The Seltos is a Marginally Worse Creta
I test-drove the Seltos GTX+1 DCT petrol for a fortnight, and evaluated it against my requirements.
The Seltos and the Creta are built on the same assembly line by the same workers, and Kia and Hyundai own stakes in each other. So the two cars are very close to each other. They’re 95% the same. I’d buy the Creta, but if it didn’t exist, I’d buy the Seltos, be happy with it, and love it. Similarly, if the Seltos were right for you, and you bought the Creta instead, you’d be happy.
I already wrote a review of the Creta. So, instead of writing a full review of the Seltos, I’ll just point out how it’s different from the Creta. Here a + means the Seltos is better than the Creta and - means the other way around:
- The suspension is not as smooth. You feel bumps and undulations, while the Creta floats over the road.
- The headrest is hard.
- The Seltos can’t handle bumps at moderate speed like the Creta can.
- The sunglass holder makes the sunglasses hot even after half an hour parked in the sun, which wasn’t the case with the Creta.
- The Creta is raring to go — tapping the accelerator a bit is all it takes. It weighs 1.5 tons, but it feels lighter than my Ritz, which weighs 1 ton. The Creta feels like it weighs 0.5 tons. Newton said that the default state of any object is to be at rest, and you have to make an effort to get it moving. The Creta’s default state is to be moving! It feels less effort to drive. This is a marvel of engineering, to create an illusion so complete that it feels like reality. It’s not just a marvel of automotive engineering but of engineering. By contrast, with the Seltos, you have to press the throttle more than in the Creta. It feels like it requires a bit more effort than the Creta to drive.
- When not pressing the accelerator, there’s more deceleration than in the Creta. The Creta has less deceleration and acceleration cycles, resulting in a smoother ride.
These are minor differences, and we’re really spoilt to have such two excellent cars.
If you already got what you wanted, you can stop reading here.
If you want a review of the Seltos by itself (not a comparison against the Creta), read:
Detailed Strengths and Weaknesses
If you want to go through a detailed list of strengths (+) and weaknesses (-):
+ The steering wheel tilts and telescopes. You need to put it up so that it doesn’t come in the way when you enter or exit.
+ The steering wheel doesn’t hit your knee once you’re sitting.
+ Good legroom
+ Good headroom
+ 8-way electrically adjustable driver’s seat
+ Loud horn
+ Boot light
- Light below glove box that pulses with music, but you can make it steady, dim and red. You can also turn it off. It’s unintuitive — you have to tap the title in the UI.
+ Engine auto stop will restart if needed for AC.
+ Can leave key in pocket and enter by pressing the door handle button or opening the boot. Similarly when exiting just press the button and walk away.
+ Able to reverse into bi level parking bay easier than with Ritz, without folding mirrors
+ Button to fold mirrors.
+ Mirrors auto-fold when locking.
+ No leather anywhere
+ Rain-sensing wipers
+ Adaptive cruise control
- The sunroof glass opens when you try to open only the opaque part. The solution is to pull the button backward very quickly.
- One-touch down only for driver’s window.
- Big rear parcel tray
+ As you approach the car the wing mirrors unfold. This is cool, like the car is welcoming you.
- Have to keep unplugging CarPlay to zoom out and see which route it has suggested and change it if needed. Need a car mount.
+ Front, rear and 360 degree camera, with indications as you turn the wheel in both forward and reverse, with beeping for both forward and reverse. There are three sensors in the front: front, front-left and front-right. Turn it off since it beeps when someone overtakes close to you in stopped traffic.
+ Hill descent control
+ High beams on the inner mirror don’t blind you.
± I had to turn off the alerts for school zone, sharp turn ahead and speed bump since they have spurious warnings often
+ Auto wipers
+ Rear wiper with water spray
± The cold tyre pressure is 35 psi.
+ Low fuel warning with a beep when I still had 46 km range.
Driving
+ I drove for 1 hour 20 min to RR Nagar in rush hour and arrived relaxed and smiling.
+ The steering wheel is light at low speed. Effortless to steer.
± When out of water and you accelerated moderately, the wheels spun.
- Slight deceleration when not pressing accelerator. You had to adapt your usual style of pump and coast.
± Idles at 700 RPM.
- Eco, normal and sport modes. After upshifting, the speed is 1400 RPM in eco and normal modes, and 1800 in sport mode. The car defaults to normal every time you turn it on.
+ Shows the current gear even in auto mode
+ When taking a left turn up an incline on sandy road you accelerated hard, and it pulled sharply to the left compared to where the steering was pointed.
- Traction control modes like mud and sand, but they don’t help because you have to enable them, and you don’t know in advance when there will be sand on the road.
+ When you press the brake hard, auto hold is activated.
± When you put into D, it doesn’t creep till you press the accelerator once.
- Idle stop go sometimes stops the engine within a fraction of a second of moderate braking to a halt, after which you have to go and it restarts. This wastes fuel rather than saves it. But it’s probably negligible, since it happens only once or twice in a drive. Besides you can turn off idle stop go.
- On one occasion, when I parked with something close to the car in front, left and right, the beeping wouldn’t stop even after I turn off the engine, put it into park, exited the car and locked it. I had to turn it on and then off to fix this bug. This is a bug.
- You were able to reverse from the driveway up the ramp and back into your parking space, which you couldn’t with the Ritz!
+ 7 gears
+ DCT, turbo
+ Flooring it at 7th gear at 74 kph in manual mode results in almost zero acceleration.
ADAS
- Turn off “Forward safety”. When there was a slow-moving vehicle ahead of me and I braked sufficiently, the system overreacted and braked harshly, jolting me.
- Turn off “Blind spot safety”. When I was pulling out of parking, and an auto was on the road behind me, I was aware of it, and braked sufficiently, leaving sufficient gap with the auto, but the system overreacted and braked harshly, jolting me.
- Turn off “Rear cross traffic”. When reversing, oncoming traffic caused the same overreaction and extreme braking.
- Turn off “Parking distance warning auto on”. It beeps when a 2-wheeler drives by me in gridlock, adding to my tension for no reason.
- Turn off “Lane safety”. It beeps and intervenes when you try to switch lanes without indicating. While in theory it can help me improve my driving, at times it’s safe to switch lanes without indicating, for example on a two-lane rural road (one lane for each direction) with a dashed lines between them, I was behind a slow-moving goods auto. There was no traffic behind me, nor any traffic in the oncoming lane, so I quickly changed lanes to overtake the auto. This was safe, but the system intervened.
- Turn off “Leading vehicle departure alert”. It beeps when the vehicle in front of you moves and you don’t, but this service is already provided free by the other kind drivers on the road.
- Set “Warning volume” to minimum because you don’t want the car to distrub you when something mundane happens.
+ Driver attention warning works well: once when I was selecting music to play, once when I leaned over to adjust the passenger AC vents, once when reading the signboard of a shop on the side of the road. On one occasion I got a warning for no reason at all, when I had my eyes on the road, but generally it works well.
Lane-keeping assist
Green steering wheel == active
white steering wheel == you can turn it on
no steering wheel == you can’t turn it on right now.
+ Less strenuous to drive. You just have to keep monitoring for the end of clear lane markings.
+ You can easily change lanes: just indicate, and the assist temporarily turns off, letting you take control, change lanes, and after a second, look for the icon to turn green, and then release control. Don’t press to turn it on. It will turn on by itself. If you press without checking its status, it can turn off, leaving the car uncontrolled.
+ Even if you’re not driving under LKA, you can temporarily turn it on when you want to drink water or put on sunglasses.
- Don’t take on LKA on rural roads with a lane marking near the median but not on my left. It turned on and steered off-road. Just because it turns on doesn’t mean it’s safe to turn on.
± Not suitable for sporty driving, where you changing lanes quickly.
- Separate from LKA is lane-departure warning, which is supposed to warn but not take control. It didn’t warn on lane departure when I long pressed the button and got a mustard icon with a car and two lines on either side. According to the leaflet, this is the right way to turn it on.
+ Turn on “Driving safety priority” and “Parking safety priority” which reduce music volume for driving and parking alerts respectively.
Cooling
+ 4 bottles of ½ liter fit in glove compartment (+ goggles)
+ Rear window rolls down fully.
+ Panoramic sunroof
+ Ventilated seats
+ Can use ventilated seats without AC
+ Climate control
+ AC remote start (but only for 20 min)
- No cooled glovebox
+ Rear window sunshades
+ Dual-zone AC
- You can have the AC come on your legs, but it doesn’t work — your head gets hot.
+ But you can adjust the vent to cool your tummy rather than your face and chest. Even this isn’t enough when you’re suffering from a mild heat stroke.
+ You can turn off passenger ac vents if you don’t have a passenger. Similarly, if the sun is on your right, you can turn on only the right corner one and close the remaining three.
Digital features
+ CarPlay (wired only, A only)
+ USB-C port (but have to use A for CarPlay)
- Not Multitouch
+ HD screen
- Phone volume control doesn’t work
- Mapmyindia
+ I was enjoying and singing along to a track
Front passenger seat
- Manually adjustable
- Can stretch legs well but not fully
Rear seat
+ Can stretch legs reasonably
+ Good headroom, better than most cars
+ 2 AC vents with independent up/down/left/right adjustment and speed control (4 speeds plus auto). The rear ac works only if the front ac is on. You can dim the screen or turn it off
+ 2 C ports
+ Mobile holder
+ armrest in the Center has two cup holders
+ Rear left and right seats have one erect and one reclining position
+ Rear middle cupholder and headrest
Safety
+ Seat belt pretensioner with load limiter
+ ESC with EBD
+ Airbags that cover the whole body
+ Lane-departure warning and lane-keeping assist
+ Blind spot monitoring
+ DRLs
+ Auto headlamps
+ LED headlamp and fog lamp
- Emergency brake assist brakes harshly when moderate braking will do.
- Multi-collision brake
+ TPMS
+ Triangle in wing mirror when a vehicle passes by, with or without turn indicator.
+ Impact-sensing door unlock
+ Exit warning
The only higher variant is the X line, but that doesn’t come in a white exterior.