The car is absolutely enjoyable to drive in all driving conditions. From b2b city traffic to highway runs, this engine-transmission combo just never disappoints.
BHPian Col Mehta recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
Three Months / 6000 kms Update
Our D AT Seltos Xline recently completed three months and 6k kms and it’s been a good ownership experience. Here are a few observations:
1. Performance: The car is absolutely enjoyable to drive in all driving conditions. From b2b city traffic to highway runs, this engine-transmission combo just never disappoints. One of the great things about it how effortlessly and smoothly it performs at slow speeds with enough grunt for overtakes and quick maneuvers. Honestly, this engine transmission combo was never our first choice, but I couldn’t be any happier after living with it for these many months and kms.
2. DPF: Perhaps a bigger deterrent for anyone considering a BS6 diesel. With our usage (a considerable amount of slow moving city traffic, occasional short distance drives, and then equal spirited highway drives), we are confident, and hopeful too, that we can keep things in check and doesn’t let DPF become a problem. We have come across quite a few owners who have been driving a BS6 diesel for a long time without any DPF related issues, including a few dear members on the forum, and that gives us a lot of confidence. As a good practice, we do make sure that the car is driven on open roads more often, thankfully we don’t have to make any extra efforts for it since our nature of work regularly takes us to open roads.
3. Comfort Level: This is one of the rare chinks in the car’s armour. The suspensions are stiff and not as plush as our 2nd gen Creta. There are noticable vertical movements on rough patches/speed breakers etc even with less than recommended tyre pressure. Then the seats, both front and rear, aren’t the most accommodating ones. Is it the angle/design/cushioning? Honestly, we don’t know! But they are not as comfortable as other modern cars that we have owned in the recent past.
4. Fuel Efficiency: first thing first, we don’t care too much about the fuel efficiency, as long as it’s not very low. I’m happy to report though that even with our usage, the average efficiency hovers between 15 and 16 kmpl (in heavy traffic, it returns ~12 kmpl, in moderate city traffic, it returns ~ 16 kmpl, and on open roads where we drive at higher RPMs, it returns ~19 kmpl). Another thing that we recently discovered that the efficiency on the MID is ~1.25 kmpl higher than the tankful method. Consumed 40.28 litre diesel for 638.5 kms which is 15.85 kmpl while the MID shows 17.1 kmpl. Not surprised though as it’s with most of the cars.
5. Paint maintenance: The black paint work, while it looks smashing when all clean and shiny, it can be a royal pain in the neck when it comes to its maintenance. But we knew what we were getting into when we decided on it. So far, we haven’t done any PPF or coating. We have been maintaining it with regular dusting with the Jopasu car duster, and cleaning as needed at home (we make sure to use high quality microfiber clothes) and occasionally getting it washed and waxed at detailing stores. Has been working well (covered parking helps) but we can see swirl marks and minor scratches. A good quality PPF would help, but the idea of spending another lakh or so for it and having to replace it in ~5 year time bothers us. We would have done it had we purchased the Xline with the mattee paint though. One of the dear members had suggested the Turtle Ceramic Black Wax spray that we definitely want to try, it has some really good reviews and feedback.
6. ADAS: As reported earlier, the ADAS has worked brilliantly in all conditions except this one time when the car was being driven through dense fog and heavy dew, and suddenly the Lane Keep Assist got disabled temporarily with the following message (taken from the owners manual) flashing on the instrument cluster.
Couldn’t click any pictures on the MID as it went away in a few minutes before I could pull over. The car has been driven multiple times in similiar conditions, but this happened only once. Seems to be an expected behaviour in certain operational conditions.
The Seltos is not a perfect car, nothing in life is. But it does offer you a lot for your money – beautiful interiors and quality, excellent engine and transmission, reliability, a great feature list and ofcourse those sharp looks. There are some concerns wrt DRLs/lights and I really hope it doesn’t turn into a major headache in the future after the warranty runs out. With our experience with Hyundai, which has been good for most part of it, hopefully Kia will be equally good and won’t disappoint us.
A few random pictures:
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