or paint procedure?
This is nothing new, but that doesn't mean the new Korean cars are not good enough especially with the recent quality ratings they have been above average and inline with most of the Japanese brands. Japanese cars didn't start reliable from day one, they improved overtime, so has Kia and Hyundai who have improved extremely quickly.
There is a big difference between "perceived quality" and actual quality/longevity etc. As mentioned Kia's look very nice on the surface, but they have many short comings that can only be experienced after ownership.
How the hell do you know that? The Stinger design is very unique, more unique than the Q50 at least and has been awarded for that.
Show me one Hyundai/Kia product that has aged well? There are none. All of them look okay when relased, but to me they age very quickly. Remember the Genesis Coupe aka G37 killer? Look at it today. Then you have the Camry killer aka Sonata (swoopy design) aged terrible and was a horrible car to begin with and so on.
Due to it's more soft and elegant lines, the Q50 will stand the test of time.
The Stinger is a busy and tacky design that will age quickly.
The Stinger has definitely been underrated, and again we are comparing economy cars to the Stinger which has been purposely built to change the Kia mindset with people.
The Q50 engine is derived of the GTR, which is a better design than the Kia. Besides Nissan has been making world class engines for decades. It should come as no surprise there.
Look at photos of the Q50 V6 engine and the Stinger V6 engine - notice how much over engineered the Q50 engine is.
