Kia Seltos 2020 Problems

The question of whether the Kia is too small compared to the Subaru or Toyota really comes down to your individual situation, Greg. However, while the Seltos is marketed as a competitor for the Mazda CX-3 or Hyundai Kona it is much larger than both those compact cross-overs, measuring up only 40mm shorter than its larger Sportage sibling! It is a great-looking machine but I’d go for an all-wheel-drive model to avoid the 2WD’s antiquated torsion-beam rear-end.

That’s a great question and suggests you shouldn’t take no for an answer in this case. Plenty of modern cars use a bit of oil (actually, all engines use some oil) thanks to the low-tension piston rings fitted to improve fuel economy. Swings and roundabouts. But 600ml of oil in 1000km is not something you can ignore.

Had the car always used this much oil, there’s a chance that this is 'normal' oil consumption. But the fact that the consumption has suddenly jumped up to the point where the engine ran out of oil makes me think that there might be a problem. Some oil consumption is normal, but it’s when the engine’s drinking habits change that you can have the beginning of a problem.

The fact Kia has admitted some engines had been fitted with poor quality piston rings, would make me think your car is one of the affected ones and should be fixed at Kia’s cost. I’d be curious to know what inspection the dealership conducted to assess your engine. One possibility would be to have the engine independently tested and assessed in terms of its cylinder compression and what’s called a leak-down test. This will give a much better idea of the condition of the engine’s internals and what’s needed.

There are two main reasons to service a car. The first is to keep the vehicle running in an efficient, clean, safe and comfortable way. The second is so that you maintain your factory warranty. A car-maker is not obliged to honour some aspects of a new-car warranty if the vehicle hasn’t been serviced correctly, so it’s important, especially since the Kia warranty is such a good one at seven-years/unlimited kilometres. In fact, the Kia warranty is the best in the business in Australia.

With that in mind, provided you use a properly accredited workshop that is authorised to stamp your service book, yes you can use a non-Kia workshop or dealership to have your car serviced and retain your factory warranty. That said, the Kia isn’t an especially expensive vehicle to have serviced with 12 month or 15,000km service intervals.

Have you investigated Kia’s seven-year capped price servicing deal? It stacks up very well over the full seven years and, in fact, a Seltos is really no more expensive to service than the little Kia Picanto under the capped-price schedule. Definitely talk to the dealer about capped price servicing if you go ahead and buy a Kia, you might be surprised how cost-effective it is.