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2023 Kia Seltos replaces my decade old Celerio: 8 pros & 8 cons

28th March 2024, 09:04 by Ananth Iyer

I may sound a bit dumb when I say that I didn't do any test official drives of other cars - but have driven Baleno, Hyryder, XUV 700, Nexon and City.

BHPian Black_Panther recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I've been meaning to write this review for quite a few days now and finally got an opportunity to compile my buying experience, drive experience, likes-dislikes, additional jobs that I got done on the car etc.

Buying experience

May 2023

I was scouting the market for a decent car as my Celerio was beginning to show its age (its about 10 yrs old, but still running and I would love to keep it as a beater car). My budget was hovering around 15 L and wanted to get a bang for the buck product. Online reasearch has begun with cars like Baleno, Nexon, i20, Honda City, Seltos, Verna, Rapid, XUV 700 etc - covering the whole spectrum. Each car had something going for it, but I couldn't convince myself to buy something which I was not sure of on a high level. Have checked out Toyota Hyryder which a friend of mine bought, liked it and was in my final list of cars alogn with XUV 700. With the news of impending facelift of Seltos, thought to wait and watch.

I may sound a bit dumb when I say that I didn't do any test official drives of other cars - but have driven Baleno, Hyryder, XUV 700, Nexon and City. I had my reasons for not bringing most of the compact SUV cars into contention. I very much liked the looks and features of the first gen Seltos and luckily the facelift didn't disappoint (I went to the extent of being a bit nervous about the FL just before the launch wondering how would it look, if it will be at par with the then model or if Kia would screw up the design with FL like other brands have done earlier etc.)

Before the launch, I had my eyes set on GT line and was almost ready to go for it after the price announcement. But I was put off after seeing the all black interiors and also that it didn't have a HUD now (it was my fav from first gen). The next best option was X line, of which I was never a fan owing to its maintenance and the lack of colour options. Of course the looks of it can sweep anyone off their feet - was always a gorgeous looking car to my eyes right from first gen. Now I was in a dilemma whether to pick GT line and forever sulk on what Kia did or risk it and go for X line. Frankly I didn't consider any other variants as I wanted it to be feature rich but also partially due to the weird design of the brochure which was confusing as hell and I didn't want to break my head to understand that (learnt that HTX+ was indeed a VFM product ticking most of the boxes that one would need).

Had to put this decision of buying a car on the back burner for a while as I had to address a few other pressing issues of life.

Nov 2023

Fast forward 4 months, I was again at it and finally heart winning over mind, decided to go for X line Petrol. Took the test drives (of GT line) about three times from two different dealers and liked the drive, look and feel - thereafter got the all important green signal from wife and booked the X line. Waiting period of 2 months was totally fine with me as I specifically wanted a 2024 make. From the very first interaction, I was firm that I will not take the dealers insurance unless they match with what I get online and also that accessories should be completely optional. There was some resistance from the dealer, but I didn't budge - at the end they agreed to the terms.

My SA was in constant touch during late Dec and first half of Jan 2024. One day he rang me up and tells me the the car has been allotted and being shipped the next day and is expected to be at the stock yard in about 2 days. I was really excited and couldn't wait for the vehicle to arrive. More so because it was supposed to be a surprise for my kids and parents, I kept this news of a new car under the wraps for 2 months, was a very difficult 2 months of my life indeed.

On the day of the PDI, I called my SA to confirm the time - and he utters something which dampened all the excitement. He tells me that the vehicle shipped was of a 2023 make. A huge disappointment. How can that happen? He clearly told me that the vehicle was allotted to me, now suddenly what is this 2023 make stuff all about? All kinds of questions were running in my head. After a few minutes I could understand that he was forced to lie to me, probably because they prioritised the delivery to someone else for reasons best known to them. He told me that he can get another vehicle in 2 weeks time and I was in no mood to believe him. In a couple of hours he calls me and offers 2023 for a discount of 1.3 L. Was lucrative, but I said I will take it if he can better that discount still. He tried, but couldn't get the discount number further more. Now he throws a date of 3 days from now for another car, which I didn't believe. I quickly called up other dealers to enquire about 2024 make X lines and voila, the other dealers had them ready in the stockyard. I told them about insurance and accessories. One of them rejected the proposal, the other one agreed. On the same evening, went to their stockyard, did the PDI (crushed my fingers in testing the anti pinch functionality) and was fairly satisfied. Paid the booking amount and told them a delivery date.

The D-Day

Finished the payment process a day in advance and informed them the accessories that I would need and was asked to come around 11 AM for the delivery. My entire family along with my brother's family reached the showroom and saw that it was all prettied up and ready for the unveil. The sales team gave a few goodies like mugs, chocolate box and explained about all the documentation and the features of the car. Had a very smooth experience and had finished the entire process in about an hour and had the Kia Connect activated in about 2 hours.

Driving Experience

Soon after we took the delivery the first thing I did was to disable to FCW feature. And later on the same day we drove to 'Statue of Equality' (about 90 km from my place) taking the Outer Ring Road. I must say that I was awestruck by the vehicles smoothness and power. I could test all the ADAS functionalities during the drive and was pleasantly surprised by the impeccability of SCC - this is a must have feature especially while driving on highways. The drive was very relaxing (not that I relaxed ) as the car was taking care of the slight manoeuvring. Switched on the navigation and thought that its detailing is better than Google maps (ofcourse the destination points might not always be searchable as in Google, but does the job by and large). The HUD was displaying the key information including the ADAS warnings, music stations, speed limits etc. (but lacks a few essential metrics like RPM, which gear, current mileage etc which I saw in Baleno). High speed stability is good and the system throwing all kinds of audible warnings at you - you'll be forced to stay attentive. So far have completed about 800 km and have postponed the first service by a week for a few pending works that I plan to do.

Likes

Engine, love the power available at your disposal.
Feature rich
Looks with fit and finish.
Auto hold is truly godsend and works well in tandem with ISG
In-built navigation (which I am yet to upgrade to a newer version)
Ventilated seats
Interior color combination, the color of seats looks awesome (but what's with the name sage green? I havent seen an iota of green on those)
Panaromic sunroof (loved by kids, I am aware of the perils of standing through the opening and have never let them stand while driving)

Dislikes (and nitpicking)

Headlights, not up to the mark. I might upgrade to projectors (saw something on Instagram, quoting 55k)
The suspension may be a little stiff to my liking (Baleno is relatively smooth), but have to reduce the tire pressure and check. Have never been in any seat other than the driving seat since the day I bought and though I didn't hear any complaint of discomfort from my family members - could feel that the ride could be a bit bumpy for them at the back.
Not value for money, should have included few more essential features like memory function of electrically adjustable driver seat, request sensor on passenger side, cooled glove box etc (ofcourse there is no end to what one can wish, everyone wants more )
The unit should have had wireless connectivity. Hearing news that we would get that in the upcoming upgrades, which never come. Have resigned to the fact that it wont happen now, as it is a hardware limitation.
The HUD display position can only be adjusted via the screen and not by any physical buttons.
KIA should find a way to be able to get the Google maps location URLs open in their in-built navigation (because not all locations are searchable and people share the location links via WhatsApp/SMS etc.)
Didn't really like the bulky connected tail lamp design and the blacked out tiger nose grill (you'll see in the following pics what I did to satisfy myself)
The tiny square area of the screen to show updates like weather, sports etc - the feedback to Kia is to increase the font size of the text (of the sports tab), its barely visible unless you peel your eyes. There is also lot of unused screen space on the bottom half of the square.

For all those struggling with speaker grill reflection on the windshield - I have accidentally discovered a workaround - use polarized sunglasses.

Additional jobs

PPF and Ceramic coating - got it done last week with Kavaca brand PPF (7 years warranty) by Ceramic Pro and costed me Rs 1.5 L. Also, got the front grill and the tail lamp wrapped as I didn't entirely liked the stock look.
Getting all the 4 brake calipers painted by the service center. Will be done prior to the 1st service and have been quoted 8500+GST