[Tortle]

Wow very detailed review. Welcome to carens family. Im 6.2 and carens is the only car to keep me comfortable in all 3 rows. We 7 friends have been to various trips for 10+ yrs. We have almost drove all 7 seaters during the time. It was during 2023 when i brought carens everyone happily volunteered to be in 3rd row without any fight. Its not just the 3rd row space that makes it comfortable. Man the suspension is the top notch feature. All this years we used innova to compare with. But now carens feels more comfortable then innova. I have done chennai to Bangalore non stop and back for an emergency with only few hours of halt and i never felt any tiredness. My only concern with carens is its little under powered even with 1.4 turbo for my type.

Would you like to share your insights on the headlights. Im looking to swap them for a top model.

[vvivek85]

Recently went on a trip to Kumbakonam, it’s only wife, daughter and I with fully loaded boot, performance on the highway was simply great. 60% of my trip I maintained a speed between 90 and 100. At one point I saw mileage reading at 18 KML, overall I got 16.5 KMPL.

Originally Posted by BoneCollector

Request you to share a few snaps with some luggage in boot with all the seats up.

Apologies for delayed responses, I have given you a perspective of boot capacity with full seats up and with last row folded.

With last row folded you can keep anything without much fuss, while going to Kumbakonam we had 2 large suitcases, a single mattress and couple of big shopper carry bags.





With all 3 rows up it can accommodate 2 large size suitcases and can squeeze in few small bags as well. This is excellent.

[vikramv4u]

Many Congratulations on your purchase.. welcome to the Carens 7DCT family!!! its a lovely machine!!

Originally Posted by krishsreedharan

I love the new instrument cluster and I will check if that can be retrofitted into my older 7DCT.

Please let others also know if you are able to make this happen :-)

[vvivek85]

Carens experienced its first hill station drive. We recently went on a 4 day trip to Munnar, the car is a bliss to drive. As I had already stated, 7 DCT is best to be driven in highways, in no time the car hits the magical figure of 100.

Hill drive performance

Considering DCT I was a bit sceptical regarding hill drive due to frequent gear shifts, but no such issues. It performed as expected without any issues, but I felt the car at times takes a bit of time to move to next gear, as a result the engine grunt is heard but overall no complaints as such.

Some of photos taken during the trip









Overall mileage for this trip



I did realise the importance of rear wiper first hand.

[funnysaltbrick]

Hi, great review, really loved reading through it. Question. What's the service experience like? The Carens is on our family's prospective list and having some info on what the service costs and experience is like could help us get a better view of the Kia experience.

[vvivek85]

6 months update

KM covered - 5600

Performance -

As stated already, car is a highway cruiser, you will easily hit 3 digit speeds, availability of 7th gear is a bliss in open roads where even in 100 kmph rpm is hovering around 2K. City usage, maneuvering doesn’t require efforts, it’s a huge positive considering its size.

Issues faced -

No major issues faced *touchwood* except for fuel trip meter automatically resets even if the fuel is not filled in. Maybe, fuel sensor is too sensitive.

Mileage -

In city the car is really thirsty, single digit mileage is what you can expect. Whereas in highways, if one drives sensible it is easy to extract a great mileage.

City usage with heave traffic - 8-9 KMPL
City usage with moving traffic- 10 - 11 KMPL
Highway usage - 14 - 17 KMPL



Other information -

Last week I received the following message from Kia



I booked an appointment for yesterday and went by 9:30 AM, when enquired further I was informed that a software update should be performed in Engine Control Module (ECM) and it is 1:30 hrs procedure. They denied when I probed if this was an issue. Not clear on what this update all about.

Overall, has been a great first 6 months with Carens.

[Krouton]

When I enquired on the software update to my Seltos, they informed me that it was an update to "improve" the performance of the vehicle.

Driven more than 1k kms post the update, and haven't noticed any noteworthy improvements.