[Shreyas Agarwal]

Originally Posted by Aditya

Coming to safety, the Seltos is equipped with dual front airbags, disc brakes all-around, ABS + EBD, rear parking sensors & seatbelt reminder (for driver + front passenger) as standard. Barring the HTE, HTK & HTK+, all variants get ISOFIX child seat anchors.

The variant list is so confusing that the mods could not help getting it wrong. Disc brakes are not standard. They are clearly not available in the HTE Petrol.

Here is a screenshot of the spec sheet:

[octane_100]

Superb review guys. And what a product the Seltos has been for KIA!!
The Seltos in its Diesel-AT avatar will surely adorn my garage in the near future, unless Tata can pull a rabbit out of the hat with the Harrier AT.

[ADB]

Fantastic and detailed review !

Only thing that worries me is the stock tyre quality. After reading the many reports of tyres bursting, I’m a bit worried about taking the car on the highway. I know that I should change the stock tyres to a Michelin or Yokohama or something, but don’t have the budget right now.

Can anyone who is an expert pitch in? Is it safe to drive at 140 kmph for longer on these stock tyres, that too on our Indian highways?

[Vid6639]

After driving the Seltos in Goa with Eddy during the media drive, I was sold on the car. The petrol DCT was my choice and I had also done the online booking for it.

My thinking was this would be a good replacement to my 6.5 year old Ecosport diesel manual. However the DCT gremlins, few niggles and the 22L on road price for the GTX+ 7DCT got me thinking after the booking. Test driving the Octavia 1.8L TSI for 2L more did not help matters as that was a league ahead of the Seltos mechanically and driving pleasure wise. The Euro feel was way too tempting.

The Seltos is probably the only non Euro car to come close to Euro feel but dynamically it could not match up to the Ford in terms of feedback, steering and chuck-ability.

I was trying to figure out where I could slot the Seltos in my garage; whether as a corolla replacement or a Ford replacement. My thoughts were in between these options:

1. Seltos 7DCT for myself and an Innova Crysta for my dad to replace his 11 year old Corolla.
2. Octy TSI for myself and a Seltos HTX diesel for Corolla replacement.

After a lot of deliberation, I somehow found the Seltos had a lot of features and was a great package but was a not a huge step up mechanically/core strength wise from the Ford or the Toyota.

There were also a few irritants which I was not happy with. The border around the dials that make it look like wannabe Mercedes with 2 screens but here the dials are sunk in but the cowl is square. I found that really odd and out of place. The arm rest was not adjustable/extendable. No lumbar support which is present in both my 6yr and 11yr old cars. Lots of small misses, sun visor vanity lights, illuminated switches etc. All these were not critical but when I was going to spend 2X of what I paid for the Ford 6 years back it was not a great feeling.

As our review mentioned the variants are supremely confusing. The diesel top end has an HTX+ and a GTX+. But the HTX+ is not really a top end and the exact specs of the GTX+ 1.5D 6AT is not confirmed and is vague.

The HTX+ gets only 2 airbags, no Headsup display and no 360 degree camera, no ESP, TCS. The GTX+ says that it has drive modes but is it really there for the diesel AT or is it only in the petrol DCT?

Originally Posted by Shreyas Agarwal

The variant list is so confusing that the mods could not help getting it wrong. Disc brakes are not standard. They are clearly not available in the HTE Petrol.

Here is a screenshot of the spec sheet:
Attachment 1950106

Yes they aren't but honestly speaking it was more for the sake of simplicity than incorrect specs.

[v6kgang]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

The HTX+ gets only 2 airbags, no Headsup display and no 360 degree camera, no ESP, TCS. The GTX+ says that it has drive modes but is it really there for the diesel AT or is it only in the petrol DCT?

True, the price difference between HTX+ and GTX+ of 1 L ex-showroom doesnt help either.
I recently took delivery of GTX+ Diesel AT and can confirm the drive modes of Eco,Normal and sports is present along with sand, mud etc., you have to drive the Diesel AT in sports mode to believe it. Cant believe the 1.5 L has so much power. Just coming back from 1000 KM round trip and I was scared to engage sports mode because of the holiday traffic.

I am planning to write an ownership review soon. But, If any of the mods wants to specifically test it and add to the review, I am in bangalore and can part with my vehicle for a couple of days.

[Gany]

Thank you Team BHP -Aditya, Eddy, Vid6639 & GTO for such a detailed review! I was looking for replacing my Creta Diesel AT. Seltos was in the fray but due to longer wait time & Confusing variants & no test drive write up like what you guys have put together I put my plan on hold until early 2020!

I am definitely considering Seltos now! Thanks You all!
While I am pleased to note that this car has auto door lock, DTE/FC readout (Hated missing this on Creta), few things I dislike are
- No request sensor on passenger door
- no illumination on door keypad
- non adjustable centre arm rest
- audible speed warning (Is there a way to switch off?)
- Stock tyre and smaller spare tyre (why can't they make tyre upgrade optional)
- lower power/torque on diesel...

I am hoping new Creta will take care of these and I will have to weigh in these niggles before deciding on my next purchase.

[ortho_surgeon]

Hi guys,

I test drove the 1.5 diesel and is truely excellent.

I have always owned only diesel vehicles.

But given the new pollution norms in the Delhi-NCR and the high pollution levels in Bangalore. It won't be long before the remaining metros adopt the Delhi model. So I have decided to opt for the 1.5 petrol.

But alas the 1.5 petrol isn't available for test drive. I wanted to try it and decide for myself.

Guys if any of you have driven the 1.5 petrol I have certain questions:

1) how is the driveability? Do you need to shift to lower gears while overtaking?

2) how is acceleration?

3) how is the car to drive on inclines? In the mountains with 5 on board?

4) what is the mileage in the real world for the 1.5 petrol manual and the automatic?

Thanks in advance.

[hydraulicsteer]

So 1.5 Petrol NA was again not offered for a review. I can infer only 2 things from this.

1. KIA knows that the 1.5 Petrol engine is good enough that a average Joe might not be able to notice a stark difference in performance between 1.4 and 1.5 Petrol during a test drive and will opt for a cheaper NA engine. Lacking sales of the costlier TGDI means lower profits and failing business case of the turbo petrol engine which Hyundai-KIA wish to make the norm way forward in petrols.

2. Or, 1.5 NA is such a lacklustre performer that KIA do not wish to risk a bad review for any of the variant of its first car.

After driving 1.6 ltr iteration of this engine in Cretas and Vernas, which are reasonably peppy,i don’t think a slight downsizing of this engine in Seltos had made it lacklustre.

Forum members what are your views about this non availability of the brilliant NA Petrol engine for reviews and showroom test drives!!

[AMG Power]

When Hyundai launched the fluidic Verna it looked fabulous. They had designed it with lots of nips, tucks and creases in the right places and made it a real eye catcher. In fact it looked so good that the Vento launched around the same time looked fairly plain Jane.

10 years down the line, the original fluidic Verna looks horribly dated and ugly whereas the original Vento has aged gracefully and still looks good.

The Kia Seltos is going to be a casualty in this area. The car has been designed for instant attraction and with lots of tucks and creases with lights that look great. The trouble with so many styling accents is an inability to age gracefully.

Kia have already announced their new design language and the "tiger nose" grille is making way for a "star cloud" design on the lighting along with "Dragon skin" elements. All of this is going to make the current Seltos look dated a couple of years down the line.

In fact Hyundai learnt so much after the design of the original fluidic Verna that all of its launches after that were with a bit of European design language without too much of nips, tucks and creases like the original fluidic Verna. This has helped their cars age gracefully - case in point -the original Creta.

Kia may have to learn a thing or two about going overboard with styling and its impact on aging - maybe it's chosen to deliberately ignore the learnings from Hyundai because when you're launching a car for the first time it helps to have instant attraction regardless - because most customers get a perspective on aging only when it hits them a couple of years down the line.

Kia certainly got that right.

[GTO]

Big thanks to BHPian Klub Class for originally sharing this on the COTY thread (Team-BHP Car of the Year, 2019. EDIT: It's the Kia Seltos!).

Rated the Best by the Best

[asingh1977]

Finally the much-awaited review. Great job by the team and all details are captured so-so well. Will give perspective buyers the true picture. Thoroughly enjoyed reading the usurper to the undisputed Creta. Times change so fast!

[petroguzzler]

Thanks for the review Aditya. Overall, the Seltos seems to be a sensible package that would cater to the demands of most customers shopping in this segment.

Originally Posted by Aditya;

The 1.5L diesel is also available with a 6-speed torque converter automatic. In summary = this is a flawless engine + gearbox combination. It would be our pick from the entire Seltos line-up.

Is this 6-speed torque converter the same one that's used in the diesel automatic Creta/Verna?

If yes, how do they compare? Theoretically, the powertrain of the Creta/Verna should be superior due to the stronger engine.

In connection with the air purifier, does the Seltos have a traditional cabin air filter or does this system replace it?

[Sebring]

Went on a 'stay-cation' to Coorg, and noticed that Seltos has totally invaded these areas (mostly in red). On the way I spotted quite a few as well. I think the small town/city sales are more, and this car has caught the fascination of buyers across demographics. The automatics were doing great on winding hilly roads, and the resort had five of them parked side by side. It seems to me that only the bumper to bumper traffic (the Bengaluru kind) has proved its 'Achilles heel'.

[motorworks]

I do not think any car enthusiast should ever buy any car with out reading the official Team Bhp review! The details! Just so good to see the smallest aspect being covered, time and time again our very own reviewers prove how a review should be handled! Unlike the 5-10 minute videos we see in YouTube these days, which are all about fancy verbatim and background music.
Just mind blowing! Keep up the good work guys!

[Orange GTX]

Originally Posted by naveen.raju

Two benefits I see from using this:
1) Since it's almost at eye level, you don't have to take your eyes off the road.
2) All vital details (speed, navigation etc) can be configured on the HUD so that everything is at one single area, while in the normal instrument cluster, you will need to look at different panels to get this data.

Although I don't fancy this, the navigation looks perfect. Right now, you need to look down on the HU to see the direction in most cars (Because of this I don't use HU navigation. Have mounted my phone high up so that it's close to eye level).

Thanks for the insights Naveenji