2027 Kia Seltos -- Did Kia Just Leave Toyota and Honda in the DUST?? ($25k)

What's going on YouTube? So SUVs continue to be the focus of the American car market, and as such there are many competitive offerings in the affordable subcompact space, but I'm standing next to perhaps the most competitive offering that you can put in your driveway right now. This is the all-new 2027 Kia Seltos. Featuring a starting price under $25,000, a new hybrid variant, and a surprising amount of luxury features that remind us of our bigger brother Telluride. Has this easily left behind the biggest rivals in the class like Toyota Corolla Cross and Honda HR-V? Well that's the question I'm in Los Angeles to find out today. Let's start things out with a quick spec dump and what's under the hood of the Seltos. So for this fully loaded example we have the upgraded turbo powertrain. It's a 1.6 liter turbo 4-cylinder making 190 horsepower. It's paired to an 8-speed automatic. We also have all-wheel drive and our fuel economy comes in at 26 miles per gallon. There is also a new hybrid variant that will be coming out soon and if you're looking to buy a Kia Seltos or any vehicle we'd encourage you to check out carconfections.com slash newcarquotes to get the best price. But first and foremost we need to go ahead and shut up the hood and take a look at the all-new exterior and all the features that you're going to find on the inside. So what better place to start off this review than talking about the exterior design of this new Kia Seltos. It certainly takes on a lot of the elements from those big and more expensive Kia products like the Telluride when it comes to the exterior design. I think that's certainly a good thing. So up here in the front we have the Opposites United grille as you can see has a very bold look and honestly this looks a lot more substantial than the typical SUV that you would find in this segment. Now as you can see we have a gloss black finish that's because we have the X-line variant. So the X-line is going to kind of give you that sportier overall design. It's also going to give you a gloss black lower fascia and overall ground clearance is 8.1 inches which makes this one of the more capable offerings in the segment. Now let's take a look at our headlights. The headlights are actually quite premium for a vehicle in this space. So these are projector LED headlights that's going to be standard on your top trim of the Seltos. The other versions will have reflector LED lights. However every single model will have these very bold amber DRLs that stand out. You also have LED fog lights down here at the bottom. So no stylish design would be complete without a lot of different wheel choices and that's what you're going to find here on the Seltos. You start out at 16-inch alloys on the very base LX model. The vast majority of trims will have 18-inch wheels or if you choose an X-line you get these. These are 19-inch fully black wheels. I think these look really quite nice for the segment and it also matches really nicely with all the gloss black wheel surrounds that you get on this variant as well. Now coming up to the mirror we have a partially gloss black finish. They're going to have a standard blind spot monitoring and heating across every trim level. Now at the side of the new Seltos overall vehicle length is up around two inches this year. It's 174 inches in overall vehicle length which is actually a bit smaller than some of its main competition like the Honda HR-V and the Toyota Corolla Cross. That being said it actually has more interior space and we're going to talk about that in just a little bit. But in terms of design as you can see we have the pop-out door handle design. We also have blacked window surrounds for the X-line model and then up here at the roof we have the standard roof rails up here at the top. You can also get a two-tone roof finish but that's not actually available on this top-end model. It's available on the X-line S as well as the traditional S variant. And as we head around to the rear design once more I think you're going to see a lot more of a substantial SUV design to this Seltos than you typically find in this segment as a lot of those signature Kia design touches and let's break some of those down. So starting out here at the top we have a spoiler right there. We also have a wiper that's going to be integrated underneath and then Kia branding back here is all going to be blacked out. Your taillights are really the largest design element back here and they're going to be fully LED taillights. That's going to be included on your higher-end examples but I do really appreciate that these are fully LED lights and they go all the way across the back in that signature Kia design. And then dropping down to the lower fascia some more gloss black you have your reverse lights that are integrated down here at the very bottom. No exposed exhaust outlets. Now safety is a very important area for anyone buying a new vehicle and Kia knows that so they're giving every single active safety feature as standard equipment here on the new Seltos. That will even include things like adaptive cruise control. Furthermore you can option on highway drive assist 1.0 on the fully loaded example which will allow for a lot easier of road tripping. But guys there's a super nice cabin with a lot of features that you probably wouldn't expect for the price tag. But first if you're new here we're brothers and we've been reviewing cars since we were 12 and 16. We started young and since then we have reviewed over 2,000 vehicles at every price point. No matter what you're looking for from humble to high-end we'd love for you to subscribe to be a part of our CarConfections family. Let's learn a lot and have some fun with all the latest cars. All right so let's go ahead and check out the interior. Before I get to that I do want to point out that my friend Mike Danger helped us film the outside. So go watch his channel Yes Mike Danger and let's go ahead and take a look at the key fob. So the key fob itself is your signature Kia design. You actually have standard smart entry and standard remote start on every single Seltos. That's pretty nice that they're including that. And then as we approach the vehicle you saw those flush mount door handles earlier. When you approach they will go ahead and pop out to allow you to go ahead and get inside of the vehicle. All right and let's take a look inside the cabin of the new Seltos. This certainly doesn't really look like an entry-level cabin and there's a lot to talk about when it comes to features and the materials that they're using to make it not feel like an entry-level vehicle. So let's go ahead and start with the seats first and foremost. So the LX and S trims are going to get a cloth seat and if you get any of the trim levels above that you will get the Syntex leatherette seat. Now a lot of you guys might not love a leatherette seat and you might want a real leather seat. However, I will point out that this is a very realistic feeling leatherette. It's very nice. It also has some perforations inside a nice overall look to it and if you get the X line variants that's going to give you the X line branding as well as this mesh headrest which is quite comfortable. Now as far as the seat adjustments themselves, every one of the Seltos models besides the base LX will get a 12-way power adjusting seat so that's a very nice feature with four-way lumbar support and in addition to that optional here on this fully loaded example is the relaxation seat. So what that's actually going to allow you to do is press this button and it will actually fully slide back the seat and it will also recline it to give you that ability to take some pretty epic naps you know maybe waiting on your kids to finish up soccer practice or whatnot. That's very rare for this segment. Also very rare for this segment are the features that you'll find over here on the seat itself. So you have seat heating, seat ventilation which is optional on the fully loaded example as well as the seat memory which is something that the vast majority of rivals do not include. Let's go ahead and hop inside. So shutting up the door let's go ahead and take a look at the overall cabin materials because this is a vehicle that you know has a starting price under 25 grand so how is it going to fare when it comes to the materials. Well I'm happy to tell you that it's actually quite nice so you have a leatherette pad all through here. This center section is going to be kind of like a rubberized plastic but it does have a little bit of give to it so it's soft and then the upper dashboard as expected will be a hard touch plastic. You have a little bit of a leatherette pad through this intersection a little bit more of that through here although this is going to be a little bit on the hard side and then down here in the center console all of this is going to be a hard touch plastic but I have to say everything does you know fit together really well and it feels pretty solid it doesn't feel like cheap plastics inside this cabin. Now you do have standard push button start so just put your foot on the brake and it will start up. And let's go ahead and check out some of the individual features inside of this cabin and let's start by talking about the gauge cluster. So as you can see right here we actually have a 12.3 inch full digital gauge cluster design that is a very premium feature for this segment. It is going to be optional here on the fully loaded example though so keep that in mind but you do have some reconfigurability in the center section and otherwise you will just have the 4.2 inch screen right up here in this section and the rest will kind of be an analog gauge setup. Now one of the benefits for choosing the full digital gauge cluster is not only the customizable designs when you change things like the drive modes but also the fact that you have the blind spot camera system so when you signal left or right you do get that camera view right in front of you which is very nice. No head-up display is offered on the Seltos and as we come back to the steering wheel you're going to have a standard Syntex leather wrapped one. It actually has a really nice feel in the hand kind of has a little bit of a contrast two-tone finish to it and then you have your Kia logo that's going to be a little bit off-center there. You have your drive mode controller as well as a terrain mode and then you have your steering wheel controls right here. No rain sensing wipers are available on the Seltos and you also have manual tilt and telescoping for the steering wheel itself and by the way it is going to be heated on the fully loaded example or you can option that on to the lower trim levels. Now checking out the interior storage inside of here we have a decent sized center console although I will say it's not you know the biggest console in the segment the Honda HR-V definitely has it beat. We look forward to testing this out with our donuts but right now I'm here in California so I did not get to bring those along with me. Now in front of that we have two cup holders we have a little storage cubby beside that and then we also have a wireless phone charging pad right up here in the front which by the way this wireless phone charging pad is standard on all but the very base LX trim level. Now coming back to the shifter as you can see we actually have a physical shifter that's something that's pretty rare for this segment. I do want to point out this is only on the gas variant though if you get that new upcoming hybrid you will have an electronic shifter instead but for this gas one you just pull back for drive you can bump to the left to shift manually has a nice feel in the hands and then when we go into reverse you'll see another feature that is very rare for the segment and that's a 360 degree camera. It is going to be optional on this fully loaded XLine SX and you do also have the ability to 3D spin around the vehicle. Now if you're noticing a trend it's that you know there's quite a few options on this fully loaded example it's all kind of bundled together in one $2,500 package that you can get on this vehicle. Now just pull up to go into park you have your brake hold right there and then you also have a button to manually launch the camera system right there. Now when it comes to your climate controls you'll see that we do have a physical buttons that are rendered right here that is for your dual zone automatic climate system and that's going to be standard on the EX trim levels and above or if you get any of the hybrid variants they will also get the dual zone setup. I like the fact that you have the physical controls here to just adjust things like the temperature because the rest of the controls are going to be included in this five inch separated display and that will allow you to do things like your front and rear defrost and then if you want to further expand things out you can press that button right there and that allows you to do the rest of your controls. Now also physically rendered is a volume knob right front and center and that's for a very impressive audio system for this segment it's going to be an eight speaker Harman Kardon audio system otherwise you would have a six speaker sound system as standard. Now I am on a limited time frame with this Seltos so I don't have time to pair my phone and all of that but I did listen to this audio system off camera and this is a very good audio system for the segment the Harman Kardon brand we're pretty big fans of their audio quality normally and typically in this segment you don't get the best sound system so I think that's definitely a nice option to check off if you're an audiophile. Now let's take a look at the main infotainment screen so one of the things that I really love about the Seltos is that you get this screen standard on every single model so that doesn't mean that the base model is going to have some crappy display it's going to all have this 12.3 inch screen this is running their latest CCNC software which means you have wireless carplay wireless android auto you also have a lot of different customizability the only thing that you will miss out on on some of the more basic trim levels is you will not get the integrated built-in navigation and you know you've seen our previous Kia content this screen setup is quite impressive and it pairs to your phone very nicely now if you go up to the top where our mirror is you have a manually dimming mirror and that's actually standard across the entire range of Seltos models if you want an auto dimming one it's 395 bucks and then up here at the very top we have this button and that's going to allow us to slide back the sunshade for the panoramic moonroof on this new Seltos this is a feature that the previous generation did not have it's standard on the top trim x-line sx or you can option it on to the lower models and the front panel does open up so what about the rear seats of the new Seltos now like I said at the side despite this vehicle actually being shorter in overall vehicle length we actually have class-leading figures when it comes to the second row and the cargo area so what are those figures well we're sitting at 39 inches of legroom 38.4 inches of headroom those are really good numbers for this segment at best its main competition like the Honda HR-V and the Toyota Corolla Cross by a pretty significant amount now of course this is a car confections review after all I brought along the official car confections ruler the reason we do that is to get a realistic knee room figure this seat is adjusted to my own five nine seating position and look at that we're sitting at about eight and a half inches of knee space that is very good for the segment also my feet can slide up underneath of the seats and rare for this segment is the fact that you have the ability to recline these seats as well it really makes for a quite comfortable rear seat you additionally get that same uh you know perforated design to the seat itself with the x-line branding and we have a fold-down center armrest here with two cup holders inside not done yet when it comes to features because as long as you choose an ex trim level and above that will give you the rear vents you do not have your own climate controls but that's of course not expected and then down here at the bottom we have a little storage cubby two usb ports in each of these seat backs you also can use the seat backs as a little coat hook as well then over on the door trim if you want to look at that we have a hard touch upper part as well as the center section so it's a little cheaper than in the front however we do have a padded armrest portion and then down in the very bottom you'll have quite a bit of bottle storage it easily swallows up two water bottles and let's go ahead and check out the cargo area now one of the things that i like is the fact that you get the power tailgate that's going to be included on ex trim levels and above and let's go ahead and check out the actual cargo area itself so they have improved the cargo space as compared to the previous generation selto so what we're looking at is around 28 cubic feet of cargo capacity behind the second row of seats and as a maximum we're sitting at around 64 cubic feet of cargo capacity now compared to the main rivals that once more is going to be larger than honda hrv and corolla cross by a pretty significant measure speaking of all those rivals we'd encourage you to check out carconfections.com vehicle rankings the reason you should do that is because we've looked at all these subcompact suvs for sale on the market and we've ranked them in individual categories things like cargo space interior luxury technology powertrain choices and oh so importantly value and you can actually sort the chart based on the category that is most important to you to really make an informed buying decision you can find that once more at carconfections.com slash vehicle rankings now coming back to the features when it comes to that you have 60 40 split folding rear seats there are not any handles to fold the seats from the cargo area but because this is a pretty short vehicle it's not bad to just kind of reach up here and fold it down well actually never mind that is not a handle you do have to go up to the second row to fold the seats down i kind of wish they had made that a little bit easier from the cargo area but now that the seats are folded completely flat let's get our cargo length width and height figure so overall cargo length behind my 5.9 seating position is sitting at 71 inches from behind the second row of seats this would be 35 inches the opening comes in at 44 inches wide and the height is about 28 inches tall so that's going to be a decent height as far as the load-in height we're sitting at right at around 31 inches now underneath of the floor one of the things that a lot of the competitors kind of cheap out on is the spare tire just be aware it is only on specific trim levels and you can option it on there's also these little configurable hooks here that will allow you to attach different accessories to the cargo area to really maximize your overall cargo space back here but i'm sure you're curious as to the powertrain situation and what you will find on the selto so we start out on your more basic trim levels with a two liter four-cylinder engine it's naturally aspirated makes 147 horsepower and 132 pound-feet of torque this is pretty much the same engine configuration that they had on the seltos before so if you're curious as to how that experience might be you can go ahead and watch one of our other seltos videos on the channel now when you go for this fully loaded x-line sx model that's going to get you the turbocharged powertrain this is a 1.6 liter turbo four-cylinder making 190 horsepower and 195 pound-feet of torque that is going to be a pretty significant increase in terms of your overall horsepower and torque figures and in terms of the transmission it also is going to swap that out so instead of the cvt that you'll get on the more basic trim levels this will actually have an eight-speed automatic transmission for that more normal feel now perhaps the bigger news about the seltos is the fact that it now will have a hybrid variant that's something that we certainly had been demanding from the previous generation i'm super happy to see that they're adding that and that unfortunately we don't have a lot of details about but it's going to be a 1.6 liter four-cylinder engine plus your electric components and we don't have the official horsepower figures but we're hoping that it's going to be a pretty decent amount of power and of course give you a lot more efficiency in terms of availability that's going to be later availability so q4 of 2026 is when you can expect to find that as far as how power is routed to the ground you have standard front wheel drive all-wheel drive is standard on your x-line variants and the hybrid will have a new e all-wheel drive system that's one of the reasons why kia says that the hybrid is not available at launch is because this is a new e all-wheel drive system that they are developing and they need it a little bit longer to fully work everything out when it comes to that system now when it comes to your fuel economy you come in at around 30 miles per gallon with the base engine with front wheel drive this turbo model with all-wheel drive comes in at 26 mpg and we don't have official details when it comes to the hybrids fuel economy of course however you know key competitors like the toyota corolla cross hybrid come in at 42 miles per gallon i would expect maybe it'd be a little bit less than that but i'm hoping for maybe upper 30s if not 40 miles per gallon so we're definitely excited to test that out a little bit later on now speaking of later on we will be taking this seltos out for a drive so you'll want to come back at the date down below to see the driving impressions of this kia seltos and of course you'll also want to see our impressions of that new hybrid when we finally get to be behind the wheel of that i promise you won't want to miss out so be sure to subscribe to the channel to stay informed on the latest details and let's talk about pricing for the kia seltos so as i said at the very beginning of this video we have a pretty affordable starting price it is under 25 000 before destination charges so $24,990 is the lx model the s is $26,390 and you can see the rest of the lineup on the screen right now we of course have been looking at the fully loaded example this is the x-line sx we also have all-wheel drive $32,790 is our starting price for this trim level there's that $2,500 package that i was talking about that really includes a lot of your bougie features that you can get on this we have a couple accessories $1,495 destination we're sitting at $37,205 as tested today if you're curious as to where it's manufactured it is going to be in korea and for those of you that are looking for the hybrid unfortunately kia has not released pricing or really a lot of the details for the hybrid model just yet so i would expect that to carry a higher price point than this gasoline variant so keep that in mind and as far as availability of the hybrid kia says that that should be coming to dealerships in q4 of 2026 so you have to wait a little bit longer if you want to get one now if you're looking to buy a kia cell toast or any vehicle we'd encourage you to check out carconfections.com slash new car quotes the reason you should do that is because we have a tool on our website that'll connect you with local car dealers in your area to get you the best price it's also going to give you access to invoice pricing information which is a great tool to use if you plan on doing dealership negotiation you can find a link to that down below in our video description as well as a pinned comment at the top of this video there's even things like a monthly payment calculator on there but what about kia's resale reliability and warranty first up let's talk about resale value kia as a brand is rated at 49.02 of estimated retained value after five years and 60,000 miles and after 10 years and 120,000 miles 21.13 now it's worth noting that is right at the industry average for all vehicle brands however it is less than a lot of its main competitors like honda toyota and mazda now when it comes to the combined reliability index that we also include in our videos kia as a brand is rated at above the industry average for all vehicle makes now if you'd like to learn more about our resale values reliability information you can find all that on our website carconfections.com now when it comes to your warranty kia has a really good one it's a five-year 60,000 mile basic warranty and a 10-year 100,000 mile powertrain warranty you do not get complimentary maintenance though and guys that's all for our in-depth review of the 2027 kia seltos if you enjoyed watching this video we'd really appreciate you hit that subscribe button down below by you subscribing you're going to get us invited to more events like this where you can show you some of the latest and greatest cars for sale and if you're already a part of our family thank you so much for your continued support we'll catch you next time as we sample more of the latest automotive delicacies