A Kia Sonet owner drives the 2023 Seltos D AT & shares his observations

The horn of the Seltos is toned down against the one in earlier Seltos and the Sonet.

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Had a quick look at the 2023 Kia Seltos GTX+ D AT & here are my impressions regarding the same.

Our official review has some amazing pictures of the car , hence I didn’t bother to click any.

There will be a few comparisons done with the Sonet D AT as well as my current ride, the 1st-gen Creta P MT. Some might even seem like an apples to oranges; however, all em are are purely personal (in no particular order):

• First up, the looks! The car looks beautiful. I always liked the looks of the earlier Seltos and the newer one looks even better. I have seldom come across anyone who doesn’t like the way it looks. Nonetheless, it’s still subjective.
• The car was GTX+ D AT in the new Pewter Olive shade and I quite liked it. However, I still feel Seltos looks the best in White!
• The seating of car is a little lower than the 1st-gen Creta as I had to ‘bend down’ a little to get into it. My dad too commented the same. For reference we are 6′ and 5′ 7″ respectively.
• Contrary to popular opinion, I felt the doors on a lighter side, while the bonnet is quite heavy. Overall sheet metal quality is decent and so is the paint quality.
• Once seated the interiors felt of good quality with pretty good fit and finish. The ones in the Sonet feel a notch lower IMHO. Having said that, I still maintain that the 1st-gen Creta had a superior fit and finish. My Creta is 8 years now and there isn’t a single squeak or rattle. *touchwood*.
• The driver’s seat has a good amount of adjustments and finding a comfortable driving position is very easy as in the case with most of the Hyundai / Kia cars.
• The interior scheme of GTX+ is all black including the roof liner which IMO makes the cabin feel a tad claustrophobic. However, on opening the massive panoramic sunroof things get a little better with a good amount of light entering the cabin.
• As majority of them commented, the GTX+ deserved a better interior scheme. Alas, they could have just carried over the one of the earlier Seltos. That black roof liner was just not needed.
• The sunroof also results in slightly lesser headroom.
• The space at the back is okay; nothing to write home about. Since, the car is identical in length there is no improvement here and Creta has way better rear seating than the Seltos.
• My knees rub against the hard plastics of the front seats with the driver seat set to my driving position. Two 6 footers back to back would be at average comfort!

• Driving the diesel automatic:

• First up, there is a significant difference in the way the Sonet D AT and the Seltos D AT drive. The acceleration in the Sonet was brisk, just a slight tap on the A pedal used to move the car. You could actually feel the throttle. And the SPORT mode was explosive altogether!! It was such a fun to drive the Sonet D AT.
• The Seltos on the other hand, felt a bit mellowed down IMO. The acceleration was plain linear and it lacked the ‘push’ or the throttle that of the Sonet. The Sonet always felt engaging to drive, whereas Seltos was just about okay.
• Don’t get me wrong, the car is good and has decent grunt too, just that the Sonet felt 2-3 notches better in terms of performance. I wonder whether this is the additional weight of the Seltos, and if so than would it make such a huge difference? Or is it that the BS6 Phase 2 engines have been mellowed down altogether.
• Even the difference between the NORMAL and the SPORT mode was barely felt. Sonet on the other hand, used to lurch forward when you switch to SPORT mode with the accelerator pressed. The in-gear acceleration in the Seltos too felt average at best.
• I could also feel some kind of ‘whining’ noise when I depressed the A pedal. Not sure what exactly it was. But everytime I pressed the A pedal, it was noticeable.
• I didn’t test all the ADAS features as such ; however, I did check the Lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring, etc. to name a few. I can confirm that all these features work great! At least in the moderate Goa traffic. In fact, I felt they were much better than the one’s I checked in the XUV7OO.
• Having said that, there’s a lot of buzzing and stuff when these features are kept ON. Will take sometime getting used to.
• The horn of the Seltos is toned down against the one in earlier Seltos and the Sonet. Sadly, it ain’t great. The horn pad too makes irritating clicking noise each time you press. It’s worse than the one in the Sonet. 1st-gen Creta has THE BEST sounding wind-tone horn amongst the Hyundai / Kia cars. Period.
• The brakes have a good bite and the cars stops exactly where you want it too. Thanks to the discs all-around
• The much talked about ride quality of the Seltos – I’m happy to report that the ride quality of the new Seltos is quite compliant. Our TD car had tire pressures at 42 – 45 psi!! This, coupled with 18 inchers, yet the ride quality was very very compliant. I even took the car over some bad patches and the car performed well!
• I don’t see any reason to complaint about the ride if the tire pressures are kept between 32-33 psi. Good that Kia got this sorted finally.
• The handling of the car is good too and doesn’t wallow or anything. I think the earlier Seltos used to handle well too. So no surprises there.
• The in-cabin insulation is great and as expected definitely better than the Sonet due to the good sound damping materials used. It’s only when you rev hard, some noise is filtered inside the cabin. But than, it’s not all that bad.
• The sunroof cover is quite noisy I felt. Having said that, the cover felt of good quality and helps to restrict the light, unlike the one seen in the Hyryder / Grand Vitara.
• The new infotainment system is very fluidic and a delight to use. It has some new features too.
• The instrument cluster too has great graphics and fluidic.
• The 8-speaker BOSE sound system is good, nothing that ‘wows’ you as such.
• Dual-Zone AC works as intended and chills the cabin in no time. However, I did feel the compressor cutting down when revved hard. This wasn’t the case in the Sonet and it maintained the cabin temperature irrespective how you drove the car.
• I found the seat ventilation to be just about okay. I expected it to be a bit more better , at least at the highest setting.
• The current wait times are ranging between 4-5 months for the GTX+ for which they’ve received the maximum bookings. Not sure how true this figure is though.

Overall, it’s a pretty decent car and will surely ‘wow’ you if you’re upgrading from a segment lower. If you ask me, having owned the 1st-gen Creta for over 8 years, it’s doesn’t quite seem like an upgrade to me per se. I do understand that they’re from the same segment , so ideally it wouldn’t. But than the gap is nearly 8 long years and for sure cars have come a long way since. The price increase too is significant! Even than I felt that my Creta is good for another 2-3 years. Sure, it misses greatly on the latest and the greatest feature set, but pure mechanical stuff or the basics; I think the 1st-gen Creta owners wouldn’t complaint much.

Keyword: A Kia Sonet owner drives the 2023 Seltos D AT & shares his observations