Kia Seltos HTX

This is the most sincere, straight and plain spoken review of my Kia Seltos 1.5L Diesel mated to a 6-Speed Manual Transmission. 

Overview

I am an owner since August 2020 (It has been with me for an year, clocked 8200 Kms on the Odometer.) This 1.5 liter diesel engine is refined, you can hear some diesel clatter at idle which obviously is present. But for the most part, the engine is really refined. Now as we pick up the pace in first gear, firstly the clutch is light, picks up pace beautifully as I start leaving the clutch (due to the 250Nm torque rush) and the speed at which it crawls is quite good - crawls at 8-10 kmph in 1st gear and 16-18 kmph in 2nd gear so the foot needs to be on the clutch all the time in gradual city traffic and acceleration inputs are not required as such. Gearshifts are towards the smoother side I would say, slots into position perfectly. The engine doesn't give jerk on upshifts when done below 1800 rpm while sedate driving and below 2300 rpm when accelerating a bit hard.

Steering

Steering feels very nice to hold, is dead accurate, weighs up beautifully well at city speeds as well as on highway speeds and dare I say it, the steering feels better than my Polo 1.0 GT TSi, yes the 2021 model bought a month ago, kind of ironic, isn't it. Anyways, body roll is very well contained, you can push it hard through the corners (Though, not advisable ofcourse). It doesn't feel like an SUV actually, SUVs are meant to be soft and family and comfort-oriented but the suspension is really very stiff, you really can't get over 5 kmph on a bad road filled with potholes (especially the ones, caused due to rains) or somewhere out of the roads. This also is because the car gets 17 inch alloys and I usually keep the tire pressure at 35 to 37 psi. If you need a comfortable car with 3x the practicality, you better off buying the Hector which costs nearly the same (17.7 lacs is what I paid for the Seltos Diesel HTX).

Suspension

Leaving the suspension, now the seating position is very low and the thing is that Seltos being an SUV has an elevated dashboard, the glass area is also at a higher position than the seat, hence, the visibility is very poor (Although, seat height can be adjusted but I keep it on low because at high height, the clutch travel becomes a bit awkward). As I said, it doesn't feel like an SUV, it got brilliant driving dynamics (I have touched 165 kmph on a trip and it remains dead glue to the road) and you sit so low, that you get a sedan-wali feeling.

SUV Interior & Features

Coming to the interior, features shouldn't be the talk here but still it misses out on many things... heavy doors, quality of doors, thick glass and a dark interior layout is a serious miss here - all of which was there in my Toyota Liva 1.4 Diesel that I previously owned, did 180 000 Kms with it in 6 years... it was a gem (in fact when we closed the doors of our Seltos at the time of delivery, the whole car shaked because we had that problem of closing the doors with some force in Liva, haha).

The quality of screen and electronics is good, it also gets all 4 disc brakes so braking power is very good (I once got to apply emergency brakes, although braking is good but there was a lot of judder due to ABS kicking in again and again when the tires screeched).. but still somehow I don't feel satisfied with the equipment offered- it misses out on Rain sensing wipers, all 4 Auto up-down windows, Illuminated buttons on the driver side(Polo laughing in the corner), the speakers are average at best, the doors and especially the foot area starts shaking when the bass is maxed out.

It has connected car features but live tracking from phone doesn't give any data such as the current speed, etc. but only the location of the car. There is no remote start/stop as well. Hence, I don't really feel satisfied with the equipment offered as in the real sense, I am missing out on a lot of them.

Driving Dynamics

One thing I forgot to mention in driving dynamics was that at speeds over 70- 80 kmph, although it depends on the road surface, there is some amount of tire noise that can be heard if there is no music being played. As for the rear seat space, legroom is very good (being 4.3 meters in length), we can stretch out the legs completely but the shoulder room doesn't feel ample (due to the seat design probably), hence, seating more than 3 people is still a tight fit.

Coming to the mileage, on the odometer, I have seen mileage as low as 2.4 kmpl (when getting out of the house to get some groceries) and as high as 24 or 25 kmpl when driving at 60 kmph sedately in 5th gear at some stretch, however, the overall mileage, considering a 1.5L Diesel, still turns out to be on the lower side - at 15.5 kmpl. On a full tank( Fuel tank capacity is 50L), it does a range of 800-840 Kms which actually is pretty impressive.

Exterior

Coming to the exterior, when you know you are exiting your car and after crossing a distance, you turn your head just to see your car once, you know you have bought something special. Paint quality is first class, however once, some road repair work was going on and those tiny bits of charcoal got stick all over the surface of the car, including paint, glasses, panels, sunroof which couldn't be removed by normal car wash. So I took my car to 3M, within an hour and a half, they made the car brand new, they used some chemical to remove those bits and the shine from the paint hadn't gone even a bit. The total repair cost was Rs. 800/-, other alternatives like gomechanic were charging Rs. 5500 and weren't even sure of what they were supposed to do.

Showroom Experience

Showroom experience at Kia has always been good, the staff is also very cooperative, first 2 services have been done at 1000 Kms and 5000 Kms for 0 cost so can't say anything about the service cost as of now. No electronic or any other problems faced until now. I wish I could post some images of my Seltos but let's save it for an another day.