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
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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#hyundai #review #seltos @KiaWorldwideOfficial @KiaAustralia
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
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
#hyundai #review #seltos @KiaWorldwideOfficial @KiaAustralia
Category
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MotorTranscript
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.