Kia Seltos review 2020: Damn, it looks good! But...what's it like on the inside?

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Kia has hit it out of the park with the 2021 Kia Seltos GT-Line in terms of design. It looks stylish and really stands out on the road. And, unlike some cars in this segment, it has a turbocharged petrol engine in this top-specification guise. Is it any good? Paul Maric tests it out to see whether you should spend your money on one!

Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE

Read the full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-reviews/2020-kia-seltos-gt-line-review-2/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=review&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=single-car-review

Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:02
Interior: 03:34
Infotainment: 04:36
Features: 08:03
Practicality: 09:31
On the Road: 12:01
Verdict: 16:41

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#hyundai #review #seltos @KiaWorldwideOfficial @KiaAustralia
Transcript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. Who would have thought 20 years ago when the Kia Rio looked like this,
00:04 and the Kia Sportage looked like this, that we would be standing in front of a new Kia
00:08 that people are actively lining up to buy, and that I think is a really good looking
00:14 car. This is called the Kia Seltos. I know that because it says it right there on the
00:18 number plate. And this is the car that people want to get into their garages because it
00:22 is a small SUV that isn't too big, that isn't too small, and isn't too expensive. This one
00:27 here is the top specification GT line. It's priced at just under $43,000 and it competes
00:33 with cars like the Hyundai Kona and the Mazda CX-30, which I know you guys really like.
00:38 Today we're going to do a detailed review of the Seltos to see if it drives as well
00:42 as it looks, and whether the interior is any good. If you do want to skip ahead to other
00:46 parts of this review, you can use the time codes up on the screen there. Or if you're
00:50 on YouTube, just check out the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already, I'd love
00:54 it if you could hit subscribe to our channel, and also press the bell icon because that's
00:57 going to tell you every single time we drive a car with customised number plates.
01:02 So the Seltos is available in seven colours, and all but this ghastly yellow colour is
01:08 $520 extra. I know I harp on about colour sometimes, but manufacturers often make a
01:12 white or a black the base solid colour. Here it's the yellow, and I think that's because
01:16 they know no one's going to pick that sort of off-mustard yellow, and you have to pay
01:20 extra for it, which is a tiny bit cheeky, but anyway.
01:23 So let's talk about the design. It's interesting, and I like it. It's especially cool in this
01:27 blue colour, and it's a bit hard to see, but you can see this LED light that runs along
01:32 the bonnet here. I haven't actually seen something like this on any cars in Australia before.
01:36 In the States, they actually have a lot of Mercedes-Benz products with an emblem that
01:40 lights up, but that's not allowed in Australia because of our laws, so I'm interested to
01:44 see how they got away with that. But for the most part, this looks really good offset with
01:47 this brushed aluminium stuff, plastic, whatever it is, but it really looks nice against the
01:53 black. You can see that textured grille as well for air supply, front parking sensors
01:58 down the bottom there, and if you have a look at these headlights on the GT line here, they're
02:02 full LED, and they look fantastic. So you've got LEDs in these segments, and then you have
02:07 an indicator built into those as well, with LED fog lights down the bottom.
02:10 OK, so around the side here, 18-inch alloy wheels. I'm a big fan of this design as well.
02:16 It's got that sort of graphite colour inside, and then the chromey brushed look on the outside
02:21 with a little bit of red thrown in there as well. This car's, I don't know, it's designed
02:26 to look like an SUV, but they haven't gone too crazy with the flaring on the wheel arches.
02:31 You remember the Mazda CX-30? The wheel arch flares are like that big, and it's insane.
02:36 So they've toned it down a little bit here, and you can tell that this is a road car,
02:39 but it's got all-wheel drive, so you're going to do off-road stuff.
02:43 Around the back here, it doesn't look too busy, so they've integrated these LED tail
02:47 lights. There's like a reflector stuck into there. There's privacy glass around the sides
02:51 and the back, and I like the way that they've tapered off this roof rail. It kind of has
02:54 that little edgy section to it.
02:56 Look, overall, it's a really impressive-looking car. Let me know in the comments below, do
03:00 I need to go to Specsavers, or is this actually a decent-looking SUV?
03:04 So we're inside the Seltos, and on first impressions, it looks really good. You've got this big
03:08 infotainment screen up the top, and everything's logically laid out, but then you start having
03:14 a bit of a poke around, and there is a lot of nasty plastic used throughout this cabin.
03:20 I don't know why they do that. It is such a really impressive design, and then it's
03:25 just let down by all this cheap stuff around the car.
03:28 How cheap is it? Well, we've got our hardness tested, and I've tested the surfaces. If you're
03:32 interested to see how this car compares to other cars, just go down to the description.
03:35 I've got a link there to a table where you can see what other results look like.
03:39 So yeah, look, on first impressions it looks great, but then as you delve a little deeper,
03:44 it just feels very cheap.
03:46 Now, what about build quality, though? It feels okay, but, I don't know, like a lot
03:50 of cars in this segment, you can see there's a lot of flex built into some of these centre
03:55 consoles. Outside of that, it's not too bad, but I just wish they were just a little bit
04:00 better with all this stuff. You don't have to, I mean, disappoint everyone with flexing
04:05 everything.
04:06 Okay, let's talk infotainment. This infotainment system is brand new to Kia. It's a 10.25 inch
04:11 display. I'm really impressed with it. I'll run you through why in just a second, but
04:15 let's have a look at how all this works.
04:17 So this is your default screen. You have three pillars, navigation, radio, and then trip
04:22 information. You can customise this display, and then you can swipe across to get to the
04:25 rest of those menu functions. In the top left-hand corner, you have the ability to set different
04:30 profiles, so if you share the car with someone else, you can have different settings for
04:34 the screen and for a feature that I will show you in just a second.
04:38 But let's start off with navigation. So the map here is nice and fast. It seems like the
04:43 processor behind this really has some grunt to it, because every time you click on something
04:47 and do something, it is always ready to respond. Let's do our navigation test. I'll try typing
04:52 in Melbourne Airport here. We'll see how quickly it finds it. I need to learn how to spell.
04:59 Let's try that again. Oh, there it is right there. So it's immediately coming up with
05:04 these points of interest as I start typing. So big tick there for navigation.
05:09 In terms of radio, you have AM, FM, DAB plus digital radio built into it. You also have
05:14 USB connectivity. On USB connectivity, you have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Both
05:20 of those systems are wired, so it's not a wireless system, but I'll show you what that
05:24 looks like just up in the corner here if I click on Apple CarPlay.
05:28 So it tacks up the whole screen as well, which is pretty impressive. Now this is the
05:31 cool bit that I like about this car, the sound mood lamp. So in the GT line, you can set
05:37 it up to party time, so when you find yourself a great beat, such as Darude Sandstorm, the
05:45 lights inside the car start dancing with the beat. So it is a really cool setup, and I
05:50 think for the target demographic of this car, it's really going to suit. But if that's all
05:54 sort of too fast and discotheque-y for you, you can just go down the path of romance or
05:59 midnight city, whatever that all means. But all of the ambient lighting in this car really
06:03 brings it into the future age.
06:06 Now what else can you do here? So Bluetooth phone menu. Unfortunately, that button does
06:11 nothing as usual in a Hyundai and a Kia for Australian cars, unless you have smartphone
06:16 mirroring enabled, the voice recognition function does absolutely nothing. You have driving
06:21 information, only displays when the car is running. Let me switch it on, so you can see
06:25 what that looks like. So this shows you your previous driving history, you can reset it,
06:29 also update it as you go. It tells you how much time the car has spent idle as well,
06:34 all kind of pointless information if you ask me. You have a button here for the manual,
06:37 all you do is take a photo of that with your phone, and then what it does is it allows
06:43 you to get access to that manual online, so you can see it there, open up Kia.com. So
06:47 a smart way of doing it. They used to integrate all of this into the screen, but this is a
06:51 quick and easy way to do it, and they can also update manuals on their own server as
06:55 functions get updated.
06:56 What about the other features here? This is one of my other favourites, voice memo. If
07:01 you're out on the road and you come up with a great idea, why not record it? And it has
07:05 the function built into here. I think this is an undervalued feature, because the amount
07:08 of times I've been out on the road and just had this brainwave of an idea about something
07:13 we can go and film, you forget it by the time you're done. So this is a cool feature.
07:18 And then to round it off, you have settings for the car in here, and this is where you
07:21 can change everything from what's displayed ahead of the driver through to the display
07:26 on the screen here and the themes that are shown as well. So big tick of approval for
07:30 this new infotainment system from Kia.
07:32 OK, enough about infotainment. Let's talk about the other features you get as standard,
07:36 and there's quite a few of them. So you get single zone automatic climate control, wireless
07:40 phone charging, which sits up on its own tray up the top there. It's a Qi standard. You
07:45 have heated and cooled seats, a button here for the centre differential lock. While this
07:49 is a part-time four-wheel drive, you can lock it into four-wheel drive if you need to. You
07:53 have hill descent control, also heated and cooled seat for the driver, plus a reverse
07:58 camera button and also a heated steering wheel. Don't know why you'd need that, but you've
08:02 got a heated steering wheel anyway. Electric seat adjustment. You have an eight-inch head-up
08:06 display that's mounted on this little Perspex string. Head of the driver, another TFT display
08:11 that shows you your trip computer and other critical functions. You have an auto-dimming
08:15 rear vision mirror, autonomous emergency braking that detects pedestrians and cyclists, a blind
08:21 spot monitor that also has the ability to tell you if there's an approaching car so
08:24 you don't open your door into other cars and other traffic. You have a lane-keeping assistant
08:29 and also the ability for the car to semi-autonomously steer to guide you through those lanes. Works
08:34 okay, not the most amazing feature in the world. And finally, it is capped off with
08:38 radar cruise control. This is what the key looks like. The Kia key. Kia down the bottom.
08:44 Plastic cover. Nothing on the back and these are the buttons. You have lock, unlock, boot
08:50 and then the button for remote start so you can start the car when you're not next to
08:55 it. It's also a proximity key so you just leave that in your pocket, grab the door handle
08:58 and then use the start button to start the car. Let's talk about practicality. We'll
09:02 start off with storage. Phone can easily sit there. There's another tray down the bottom
09:07 here plus that wireless phone charger. What about your bottles though, your coffees and
09:11 all that fancy stuff? Bottle fits in there, doesn't quite go all the way down and there's
09:15 no teeth to hold it in place. There is storage inside the door with a little bit of room
09:20 either side. Centre console, massive bin there which is great. You've got your two USB ports
09:25 and a 12-volt outlet plus a very generously sized glovebox. Now what is the seat?
09:32 I feel like it's okay. It is a little bit firm but it is quite supportive. All of these
09:38 controls are easy to reach from the driver's seat and the steering wheel sits nicely in
09:43 the hand as well. It's all very easy. No paddle shifters which is interesting though.
09:47 Okay, second row. What's it like back here? So I've got my driver's seat in my regular
09:52 driving position. I've got stacks of knee room there. It's actually quite impressive
09:57 despite the fact this car is slightly smaller than some of its competitors. Toe room is
10:01 really good and headroom is pretty reasonable as well. So from an accommodation perspective
10:06 it is impressive. I like the texture of these seats as well. They look really nice and premium.
10:11 You get matte pockets behind the passenger seat but not behind the driver's seat. Let
10:15 me know in the comments below why that happens. I've seen that in a few cars now and it doesn't
10:19 really make any sense. Now what about bottles? You've got a centre armrest here. It has two
10:25 bottle holders in it but then you also have a slot inside the door with just enough room
10:29 either side for other things. Isofix for the two outboard seats. Air vents back here. Again,
10:35 something quite uncommon in small SUVs of yesteryear. A USB charging port and then a
10:40 slot for your phone as well. So overall a really decent place to be seated. Let's talk
10:45 cargo space. Now this surprised me when I was doing research on the car. This only just
10:49 has more cargo space than a Cerato hatch. Seems odd because it's a big SUV and people
10:55 assume SUVs have lots of cargo space. So you have 433 litres available here and then if
11:01 you look under the floor there you have a full-size spare alloy wheel which is great.
11:06 Aside from that there really isn't a whole deal going on here. You can then drop the
11:10 second row and that expands the space to just under 1400 litres and I'll show you what it
11:16 looks like with our luggage inside. That's our laptop bag and then our suitcase all fits
11:24 in perfectly. So yeah, it is a decent sized boot but it is surprising that it is only
11:28 just slightly bigger than a Cerato hatch. So we've hit the road in the Seltos. Powering
11:34 this car is a familiar engine. It's a 1.6 litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine.
11:41 It makes 130 kilowatts of power and 265 newton metres of torque. Now I know what you're thinking.
11:47 This is the same engine that's fitted to the Cerato GT, correct? The Cerato GT is faster
11:54 than this and weighs less than this. So it's kind of weird they didn't put the more powerful
11:58 version in the Cerato into this as well. So you're kind of getting short-changed a little
12:03 bit there but outside of that it is a big enough engine to move this car confidently.
12:08 It sends all of that torque through a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and this particular
12:13 variant, the GT line, comes with an on-demand four-wheel drive system. That simply means
12:17 that it only activates the rear axle if the front axle loses traction. So for most of
12:23 the time you are just driving a front-wheel drive car but if you ever get any slip it
12:26 will send torque to the rear to give you that little bit of extra stability.
12:31 Let's talk fuel economy. The official figure is 7.6 litres per 100 kilometres and we are
12:37 currently averaging just over 10 litres per 100 kilometres. Keep in mind we have been
12:41 doing a fair bit of driving in this car and a lot of idling too so it is near enough to
12:46 that official figure. So you've got three drive modes to choose from. Eco, Normal, Sport
12:52 and you select them using the drive mode selector down here. Eco mode, it's almost entirely
12:57 redundant because all it does is dull throttle response. It doesn't actually do anything
13:01 to actively reduce your fuel consumption so Normal mode is pretty much where you are going
13:05 to keep it most of the time. But what does it feel like in Normal mode? So we are doing
13:08 sort of the speed limit here, we will give it a little bit of a punch. For a dual-clutch
13:13 gearbox it's not really that fast and I stress this a lot. Dual-clutch gearboxes in cars
13:18 like this that are here simply for economy just don't really do anything for the drive
13:23 experience and we'll just give it another punch. Noticeable delay there before it does
13:27 anything. When it does finally come on board it's not too bad. The torque delivery is impressive,
13:32 it gives you a nice little shunt in the back and that all feels fine but just the amount
13:37 of time it takes to actually do that and then the compromises you get at low speed with
13:41 that sort of, the jerkiness you get inherently with a dual-clutch gearbox, it makes you wonder
13:45 whether it's worth it. Now let's talk Sport mode, we'll dial it across to there. So instantly
13:50 I feel the steering is heavier, the throttle is much sharper, it's more eager to kick down
13:54 and kick down faster as well. I wonder if they've programmed something there with that
13:58 gearbox to make that happen. It's actually surprisingly good so you don't have adaptive
14:03 dampers or anything like that but this car's ride and handling tune was done here in Australia
14:08 so that means that it is kind of on the sportier side of comfortable as opposed to the Korean
14:13 tune which is all about comfort and for that part it actually feels pretty impressive.
14:18 When you are in Sport mode it sits flat enough and guides itself through the corner but then
14:22 in Normal mode it still feels comfortable enough even on these 18-inch alloy wheels.
14:27 Now let's talk about the driving stuff. So turning circle, 10.6 metres which is pretty
14:34 impressive, that means you can turn fairly tightly and that's really good for an all-wheel
14:39 drive car. Often with all-wheel drive cars you're robbed of a turning circle because
14:43 of all the components that sit on that front axle but here in the Seltos it's pretty impressive.
14:47 What about visibility? Visibility out the front is really good because you can see the
14:51 ridges of that bonnet go all the way down so you get a really clear idea of what's happening
14:56 at the front of the car. You've of course got those front and rear parking sensors which
14:59 makes parking a breeze. Visibility out the sides is good, you can see the blind spot
15:03 monitor built into that wing mirror and then as you look out the back the window is a decent
15:07 size there too so all around the car you are fully covered in terms of seeing what you're
15:12 doing. So most of this is fine, the engine makes a little bit of noise when you get up
15:16 it but there is some tyre noise coming into the cabin. So on course chip roads you'll
15:20 notice that sort of infiltrating its way into the cabin, not really a great deal you can
15:24 do about that. This platform itself is built for a number of markets including India where
15:29 it'll be kind of stripped of a lot of features to make it as light as possible and cheap
15:33 as possible so as a result of that sometimes you are compromised a little bit in terms
15:38 of sound deadening and the other bits and pieces that do make a car inherently quiet
15:42 out on the road. Now there is one issue though and it is this sunroof, it is creaking as
15:48 you go in and out of driveways so have a listen to this, I'll try and replicate it here, here
15:54 it goes. Like you're in an old sailboat. It's really frustrating because it's impossible
16:04 to tell where it's coming from but it is creaking and that's not a good thing on a car that's
16:09 pretty much brand new. So the Kia Seltos, it is a good signal of where Kia is going
16:14 with their SUVs and just their styling direction in general, I think they've really honed it
16:19 in nicely and they're very, very good looking cars. Now the Seltos though is slightly let
16:24 down by that interior, there is just so much hard and cheap feeling plastic around the
16:29 place. They've gone and put all this effort into the infotainment system and the way that
16:32 it drives and then it just gets let down by all this scratchy surfaces. I don't know,
16:37 maybe I'm being a little bit obsessive here, let me know in the comments below whether
16:40 all of those scratchy surfaces are a big deal, especially on the top spec model. If you put
16:45 all of that aside though, it is a really, really impressive car so let's hope with an
16:48 update or something like that Kia can fix that interior and this will be an absolute
16:53 winner. If you did enjoy this video, I'd love it if you could share it, hit the like button,
16:57 follow it up with a subscribe if you haven't done so already and then press the bell icon
17:01 so you can find out every single time we drive something new. But until next time, drive safely.

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