[Sk8r]

Originally Posted by simeonovitch

Every single one of them, pretty much.

140+ bhp? nope
320+nm of torque? nope
4 airbags? nope
15000 km service interval? nope
Comfortable 5 seater? Nope

If I owned an XUV, I'd see the Seltos as a downgrade.

After the initial hype dies down I think more of Seltos/ Hector potential customers will walk to Mahindra's showrooms to have a look at XUV 5oo.

Sorry to disappoint all the potential customers and owners, XUV 5oo is a notch above Seltos/ Creta/ Hector any given day be it Space/ Power/ Handling/ VFM

The only area where it triumphs is for the Gizmos which I strongly believe will lose the initial hype post few months

To answer you shortly if someone is switching from XUV 5oo, you'll be disappointed !

[Don Dasco]

Originally Posted by Sk8r

Sorry to disappoint all the potential customers and owners, XUV 5oo is a notch above Seltos/ Creta/ Hector any given day be it Space/ Power/ Handling/ VFM

Sir! With all due respect, IMHO, the drivability and footprint of XUV 500 and Seltos are completely different, I am saying this after having driven XUV500 extensively on both city and highways.

There are different segment of customers who definitely want SUVish feel in 15-20 lakhs will always check XUV500 but for those who want mix of Hatchback (for maneuverability and small footprint) and SUV (for bad roads and high GC), these kind of crossovers always pop in mind.

Gizmos aside, again IMHO the fun of quick maneuverability offered by Seltos, cant be expected from XUV 500.

Talking about VFM, it's individual perception, most of the guys who booked Hector are in strong belief that it's the most VFM car for what it offers

For Creta, the numbers will speak and again it's a diffrent segment all together, can't compare with XUV just because it falls in the same price range.

Thanks!

[Moto$apien]

Saw the new car on roads today, the cuts, creases and muscular stance over the CRETA is quite evident.

It was apparently the automatic version, had a rather big AUTO badge on the right fender.

And don't know if mentioned before,

SELTOS is as Fresh as MENTOS !! ( pun intended )

[ADB]

Sharing the price list for Gurgaon with the two GTX+ variants added in

[nsbhagwat]

Originally Posted by Moto$apien

Saw the new car on roads today, the cuts, creases and muscular stance over the CRETA is quite evident.

It was apparently the automatic version, had a rather big AUTO badge on the right fender.

And don't know if mentioned before,

SELTOS is as Fresh as MENTOS !! ( pun intended )

I see a lot of seltos test drive vehicles being driven up the Taljai hill road during my evening walk. These vehicles are from the satara road dealer.

The cars look damn good n impressive. The engines are refined and pretty silent. I haven't observed the badging hence unsure whether petrol or diesel.

[springisking]

https://www.rushlane.com/jeep-compas...-12323764.html

Looks like all turbo petrols are going the same route. If this is the future then turbo petrols will lose steam soon imo.

[Warwithwheels]

Saw the seltos base variant (orange color) parked right next to a white creta. The creta looked much bigger and had a better road presence IMO.

[coolkurt]

Originally Posted by sandygordon

I had canceled at least a dozen of my appointments to have a test drive today afternoon. Sad to so see how Incheon Kia Cochin is treating customers who have already booked the car in July. It is not the first time I am having bad experiences with car salesmen. I had a horrid time with the "Nexa-walas". Now is the time of "Kia-walas".

That's pathetic on the part of the dealer. I had to struggle to get a test drive too, which was much shorter than I wanted, as they cited "other customers in queue" and in the end you feel less important. Half the reason I'm put off by the Seltos is the experience at dealerships.

And on the other end, there's MG.

Talking about other hurdle that has cropped in with disproportionate demand, Rajeev Chaba, chairman, MG Motors, admits that some consumers are not being handled properly at the dealership because there is too much of a rush. They were not expecting this kind of crowd in the showroom so some people are not happy with the customer handling.

“We are not absolutely clean and perfect but we are trying to improve and make sure that we are able to meet expectations. It’s a long journey and we’re not at all complacent or confident that everything is sustainable. I think we have to take one step at a time and the first 10-15 thousand customers have to be completely satisfied,” he added.

The new entrant acknowledging that there might be some customers who might have felt sidelined at times and taking steps to change the narrative. This is so refreshing. Kia take note.

[Don Dasco]

Hello All,

On September 1st, I became a proud owner of 'La'Belle' KIA Seltos HTK+ petrol manual variant, since there are plethora of information in the other Seltos thread, I'll try to be as brief as possible in penning down my experience starting from the my present cars & motorcycles I own/leased, past cars, past motorcycles, thought of a new car, test drives, Booking, pre & post delivery, vehicle behavior & my thoughts, this is my 1st review post, please pardon any mistakes.

Cars I own : Hyundai Santro 2002, Maruti Suzuki Alto 2002, Tata Nano LX 2012, Volvo S80 2012, KIA Seltos HTK+ (new addition).

Cars I leased in USA : Chevrolet Camero (2015), Ford Mustang (2016), Dodge Challenger (2017)

Motorcycles I own : Kinetic Honda (1998), Yamaha R1 (2001), Bajaj Pulsar 150 (2005), Royal Enfield Himalayan sleet (2018), TVS XL 100 iSmart (2019)

Past cars : Mahindara MM540, MM550, Chevrolet Optra, Mitsubishi Cedia, Ford Fusion, Hyundai Sonata V6, Maruti Suzuki Baleno.

Past Motorcycles : Royal Enfield Bullet (1982), Rajdoot 175(1983), Royal Enfield Electra 4s (2002), KTM Duke 390 (2014), Harley Davidson Street 750 (2016 & 2017), Truimph Tiger 800 (2017).

Thought of a new car : We recently moved to a area where one can find more speed breakers (20 in span of 7 kms) & potholes, so using Volvo S80 was becoming a tedious task & had to think twice before taking the car out, also wanted a smaller car very badly for city use & Farm run in Chittoor (AP) (210kms oneway) my monthly usage is around 2.5k kms

With no requirement list & budget in mind, I started actively taking test drives at leisure of my office lunch time, below are the list of cars which I took test drives from the month of March 2019 to July 2019.

1) New Swift : Very much fell in love with the new design, took test of both diesel & petrol, felt good for my kind of relaxed driving, wanted to drive other cars before deciding.

2) Ford Ecosport Petrol : I always felt that Ecosport is another Fusion and was not very eager to own one, took a test drive just for the sake of it & just loved the drivability of the AT, Salesperson offered 1.5 lakh discount on a 2018 model (in March 2019) I put this car on hold to check other cars.

3) Punto Abarth : Again one more gem of a car just loved the smooth power delivery, got offer for 9 lakhs OTR but service was a concern for the fact of my 2.5k kms per month usage.

4) Tata Nexon Diesel : Almost decided on this car but didn't get approval from my wife who is not a great fan for the TATA brand unlike me, I always had soft corner for TATA & for the fact I bought Nano for the love for the brand.
tried to convince as much as possible but at the end I got "Ok go ahead if you liked it" kind of approval.

5) Tata Harrier : With no intention of buying as my wife doesnt like TATA, I just took test drive for the sake of it & got Knee pain for 20kms of mixed traffic test drive, immediately shared my feedback to the SA to avoid any follow up calls

6) Ford Freestyle : with almost all good reviews in Team-BHP, called for test drive with cheque & pre approval from wife, had great pleasure in driving & reminded me of Ford Fusion days, just before reaching my destination got a call from my wife to stop any idea of booking as her colleague had bought one recently & was not happy about the car .

Now at this point I decided to give a break of this new car search & started searching for options of installing air suspension for Volvo S80 and at the same time got busy with office work.

Booking process : On 19th of July, one of my colleague & I were discussing about buying MG Hector for him, I had a brief test drive keeping in mind that the car is for my colleague & not for me as for some reason I didn't like such a huge car for my usage, suddenly someone took the name KIA Seltos, even though I had read a post or 2 about the potential launch of this car, I never thought about this car or maybe because of I am not a great fan of waiting periods of these new cars.

Within 5 mins of this discussion, I googled for the nearest KIA dealer & got the number of Epitome KIA, I asked for the booking process & delivery date, was surprised to hear that the car is not yet launched & only bookings are open from 3 days & launch is on Aug 3rd & delivery will start immediately for pre-booking customers, I asked him the address of the showroom & he said showroom is still under construction & will send his Sales advisor for any clarification & booking process, to my another surprise I got a call from Mr. Balaji within 15 minutes of my initial call to showroom saying that he's in my office lobby, with all the details he had & promise of delivery within a week of launch I booked GTX manual (Didn't inform my wife as even I was not decided on this yet)

The wait begins : On the same day, started reading all the posts from Seltos page in Team-BHP, it was about 70 pages & later on glued to that thread for any new info of the launch date.

Later got to know that the Aug 3rd date was only for Vehicle launch in showrooms & not for pricing & variants, got an invite for the launch & I was the first potential customer to be at the showroom on the launch date, later got to know about the pricing & variant date, so the wait for the Aug 22nd begins, in the meanwhile started convincing my wife saying its new brand in the country.

Finally the most awaited Aug 22nd came & I was glued to the screen to know the variants! BANG the confusion started, looking at so many variants & more confusion created by my wife & nephew, I spent 2 sleepless nights as someone pointed out the niggles of GDI engine & DCT transmission (even though I had booked the manual variant)

The more & more I read about unresolved issues with GDI engine, the more unhappy I became added to the confusion created by my wife for the top end GTX+ vs GTX & the news of more waiting period of god knows how long (3 months?) with this confusion, I found HTK as VFM variant & for the fact of immediate delivery I slowly started to like it, but again with the absence of all safety features which is available in GTX, I didn't get a nod from my wife.

On Saturday 24th Aug, went to the showroom along with my wife to convince her on HTK variant even though it doesn't have all the bells & whistles of GTX but o'boy it was not a easy task, according to her & I agree that there is no alternative for safety features no matter how small its purpose is but I was not ready for the GDI nightmares even though I liked the quick maneuverability of the 140 bhp engine (no offense to other's who have booked this variant, I am sure it will not have any issues but still my requirement was to have a niggle free ownership & wanted to use the car as much as possible rather having it parked in service center)

On Sunday 25th Aug : Finally, after lot of debate, pros & cons, who's driving what car for what trip & for how long we gonna own the car, we both agreed on HTK + variant just for the Key request sensor & Cruise control ( I use that a lot ) & made final payments to the dealer & decided to take the car on 1st Sep 11am sharp.

Special Thanks to all members & Mods in Team-BHP, without the vast information posted here It wouldn't have been easy on the decision making process, once again, thanks everyone!

Delivery experience : Arrived at the showroom with my wife, daughter & my nephew at sharp 10:15 am in a UBER, I was told that car is being washed behind the showroom & they'll get it to the unveiling booth, I didnt get a chance to see the car even though I had requested for PDI & had Team-BHP's checklist handy but for some reason (mostly office work) I couldn't see the car & the salesperson Mr. Balaji had promised me that even If I a find a slightest mistake in the car he will allot me another one.

Mr. Balaji gave me the necessary documents along with the Keychain, dashboard grip pad & keychain gift while my 1.8 years old hyper active daughter roamed around the showroom keeping everyone busy.

I had got Balaji a Coffee mug as gift (handed over privately 1:1) for all the hard-work, mutual confusion, information he provided and also, this was his 1st car delivery as well. (I know, most of them are not ok for this gifting but I felt OK for this small gesture.)

Car was delivered with all the drama of unveiling & cake cutting at sharp 11am (Muhurtham fixed by my non-compromising Dad) my daughter was all happy with the cake cutting ceremony, In the meanwhile I named the car as La'Belle (meaning Beautiful, lovely) as soon as I saw the car after unveiling, I was in love with the color.

I took the car out straight to the Shell petrol bunk near Graphite India followed by Balaji to pay for the customary 5 liter fuel. I got the tank filled till the auto cutoff & started to get puja done at Kanipakam AP after taking blessings from my parents at home.

Customary KEY handover by Mr. Balaji





Post delivery Drive : After taking the delivery at Epitome KIA, I drove to my house which is 8kms away, got blessings from my parents & started towards Kanipakam (Lord Ganesha temple). I referred to user manual to know the initial running in RPM, it was between 2000 to 4000 RPM, keeping that in mind, slowly crossed Hoskote toll booth Fast tag lane (Showroom guys had given paytm fast tag & I pasted on the convenient location for easy reading).

Please note : This is the first time I am driving a Petrol variant, I had test driven HTX+ Diesel manual / Auto & GTX DCT for few times.

Engine : Very silent & smooth engine, no sound at all & my dad turned off the AC at the toll booth thinking I had switched off the engine, it is that silent, no vibrations whatsoever, KUDOS to the KIA engineers for the NVH setup.

Transmission : Manual transmission, I felt all 6 gears were spread across conveniently & this was exactly what I wanted for a smooth cruising experience, no lag whatsoever even in the top gear & I had to remind myself not to cruise in same speed while running in, so had to slow & speed varying the RPM's, gear shifting was butter smooth & shift clicks were assuring, the only thing I felt missing is the gear indicator, even though upshifing indicator is available I sometimes gets confused on which gear I am in when the gear is on either 4th or 6th.. this talks about the smooth delivery of power in each gear.

Clutch : Super smooth & short travelling distance clutch got multiple thanks from my left leg, no discomfort whatsoever even after 8 hours of drive, but the clutch bite is very minimal, other guys who drove this car stalled multiple times but not me.

Suspension : For a moment this car reminded me of initial days of Cedia, the not so hard & not so soft suspension made the drive breeze on the newly tarred uneven Chittoor road, the undulations of the road was handled well getting praises from Dad who compared this with ML 350

Steering : I am in love with the way the steering responds, lighter in crawling speeds & weighs aptly when we gain speed, perfect for my driving habits.

NVH levels : Very good for this segment, outside noise is filtered upto 80%, with thiese NVH levels, I am able to listen to classics in just 2 or 3 volume settings cruising at 80 kmph in middle lane, cabin insulation is at its best.

Handling : Car was easily cruising at 100+ with less than 2k RPM in 6th gear, I varied the speeds just to keep the RPM hovering between 2 to 3k. Car handled well in heavy rain near palamner, the grip levels were good but road noise was evident, I had to increase the music volume to 5..The car was loaded with 4 adults & another adult joined after getting customary puja at Kanipakam, we drove towards my farm near Chittoor where bad & no roads welcomed us, I had read somewhere about the notorious gap between the rear wheel & cladding when loaded with 5 people but didnt face any issue on really bad roads where I wont even dare to take my Volvo S80, Seltos just cruised in 3rd gear gobbling all the uneven roads, all smiles around inside the cabin praising the car.

Android Auto : The 8 inch screen is more than enough to get the navigation to work from android auto, the setup was pretty wizard friendly, no hiccups here too except for few niggles which later got sorted once I got a new USB cable.

In Car Entertainment : Well, I am not an audiophile but wouldn't mind having a good audio system, I listen to pink floyd, metallica most of the times along with Kannada, telugu & hindi classics, I found arkamys sound system good for my likings, no complaints here as long as it plays Wheels on the bus rhymes for my daughter.


Fuel Efficiency : it was showing 17kmpl in the MID for the highway run of 430 kms & got overall 13kmpl for full tank to full tank method with mix of city & highway drive..surprisingly in one of my long city drive including nice road in Bangalore I got 15kmpl including 30 mins of Idle time. MID reading below.

Seating comfort : None of the passengers complained about the seating comfort, but I couldn't find a suitable driving positing for almost 4 days.

The car has completed 1000 Kms as of today 11th Sep, Service center is not yet ready, however the Service manager have scheduled a general check up on Thursday.

What I liked so far :
1) Smooth engine & driving experience
2) Linear acceleration
3) Smooth gear shifts (reminds me of Swift)
4) Light clutch
5) NVH levels, Just brilliant
6) Steering response : couldn't ask for more, to the point, inspires confident.
7) View from the cabin is good, minimal blind spots.
8) Reverse camera clarity is good along with dynamic steering guides
9) Horn - loud enough
10) Seating position - Mix of both Suv & sedan, love the console view from driver seat.


What I didn't like (subjective)
1) The driver arm rest both the sides are hard enough to get pain on the elbows in love drives, will get leather padding done on both the sides
2) No gear indicator in the MID
3) No proper storage for phone when connected to android auto, have to get magnetic AC mounts but that'll just add to the distraction.
4) Bottle holders design is bad, the 1 liter bottle will almost fall when we close the door.
5)Lack of storage space
6) Song changing button on steering wheel is UP for previous song DOWN for next song which is against my liking, comfort.
7) Lack of safety features like ESP, 6 airbags, all 4 disc brakes for a car worth 11 lakhs.

My planned upgrades : Team-BHP stickers.

Here are some pictures from the 10 days drive experience along with MID readings of FE figures.

After 150kms of Highway run from Showroom




Initial Fuel Efficiency MID readings




Getting Puja done at Kanipakam




Without DRL




With DRL & Headlamp low beam ON




Long city drive FE readings




User settings






Today's MID reading, 1000 kms done



Random pics

[D'Ro@dSt@r]

Thanks buddy, this will definitely help clearing the confusion for many ppl like me who are waiting to finalize a variant with the right engine option. Drive safe and njoy happy miles on your new machine!!

[JishD]

Saw a GTX 7 DCT on Golf course extension in Gurgaon today - so deliveries have begun for the automatic . It's also evident that my dealer Allied Kia Sohna road is holding back on this information to dump their HT manuals on people who need the car fast !

[sharninder]

Just got my refund amount credited today after about 2 weeks and multiple follow ups. There was no deduction of Rs 250 and I got the entire amount of 25k back.
My thoughts on the vehicle are still the same and I think its a decent car which will do well in India but its overpriced by atleast 2 lakhs for the top end. I've decided to wait till the end of the year and if I'm still undecided, I might look at Kia again.

[adimicra]

Originally Posted by Don Dasco

Hello All,

On September 1st, I became a proud owner of 'La'Belle' KIA Seltos HTK+ petrol manual variant, since there are plethora of information in the other Seltos thread, I'll try to be as brief as possible in penning down my experience starting from the my present cars & motorcycles I own/leased, past cars, past motorcycles, thought of a new car, test driound 2.5k kms

Finally the most awaited Aug 22nd came & I was glued to the screen to know the variants! BANG the confusion started, looking at so many variants & more confusion created by my wife & nephew, I spent 2 sleepless nights as someone pointed out the niggles of GDI engine & DCT transmission (even though I had booked the manual variant)

The more & more I read about unresolved issues with GDI engine, the more unhappy I became added to the confusion created by my wife for the top end GTX+ vs GTX & the news of more waiting period of god knows how long (3 months?) with this confusion, I found HTK as VFM variant & for the fact of immediate delivery I slowly started to like it, but again with the absence of all safety features which is available in GTX, I didn't get a nod from my wife.

First of all, congratulations to you on the new vehicle and wishing many happy miles with the vehicle.
Can you please mention what niggles/issues you have heard in the 1.4 GDi engine?

I am interested in the 1.4 GTX/GTX+ for the additional power and safety features. So, I am very curious to know any issues with this engine.

On another note, I think success is already gone into the head of Kia dealers. I called 2 dealerships in Hyderabad for test drive of 1.4 GTX/GTX+ manual.
They said only DCT is available. So, I asked them when can I get a test drive of the manual. They were not sure. I asked them can they give me a call back when the vehicle is available. None of them showed any interest or bothered to take down my number. I disconnected the phone and decided not to buy Kia Seltos, at least from these dealerships. If this is the pre-sales experience for a 20Lakh OTR car, I shudder to think what will be the A.S.S. experience.

I think if Kia India management doesn't get these issues sorted out, they might be kicked hard in the *** by the Indian people once the initial hoopla dies down. For me, I will wait for the next-gen Creta or some of the new SUVs from Skoda/VW. Best of luck for people buying the Seltos but I strong believe a customer deserves a better experience.

[biplab3110]

Got a call from my Dealer. There is no timeline when a 2 tone (white/black) will be available. Instead they can give me a white this month. They are getting 2 GTX DCT cars this month and both are white. Going for it!

Did some calculations, which are shocking
OTR price - Rs19L
Basic Price of Car - Rs11L (57.9%)
Money going to govt - Rs7L (36.8%)
Insurance - Rs58K (3%)
Others - Rs45K (2.3%)
Government is collecting 63.6% of the value of the car as taxes!!!

[jaaz]

Originally Posted by JishD

Saw a GTX 7 DCT on Golf course extension in Gurgaon today - so deliveries have begun for the automatic . It's also evident that my dealer Allied Kia Sohna road is holding back on this information to dump their HT manuals on people who need the car fast !

Dealers as well as the manufacturer (KIA) is also playing games with the deliveries. Seems like, a new company has already started playing dirty games. KIA is not dispatching the variants as per the booking schedule, but as per their whims and fancies.

Till date, they've not dispatched HTE variants, whether it is in Petrol or Diesel. I heard there are lot of confirmed bookings for HTE, but still not a single vehicle has been delivered. If the Company was not interested in selling lower variants, they should avoid launching in the first place. Just a marketing gimmick.

This is where, Maruti wins. You can get all the variants, without any bias.