[hydraulicsteer]

Great Review!! Wishing you a zillion trouble free miles on the machine.

Had i been in your place would have gone for a CRDI as i feel there is no point spending a million on a car and still left wanting punch from the engine. Rest ,to each his own.

On the maintenance cost part i feel you should take these prices as highly indicative. A can of engine oil or a filter or any consumable costing x today will surely cost around 1.07x or more next year. Same hold true for labour cost. Your derivation of lesser than 50 paise per km service cost will skew north considering the compounded price increase.

[Swajith]

Congratulations
Super review, you have covered almost everything.
Please keep updating the thread on regular basis.

[BZ25]

Hi sir, congratulations to you and your family for buying the Seltos. Hope you have a wonderful trouble-free experience. Took delivery of my 1.4 GTX+ MT last month, and I have to agree with most of your points. Would love to meet a fellow Seltos owner. ��

[ramnaresh_2000]

Originally Posted by rahul_goyal

I took the time to prepare a ready reckoner for service cost break-up of Kia Seltos 1.5 Petrol Manual. This will help in ascertaining the consumables, part replacement and labour charges applicable for each service as per Kia recommendation.

Service Cost break-up
Attachment 1932558

These figures are based on the service cost as mentioned on the Kia website and does not include the applicable GST charges.

The total maintenance cost for 10 years/1,00,000 km is INR 46,420/- (i.e. less than INR 0.5 per km). Quite reasonable IMO for a car of this size.

Also note that these charges do not include the charges for wheel balancing/alignment and throttle body cleaning.

Here's the service schedule from the Manual.
Attachment 1932557

Quick question on the spares and their availability. I have read a lot of negative comments on Twitter and Facebook. People who have damaged their Seltos are waiting for spares for more than 2 weeks. One person from Delhi damaged his rear bumper and his Seltos is in garage for 15 days and no repairs started yet.

Kia slowly started deleting such posts and blocking them is what they are claiming. Any chance you can throw some light on this? I ask because I am about to recommend Seltos to my relative, and I don't want them to curse me later

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by ramnaresh_2000

Quick question on the spares and their availability. I have read a lot of negative comments on Twitter and Facebook. People who have damaged their Seltos are waiting for spares for more than 2 weeks. One person from Delhi damaged his rear bumper and his Seltos is in garage for 15 days and no repairs started yet.

Kia slowly started deleting such posts and blocking them is what they are claiming. Any chance you can throw some light on this? I ask because I am about to recommend Seltos to my relative, and I don't want them to curse me later

Sorry to jump in here. Let me share my observation from two different Kia service centers across cities.

I own a Seltos D MT which I bought from the Bhubaneswar dealer. The dealer has sold close to 350+ Seltos in two months and has an order backlog of 600+ units. They have exceeded their optimistic sales targets by 33%. During my delivery and post delivery interactions with their management, I found the following:

• The dealership was running dry on official accessories due to stock out. They had placed orders and awaiting long days. The order management system showed they will receive partial order delivery after 3 days.

• KIA is sending vehicles randomly and not as per the sequence of the orders booked by customers. Hence the ambiguity of delivery dates. KIA is also focusing on producing colors which have higher demand.

• Three customers had clocked 10000 kms already and were waiting for the third service to be done. However the dealership is awaiting oil filters and hence, couldn't take up the service. They were very apologetic about the situation.

• KIA is listening complaints - they released patches to take care of the boot parcel tray. They are also planning to release a circular for the AC fogging issue.

Last weekend, I got my first service done here in Hyderabad. While there, I saw 2 damaged Seltos' - one with broken tail lamp and 1 with damaged front fender/wheel arch plastic. Both were awaiting parts. Even the Hyderabad dealer didn't have more than 60% of the accessories.

It is clear that KIA hadn't anticipated the demand for their car and not able to handle the mad rush for the model. In the near term, parts availability could be a problem while KIA focuses on production and delivery. But I hope things will be smooth in the next 6 months or less.

[ramnaresh_2000]

I just managed to pull below screenshot from online. I see same situation everywhere. I think it is better to wait another 6-12 months before I can suggest anyone to purchase Seltos. Hopefully by then all issues will be sorted out and market will also know the 2nd hand value for the vehicle.

[Murli]

Please read before buying

https://news.maxabout.com/cars/kia/k...roblems-india/

[cy_auto_enthu]

Hi Rahul,

Congratulations on buying the hottest SUV in town. Wish you a great ownership experience.

You said that on performance this won't win you any races.
I wanted to understand further, will you call the performance as adequate or under powered to some extent ?

I think this petrol variant and the IVT version fall into more affordable terrain and the pollution concerns around diesel make in NCR make it more compelling.

It still costs a significant amount of money and i was wondering if one would feel that they are not able to compete with vehicles of lower class in terms of power. i sometimes face that with my Ciaz Petrol and regret it

[rahul_goyal]

Originally Posted by Hatari

Looks great!

A friend of mine who bought one, was complaining that with the AC on, a small stream of cold air leaking through to the windshield was causing some fogging. Are you facing this?

Thank you.

I didn't face any fogging issues. No air leak either.

Originally Posted by hydraulicsteer

Great Review!! Wishing you a zillion trouble free miles on the machine.

Had i been in your place would have gone for a CRDI as i feel there is no point spending a million on a car and still left wanting punch from the engine. Rest ,to each his own.

Thank you so much.

The 10 year limit in Delhi-NCR coupled with low monthly running didn't justify the premium required for diesel. There's no turbo surge kind of punch in this engine but it is still very powerful for my requirements. A turbo engine has more components and it takes a little more care to maintain. After driving turbo diesels for more than 10 years, I though it will be a good change to go for a naturally aspirated petrol engine. I am happy with my decision.

Originally Posted by Swajith

Congratulations
Super review, you have covered almost everything.
Please keep updating the thread on regular basis.

Thank you. Will try my best to keep it updated.

Originally Posted by BZ25

Hi sir, congratulations to you and your family for buying the Seltos. Hope you have a wonderful trouble-free experience. Took delivery of my 1.4 GTX+ MT last month, and I have to agree with most of your points. Would love to meet a fellow Seltos owner. ��

Thank you for your kind words.

Sure, let's make a plan.

Originally Posted by ramnaresh_2000

Quick question on the spares and their availability. I have read a lot of negative comments on Twitter and Facebook. People who have damaged their Seltos are waiting for spares for more than 2 weeks. One person from Delhi damaged his rear bumper and his Seltos is in garage for 15 days and no repairs started yet.

Kia slowly started deleting such posts and blocking them is what they are claiming. Any chance you can throw some light on this? I ask because I am about to recommend Seltos to my relative, and I don't want them to curse me later

Luckily, the requirement of any spares hasn't emerged in my case. However, I did ask for gear knob replacement, which they didn't have in stock. But since multiple users are facing the same issue, I guess the KIA factory is not up to speed with supply of spares.

Originally Posted by cy_auto_enthu

Hi Rahul,

Congratulations on buying the hottest SUV in town. Wish you a great ownership experience.

You said that on performance this won't win you any races.
I wanted to understand further, will you call the performance as adequate or under powered to some extent ?

I think this petrol variant and the IVT version fall into more affordable terrain and the pollution concerns around diesel make in NCR make it more compelling.

It still costs a significant amount of money and i was wondering if one would feel that they are not able to compete with vehicles of lower class in terms of power. i sometimes face that with my Ciaz Petrol and regret it

Thank you for your wishes.

I found the performance to be adequate and by no means under powered. Throttle response at low RPM is subdued, but once you are past 1800 RPM mark, the car feels powerful and a breeze to drive.

I have heard good things about Kia's IVT (technology-wise), but really can't comment on how it drives as I have not personally driven the car. I suggest you go for a test drive of IVT and the competition back to back to find out if its suitable to your requirement. Happy hunting.

[r0nit7]

Originally Posted by rahul_goyal

Folks!

I recently replaced my Xcent CRDI 1.1 S with Kia Seltos HTK+ 1.5 NA Petrol 6MT.
Dislikes

• HTK+ misses out Automatic Climate Control (Does any one know of another car that has cruise control but doesn't have automatic AC?)
• No rear arm-rest (My Xcent had this feature in S variant, which wasn't the top variant)
• Fixed head-rest for rear seats in a car that costs about INR 13 lakhs is unacceptable;

Great Review! I doubt if we would have a drive review of this particular power train option even in the official review, so
I've booked a Kia Seltos HTK 1.5 NA Petrol 6MT in White myself. The reason to do so against HTK+ was that other than the Rear Defogger & Wiper, there aren't enough value add features which could justify the premium charged (as per me). Had it included the aforementioned 3 features, I would have gone for HTK+ eyes closed.

[rahul_goyal]

Update

I have completed almost 3000 kms with Seltos, which also includes to and fro journey from Gurgaon to Lucknow (through the expressway). For the most part, the car was set on cruise control at the speed of 80-90 kmph.

Pictures of mileage figures as recorded in MID are attached.

Pic 1 - Gurgaon to Lucknow plus 30-40 kms of local travel within Lucknow.
On the highway, MID showed consistent 23 kmpl, but the city commute and traffic reduced it to 20.4 kmpl.
This picture was taken just before fuel-up and by tankful to tankful method, I got 18.6 kmpl.


Pic 2 - Return journey from Lucknow to Gurgaon


Pic 3 - Accumulated Info of complete journey (To and Fro)

[hydraulicsteer]

Originally Posted by rahul_goyal

Update

I have completed almost 3000 kms with Seltos, which also includes to and fro journey from Gurgaon to Lucknow (through the expressway). For the most part, the car was set on cruise control at the speed of 80-90 kmph.

Pictures of mileage figures as recorded in MID are attached.

Thanks for the update friend. Couple of questions specific to 1.5 Petrol MT

1. How is the high speed(80 kmph+) stability.
2. How well the car insulates the exterior noise in city and on Highways.
3. How well the car masks high speeds.Like a Compass doing 120 feels as composed as a i20 at 60, how is the case with Seltos.
4. How is the low end torque and overtaking with some load say 2-3 passengers or some luggage.

[Durango Dude]

Originally Posted by ashis89

Sorry to jump in here. Let me share my observation from two different Kia service centers across cities.

I own a Seltos D MT which I bought from the Bhubaneswar dealer. The dealer has sold close to 350+ Seltos in two months and has an order backlog of 600+ units. They have exceeded their optimistic sales targets by 33%. During my delivery and post delivery interactions with their management, I found the following:

• The dealership was running dry on official accessories due to stock out. They had placed orders and awaiting long days. The order management system showed they will receive partial order delivery after 3 days.

• KIA is sending vehicles randomly and not as per the sequence of the orders booked by customers. Hence the ambiguity of delivery dates. KIA is also focusing on producing colors which have higher demand.

• Three customers had clocked 10000 kms already and were waiting for the third service to be done. However the dealership is awaiting oil filters and hence, couldn't take up the service. They were very apologetic about the situation.

• KIA is listening complaints - they released patches to take care of the boot parcel tray. They are also planning to release a circular for the AC fogging issue.

Last weekend, I got my first service done here in Hyderabad. While there, I saw 2 damaged Seltos' - one with broken tail lamp and 1 with damaged front fender/wheel arch plastic. Both were awaiting parts. Even the Hyderabad dealer didn't have more than 60% of the accessories.

It is clear that KIA hadn't anticipated the demand for their car and not able to handle the mad rush for the model. In the near term, parts availability could be a problem while KIA focuses on production and delivery. But I hope things will be smooth in the next 6 months or less.

Originally Posted by ramnaresh_2000

I just managed to pull below screenshot from online. I see same situation everywhere. I think it is better to wait another 6-12 months before I can suggest anyone to purchase Seltos. Hopefully by then all issues will be sorted out and market will also know the 2nd hand value for the vehicle.

It's very difficult for a fledgling company to really foresee such resounding success at launch like KIA and MG are experiencing. That would be the reason the early adopters are finding it difficult to get parts and accessories. Hope these two companies have a solid 'game plan' in place if not, they'd discarded and never considered by clients in the future.

[Turbo_anup]

Given, this is a "Hyundai Company", I am hoping that the situation of spare parts and service would improve as we go ahead and will not take a downturn like some other "European manufacturers". Kia already has hit ball out of the park on product front, it is just the servicing that needs to gear up. A related question to BhPians here and owners - are any parts shared with Creta so that these can be looked at in Hyundai service centers? Should make a difference as Hyundai already has good density of service centers across India & collaborating on service front might bring synergies for both brands

[dksv]

Originally Posted by Turbo_anup

A related question to BhPians here and owners - are any parts shared with Creta so that these can be looked at in Hyundai service centers? Should make a difference as Hyundai already has good density of service centers across India & collaborating on service front might bring synergies for both brands

While a mechanic was installing HIDs on my HTK, said that several components look exactly the same as they do on the Creta. Additionally, spare parts for both brands are sourced from MOBIS India and I've seen branding of both Hyundai and KIA on some cargo boxes at the service center. Most of the people who are facing problems with parts are for the visible body parts, which will be unique to the Seltos. But under the hood it is highly likely that these two cars share a lot.