REVIEW: The Kia Seltos is a $29,000 SUV that looks and feels too fancy for its own price tag — until you start noticing the details

The 2021 Kia Seltos is one of the many new kids on the crossover-SUV market, which is awash with choices due to the fact that the segment is dominating US sales. Automakers continue to pump out bigger, boxier vehicles like the Seltos, while their sales triumph suffocates the small-car market.

Kia announced the Seltos in late 2019 as a 2021 model year, framing it as a "rugged" and "adventure ready" crossover — a popular tagline these days.

In the Kia lineup, the Seltos slots as the second-cheapest crossover or SUV by starting price. Its $21,990 base model will cost you $4,500 more than the cheapest 2020 Kia Soul, which starts at $17,490.

The good thing about the Seltos? While its overall aim is to take a chunk out of that popular, play-it-safe crossover-SUV market, it isn't all about trying to fit in. That bright-yellow paint color can even be had on its cheapest of models, the $21,990 S trim.

The Seltos comes in five trims and two engine options, starting with the $21,990 LX trim.

The cheaper versions of the Seltos come with a 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine that makes 146 horsepower and 132 pound-feet of torque, while the more expensive ones, starting with the $25,490 S Turbo, get a 1.6-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder engine that makes 175 horsepower and 195 pound-feet of torque.

Those two engine options each have their own transmission, with Kia pairing the base 146-horsepower engine with a continuously variable transmission and the 175-horsepower version with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. The latter is, of course, the much preferred option.

This particular loaner car was an SX Turbo with 175 horsepower and the DCT. Its final sticker price came out to be $29,485 — that's including $1,120 in handling fees, which can always be negotiated.

What's interesting about Seltos is that all-wheel drive can be had on the cheapest of its offerings, but with a trade-off. The base LX and S trims both start at $21,990, with the LX trim being AWD and the S being front-wheel drive. All of the higher trims have standard AWD.

AWD is often a $2,000 package on cars, including many of the Seltos' competitors. But with the Seltos, it's integrated right into one of the base models.

The reason those two trims are the same price, though, is because Kia is giving buyers a choice: AWD capabilities for harsher terrain and snowier climates with the LX trim, or Kia's driver-assistance safety suite, which comes standard on the FWD S trim.

The suite includes things like a driver-attention warning, high-beam assist, lane-departure warning, lane-keeping assist, and lane-following assist.

That means when you choose between the LX and the S, you're choosing which you'd prefer to handle yourself: paying close attention to the cars around you or handling inclement road conditions. Either way, you're going to leave some part of the driving up to your own capabilities.

In terms of crashworthiness and safety features, the 2021 Seltos hasn't yet been rated by the International Institute for Highway Safety or the US Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It's also a brand-new model for Kia, so there aren't any prior crash or safety ratings to base its potential on.

The Seltos, upon first impression, feels a lot more expensive than it is. Its seat pattern is detailed but tasteful and it has a power driver's seat, its interior accents don't look cheap, it has mood lighting in the SX Turbo trim, and it comes with the option for a gold paint job so eye-scorching that no photo could ever do it justice.

The ride adds to that feeling. Unlike a lot of start-stop systems built to cut the engine off when the car isn't moving — such as when it's at a stop light — and start it back up when it's time to go again, the Seltos' start-stop system is almost unnoticeable. It's there, of course, and you can feel it, but it's more like a tiny bubble of air in your throat than a full-on hiccup.

When floored, the 175-horsepower Seltos feels like it has more power than it does, especially for an SUV with such a large stance. There's a gap between flooring the gas and the Seltos actually picking up, and then another gap for turbo lag — the phenomenon caused when an engine is waiting for boost to build up.

(Turbochargers have lag while superchargers have immediate boost, because a turbo works off of heat energy while a supercharger works off of immediately available mechanical energy.)

But once you get through the lags, the front end of the Seltos will rear up and get going. Its steering is just heavy enough, preventing the Seltos from having that hollow feeling too many modern commuter vehicles have.

The Seltos' suspension mitigates road bumps and other uneven surfaces but doesn't get rid of them, and its ride is decently quiet on the highway. There's a hint of wind noise, but it doesn't feel like the car is hurtling through it like a rough patch of ocean — it's more just a sense that the car is moving, and that the cabin isn't completely insulated from the outside world.

Lane-keep assist on the Seltos isn't intrusive, but it is sensitive. The system will give you a noticeable tug back in line, and as the driver, it feels like it will try to correct you before you think you need it.

The tech features on the Seltos also feel upscale for a $29,000 SUV. Its backup camera allows the driver to choose one of two different angles: a typical back-out view or a trailer-hitch view. The sound system automatically lowers speaker volume to a whisper when the car is in reverse, saving you the extra arm movement to turn down the radio and focus on not backing into someone or something.

The Seltos' other safety systems aren't bothersome, with the blind-spot monitor warning drivers with dull dings rather than an uncoordinated symphony of beeping. Far too many vehicles come with a safety system so annoying that you'd often rather just turn it off, but the Seltos' system is livable.

There's also a rear-seat alert that comes on when there's either weight on a back seat or the center armrest is down, reminding the people up front not to forget any children, pets, or other occupants in the vehicle when they leave.

The Seltos, despite looking more expensive than it is on the surface, starts to show its price in the details.

The lower rear of the car is adorned with what looks to be a sporty, meshy grate and dual geometric exhausts. Step a little closer, though, and it's all a facade. The real, singular exhaust pipe is underneath the two imposters, and the "mesh," just like the fake pipes, is actually a pattern on a black panel.

The silvery diamond-pattern trim on the front of the car is similarly disappointing. From a distance, it looks like a quirky, expensive touch. Up close, it gives off more of a plastic vibe.

Adjustments to the steering wheel are manual, and the Seltos wouldn't allow a location to be put in the navigation while moving or at a stoplight, even if those inputs were from a passenger. It did, however, permit picking from popular nearby locations like gas stations while moving and at a stop — an odd discrepancy.

The "sport" and "normal" driving modes don't feel too different, and even in normal mode, the Seltos will wait until about 6,000 rpm to upshift if floored. Its redline, 6,500 rpm, isn't far after.

Storage space and the back seat fill up quickly in the Seltos, and stuff that's in the back seems to echo forward if it moves — a good excuse to secure things even on a short trip across town, because all of the loud shuffling will leave you wondering what broke back there.

The biggest thing the Seltos has going against it, though, has little to do with the car itself. It's more about what the car is made of.

While the Seltos looks sleek on the surface, it's not the kind of sleekness that stays around. It takes maintenance, in the form of a whole lot of cleaning, to keep the abundance of glossy black surfaces inside looking as nice and glossy as they did in the showroom.

That's not just from your nasty fingers, either. The glossy material is so prevalent in the car that everything — dust, droplets, random flakes of stuff you definitely don't want brought to your attention, let alone anyone else's — builds up over the course of just a few days, caking those pieces into a collection of all of the nasty stuff you'd rather not remember exists.

But all of that stuff does exist, and in the Seltos, it's super noticeable — especially in the sun. Its inability to stay clean for more than a few trips distracts from how nice the car looks underneath all of that crust, and serves as a constant reminder that life is, indeed, gross.

So, if the Seltos is the car for you, do your future self a favor and choose a model with gray interior accents instead of black. Maybe they'll fare a bit better.

Because crossovers and SUVs are so popular in the US right now, the Seltos lives in a packed segment of the market. Thus, we've only picked out a few of its competitors for comparison here.

Some of the Seltos' competition includes the related Kona at Kia's sister brand, Hyundai, along with the Mazda CX-30 and Subaru Crosstrek. All four vehicles start in the $20,000 to $22,000 range and reach toward the $30,000s, but there are some important differences between each.

The bottom trims of the Seltos and Crosstrek, for example, can be had with standard all-wheel drive — a drive layout far better suited for driving in inclement conditions. Front-wheel drive is standard on the Kona and CX-30, but AWD can be had for an extra $1,400 on both the base-model Kona and the base CX-30.

With AWD, the cheapest of the four would be a $21,500 Kona, while the most expensive would be a $23,300 CX-30. That only accounts for AWD capability, though — not various extra features included in the base AWD model depending on its price.

While the Seltos hasn't been crash rated yet, all three competitors listed here got the highest crashworthiness ratings from the IIHS.

Their headlights were a different story, though. Each had headlights on certain trims that received the IIHS' lowest rating, "poor," as well as its highest, "good." Given that headlights are still a major issue for many automakers, the ratings for the Seltos will be some to watch for when they do come out.

The Seltos is a good car, both in terms of its looks and its driving capabilities. It has enough power to not feel like a total drag of a commuter car to drive, and its styling gives off the vibe that it came with a higher sticker price than it actually did.

Where the Seltos lacks is in the details. Some look much cheaper up close than they do far away, and other elements, like the gloss-filled interior, feel like they weren't meant to survive staying sleek in the real world — only in the showroom, where sales commissions can serve as motivation for dousing the car in Windex every other day.

Sure, that motivation might even exist for a buyer at first, because it's human nature to want to keep stuff nice when it's new. But that eventually fades for most, and the glossy black interior — should that be the color combination you choose — won't be forgiving when it does.

But the Seltos is a good SUV, and it looks good, too. You just have to avoid looking too closely.

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