Kia Needs To fix These Problems In The Upcoming 2026 Seltos

The new Seltos is just around the corner and the old one has not been quite the smash hit Kia wanted it to be largely due to its in-house rival Creta and the simple truth that the SUV segment is one of the most brutal in this country to get hold off.

The old Seltos has received generally positive reviews from plenty of owners and testers on Teambhp and Reddit. But there are still some major problems that have plagued their Seltos experience a lot. 

Also Read- Common Thar Problems We Would Like To See Fixed In Its Upcoming Facelift
 

How Did We Come Up With These Issues?

We did a deep dive on popular forums like Teambhp and searched a lot of ownership reviews. 

We wanted a list of repeated and genuine problems that are common across a lot of Kia Seltos owners. Also our manager Charan Narain is a proud owner of Kia Seltos and has some credible inputs to share. You can read his in-depth review here.

I have ruled out one-offs and rants for the sake of authenticity. You can find the link to the Original posts in the article.

Safety. Or Lack Thereof

If one of the most unsafe carmakers in this country can do a 360 and get 5-star GNCAP ratings for Swift and Vitara, I am pretty sure a posh and premium brand like kia should have done the same from the get-go. Not a single Kia bestseller like Sonet and Seltos have managed a 4 star rating let alone 5. 

As I have mentioned before 6 airbags does not make a car safe, and it's high tim for Kia to take the safety of their consumers seriously, if they want to remain relevant in country where safety is being increasingly prioritised by both government and us drivers

Post Sales And Dealership Issues

This is by far the most common and recurring issue with Seltos or more precise Kia as a brand in general. Just look at the decline of OLA and general pessimism towards Tata when it comes to sales support. Why is Kia on the same path? One use user on Teambhp wrote-

“I really feel Kia really needs to up their game, as I found the overall experience to be average.”

Another was forced to take a delivery of broken Kia. 

Both Seltos and Sonet are pretty popular in their segments, the least a company can do is to make sure the availability of trained staff and spare parts is near the adequate level. 

Things like delays in repair, lack of knowledge regarding engine issues, botched repair jobs were general complaints across Kia owners and is something that needs to be fixed promptly

Kia DCT Gearbox Problem

To be fair Kia did acknowledge this problem and issued a minor updated way back in 2020, which has solved the issue for some owners. Problems like juddering, overheating over revving, and clunkiness is common trouble with Kia’s automatic gearboxes. In some cars the issue has developed within a year of ownership. Our manager’s Kia had the same overheating issue but was lucky enough to get it patched. 

Other owners have had ditto overheating problem along with general sour experience when it comes to Kia automatic gearboxes

“Kia was known for having transmission issues, typically with its DCT. It would overheat, throwing up a warning and asking the driver to stop the car in order for the transmission to cool down. “
 

Worsening infotainment woes

Again, this is something that has been a point of contention for cars with modern tech and screens like Thar, Tata and all electric cars in particular. For Seltos the general sentiment was that the infotainment screen black outs randomly, their old UVO OS lost signal frequently and the general hang ups due to lack of processing power. 

Our house Kia Seltos faced something similar with the theme changing from red and black to blue and white randomly. The 360-degree camera was also pretty average and downright useless in tight situations.

These problems may not seem like much. But when you buy a car that generally costs around 20 lakhs, you least expect the company to take care of them soon. Seltos ownership is a mixed bag that generally inclines on the postive side but can be better.

Given Kia's reputation and a quite loyal owner base in this country I am quite hopeful that the upcoming Seltos will have these issues sorted. Do comment and let me know if I have missed anything