2020 Kia Seltos review: Australian first drive | CarAdvice
It's taken years, but with the Seltos, Kia finally has a small SUV on sale in Australia. Can it compete in a hard-fought market? Alborz Fallah finds out.
Kia is a South Korean brand originally established in 1944. When paired with its sister company Hyundai, the two brands rank as the fifth-largest manufacturer in the world. Kia is pitched as the more youth-oriented brand of the two, with its cars generally aimed at a younger demographic. Its most famous vehicle is the Rio city car, though nameplates such as Cerato, Optima, Sportage and Sorento are also gaining in popularity as the company continues to transcend its budget image with a range of attractively designed models. Kia is the only manufacturer in Australia to offer a seven-year factory warranty.
It's taken years, but with the Seltos, Kia finally has a small SUV on sale in Australia. Can it compete in a hard-fought market? Alborz Fallah finds out.
Many brands are streamlining model ranges, but not Kia. The Cerato line-up has been expanded with the addition of a new manual variant in mid-range ‘Sport’ trim.
The Kia Seltos is already a popular compact SUV seemingly right from launch. Here, we test the entry-level S model grade with the optional Safety Pack.
In 1976 a car entered the automotive landscape and changed the world. Okay, not the whole world, and not overnight, but in the world of performance motoring, things would never be the same again. It produced 81kW and 140Nm from a naturally aspirated 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine, started out with a four-speed manual but later picked up a five-cog 'box, weighed 830kg, and could bolt to 100km/h in a reported 9...
Despite being an all-wheel-drive SUV, and having that alluring ‘4x4 Lock’ button near the gearstick, buyers of this Kia Sorento will more than likely spend 99 (or more) per cent of their time in the city. That's certainly been the case for our long-term Sorento, which has been getting shared around the CarAdvice office on a variety of urban assaults...
Sponsored by: Kia Australia Since 2002, Kia has been providing a fleet of cars to ferry players, coaches, media and staff to and from the Australian Open. In a fresh twist for 2020, Kia's Australian Open courtesy fleet expands, offering a designated "fan fleet" providing free trips for tennis fans in partnership with rideshare app: Uber.
The traditional city car is potentially under threat of extinction from pint-sized SUVs. We pitch Hyundai’s new, Accent-replacing Venue against Kia’s established Rio to see whether the sports utility vehicle or hatchback is best equipped for a life of urban motoring.
There's a new small SUV in town, with chiselled good looks and plenty of kit. Not everything about the Kia Seltos is perfect, though, as Kez Casey explains.
Kia's Sorento large SUV and Sportage medium SUV are already among CarAdvice's top-rated SUVs, each consistently scoring well with our road-testing team. Now, at last, Kia has added a third SUV to its line-up: the all-new 2020 Kia Seltos...
Small SUVs account for 13 per cent of new cars sold in Australia this year. The Mitsubishi ASX is the most popular, with around 20,000 of them finding homes. While not the most modern car out there – it dates back almost a decade – Mitsubishi has continually made tweaks to keep it competitive. A new nose design and a better centre touchscreen just premiered, as if to highlight the point...
The traditional city car is potentially under threat of extinction from pint-sized SUVs. We pitch Hyundai’s new, Accent-replacing Venue against Kia’s established Rio to see whether the sports utility vehicle or hatchback is best equipped for a life of urban motoring.
The impressive new Seltos takes on the popular stalwart Qashqai in this flagship small-SUV twin test.
Kia has announced a special Night Sky Edition of its sports liftback Stinger GT for the Australian market. As the name suggests, Kia will only offer the Night Sky Edition of its Stinger GT in nocturnal hues for the exterior. Customers can choose from Micro Blue, Deep Chroma Blue and Aurora Black Pearl paint...
Small SUVs. You might love the idea of a higher-riding hatchback, or you might think they’re a convenient way for car brands to sell ostensibly compact cars at a markup. Either way, ongoing demand means the market for this type of vehicle remains abuzz with new offerings. Australia is no exception. The market share of Small SUVs was 13...
Hyundai and Kia have co-developed a new automatic transmission for combustion vehicles that can choose a suitable ratio by using map data, and by scanning the road ahead with radars and cameras. The claimed world-first is called the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Connected Shift System, and uses 40 major patents...
Powertrain and platform details for the new 2021 Kia Sorento have been announced today, rounding out the major news after Monday's big design reveal. Leading the international launch line-up will be the Hyundai Group's new Smartstream turbo hybrid system, pairing the company's new 1.6-litre T-GDi turbo petrol engine with a 44...
I’ve been tempted to write a Stinger review for a while, but since so many people have already reviewed it, I thought I would wait a while, pile more kilometres on it and focus more on a longer-term ownership review. An ownership review of a newish car or something that you’ve owned for only a couple of weeks is maybe pointless since the purchase of the vehicle in the first place is a sign that you have a preference for such vehicle or maybe the brand in general...
I don't own this car, as it was a rental, but I did drive it for over 10 hours and did 800kms in the thing. This is about as long as I have travelled in any car I haven't personally owned, yet I won't make any comments on reliability. However, I can say that I think if you need something practical and have about $15-$17k in your pocket, one of these would be great...
At the start of 2011, our Honda Odyssey was approaching 200,000 kilometres, and was starting to develop some high servicing costs and reliability issues, so we decided to look for a suitable replacement. We looked at a Nissan X-Trail, Toyota Prado and Kluger, Mitsubishi Pajero, Ford Territory, Hyundai Santa Fe and a Skoda Superb...
Let’s begin with a family background. So five kids, within seven years. We had a Mercedes GL350 7-seater, but with the cost of ongoing maintenance and the kids climbing around inside it, we thought it was time for a van for my wife. My daily driver is an 8-seater Land Cruiser 200 series. But with such a small boot, it is not suited to a young family with a pram and the daily grind...
