2026 Kia Seltos Short Review: What We Liked & What Needs To Improve

The car that established Kia’s brand identity in India has just arrived in a brand new avatar. This new generation promises much more sensibility for the whole family while still ensuring it keeps things exciting.

Kia Seltos Looks

The new Kia Seltos is a sharp departure from its predecessor’s design. While the old Seltos was slim, slender and sporty, this new car has a lot more brawn in its design, flexing more muscle and offering more road presence. If you like your SUV designs to be in-your-face and aggressive, the Seltos will deliver where it didn’t before. But if you prefer understated and classier designs, this new Seltos won’t be to your taste.

The car features tribal motifs-like LED DRL designs, slender slits for the LED projector headlights and LED fog lights down below. As is typical of Kia, the wheel design is something you wouldn’t expect from any other car brand and it’s a break away from tradition, whether you like them or not. The rear sports a new broad connected LED light design, which lends a boxier touch to the rear end. Viewed from a distance, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was the Kia Carnival at first!

Design aside, that’s also down to this Seltos being bigger. That’s 95mm longer, 80mm of which is within the wheelbase. It’s also 30mm wider while ground clearance (unladen) goes up 10mm to 200mm. 

Kia Seltos Boot Space

At 447-litres (with a full-sized space wheel under the boot floor), the Seltos has a marginal improvement (+14L) in luggage room. You can fit 2 medium sized suitcases (plus some duffle bags) or 4 cabin-sized trolley bags (plus some duffle bags) or a full-sized suitcase and a cabin-sized trolley bag in here.

There is more room to add depth to the boot but you’d have to swap the spare with a space-saver spare tyre or a tyre repair kit to use up more room.

Kia Seltos Space & Quality

Simply put, the Seltos is a better family car than before. The increased width makes it more comfortable for 5 passengers while knee room sees an uptick as well. Even if you’re over 6ft tall, you have enough space to be comfortable in the driver’s seat. Rear seat headroom is adequate for most users though those over 6ft tall (especially if they wear a turban) will want for more.

As for the interior, Kia’s made quite a drastic change. The Seltos now uses different & more robust feeling plastics that feel very solid with some soft-touch elements on the dashboard and doors. However, the textures on some of the panels catch scratches quite easily and can be tricky to buff out. While it doesn’t feel outright luxurious, it’s a thoroughly premium interior that’s better than most in the segment.

Kia Seltos Tech Loaded

A 10.25-inch touchscreen with wireless Android Auto/Apple Carplay, 6-speakers, powered mirrors and cruise control come as standard. By the time you get the top-spec, highlights include:

• Panoramic sunroof

• Dual-zone climate control

• Rear sunshades

• Type-C chargers (2x front and back)

• Powered driver’s seat with 2 memory settings (including mirrors)

• Ventilated front seats

• 64 colour ambient lighting

• Drive modes (Eco, Normal, Sport)

• Traction modes (Snow, Mud, Sand)

The new 30-inch panoramic display includes a 12.3 inch touchscreen and digital instrument cluster along with a 5-inch screen for the climate control. Running Kia’s new software architecture, the screen is similar to what we’ve seen in the Carnival and Syros, and is super smooth to use. 

The digital driver’s display is crisp and sticks to necessary data points, with minor display changes that correspond to the drive mode selected. As for the 8-speaker BOSE sound system, sound quality is good but the sound stage is quite low down and could do with a stronger surround sound effect.

Kia Seltos Drive & Ride

Kia carries forward the same powertrain options as the previous Seltos. While there is talk of a petrol hybrid being introduced, it remains a consideration for now in India.

• Get the 1.5 naturally-aspirated petrol if you want the smoothest and most city-friendly driving experience. With the 1.5 CVT available right up to the top-spec X-Line, you get a feature-rich experience with an engine that’s ideal for those who have a relaxed driving style. It will need a little pushing for highway drives and on inclines (especially with a full passenger load), but is refined and offers good usability. It will also be more fuel-efficient than the turbo-petrol especially with heavy traffic use.

• Get the turbo-petrol for excitement! This engine is properly quick and is great for those who have an on-off throttle/slightly impatient driving style. Paired with the DCT automatic, shifts are quick and almost imperceptible, with paddle-shifters that also allow you to have some fun. While easy to use in traffic as well, it will drop efficiency quickly in extended stop-n-go traffic conditions.

• Get the diesel if you have a heavy usage or a lot of highway driving too. While refinement is the weakest of all the engines, it’s still quite smooth for a diesel with vibration and harshness surprisingly well controlled. It’s only when you dial in hard throttle inputs that you hear the engine more evidently. It’s not a particularly exciting engine to drive but doesn’t make you compromise on usability. While the automatic adds a big dose of convenience, the torque converter transmission saps a good deal of performance and efficiency, and this engine’s full potential is experienced with the manual.

• As for ride quality, Kia’s made a big step up and it’s much more comfortable now. Bump absorption is notably better, the ride is supple and balanced with high speed manners also better than before. Even backseat users will enjoy the experience more, making the Seltos much better overall for the full family’s use.

Kia Seltos Safety

Standard safety features include 6 airbags, ABS with EBD, ISOFIX, rear parking sensors, a rear camera with dynamic guidelines and highline TPMS among others. Moving up to the top-spec adds a 360-degree camera with the indicator-linked blind-view camera display seen in the driver’s display, front and side parking sensors, auto-dimming IRVM, and L2 ADAS. 

The advanced driver assistance systems includes adaptive cruise control with stop-n-go, front collision warning and avoidance, lane departure warning, lane keep and lane follow assist, rear cross traffic alert and crash avoidance, high-beam assist and safe exit warning and more. 

To Summarise

The new Kia Seltos had a big benchmark to top especially when it came to quality and tech. While the cabin’s fitment quality is better than before, the finish quality could’ve been slightly better if Kia played with textures a bit. That aside, there’s more tech, a great choice of engines, better cabin space and a notable improvement in ride comfort too. 

While the looks can be polarising for some, the overall package is one that’s hard to walk away from.

What do you think of the new Seltos? Let us know in the comments below.