Road Trip: 2024 Kia Seltos to Sault Ste. Marie

Before getting to the review, determination are a fewer things you should cognize astir me. I like:

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Some things you should cognize astir Clayton see his passions for:

On Saturday, Dec. 17, 2022 astatine 3:37 p.m., Clayton shared a Google Doc outlining a program to thrust to Sault Ste. Marie to spot a fewer lighthouses on the St. Marys River. We decided to spell successful mid-July (2023), but of course, we needed to commencement readying and reasoning astir which car to instrumentality connected this adventure. It’d beryllium the 2 of us, positive Clayton’s precise gangly friend, Emerson, who’s 6-feet-4.5-inches.

Requirements for the roadworthy travel car

We needed the right-sized car for this excursion — thing that needed to fulfill a fewer requirements due to the fact that different than having a gangly passenger, I’d beryllium strapping my kayak to the extortion for the journey; Clayton and Emerson would rent kayaks connected site. We besides needed enough cargo abstraction for 3 pieces of carry-on luggage, my kayak gear, Clayton’s carry-on sized camera bag, and a spot of other abstraction for just-in-case items.

Plus, we preferred a single-panel sunroof, astatine slightest 3 USB ports, plentifulness of modular information features, comfy seats for a astir 2,000-km circular trip, arsenic good arsenic thing that has an mean substance depletion successful the scope of 8.0 to 9.5 L/100 km.

Although a mid-sized crossover oregon adjacent thing larger was tempting, we yet decided thing larger would beryllium excessively overmuch car for this voyage. Instead, we agreed connected a sub-compact crossover and the 2024 Kia Seltos would deed each our needs.

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Quick facts astir the 2024 Kia Seltos

For this journey, we’d beryllium investigating the all-wheel thrust SX trim, it’s 1 trim beneath the apical X-Line trim. The SX is decked retired with a 1.6L turbocharged four-cylinder motor with 195 horsepower and 195 lb-ft of torque, tally done an eight-speed automatic gearbox. Fuel depletion figures for the higher output motor are 9.4 L/100 km successful the city, 8.7 connected the road and 9.1 combined.

Standard information features included unsighted spot warning, guardant collision avoidance, lane support assist, and more. With our SX trim, Kia’s Highway Drive Assist (standard connected EX Premium, SX and X-Line trims) made specified a quality during the long, dreary portions of the travel on Highway 69.

What is Kia’s Highway Drive Assist?

Highway Drive Assist is simply a Level 2 precocious driving assistance strategy combining adaptive cruise power with stop-and-go capability, lane-centring assistance, and GPS data.

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Road travel successful the 2024 Kia Seltos

Day one

One good greeting successful July, we each met astatine my spot astatine 9:00 a.m. to get our travel started. We folded down the smaller portion of the 60-40 rear spot to acceptable each our gear; our gangly person Emerson settled into the rear spot that remained successful its upward position, which thankfully reclines a mates of inches. Cargo abstraction with the rear seats up is 752L and with some seats folded down, it balloons to 1,778L. As Emerson utilized 60 per cent of that, we had astir 1,162L oregon cargo space, which easy acceptable everything we needed for the trip. I easy strapped the kayak to the extortion — the azygous sheet sunroof makes it overmuch easier a panoramic sunroof arsenic my foam blocks wouldn’t person to beryllium spaced truthful acold apart.

I drove first, which included the atrocious tally on the always-congested 401 to the 400, but the Kia Seltos was well-behaved successful dense traffic. Yes, determination was a spot of higher revs successful the little gears, mostly attributed to the other 400-ish pounds of radical and gear, but erstwhile we deed our cruising speed, the Seltos was successful its blessed place. Clicking connected the well-designed and well-performing Highway Drive Assist was a invited reward erstwhile we were retired of the Greater Toronto Area.

Apple CarPlay worked perfectly, the seats are rather comfy with hardly a hint of operator fatigue from them. In the rear seat, Emerson had nary complaints, oregon astatine least, helium didn’t dependable immoderate circumstantial ones to us.

A speedy operator swap during a substance refill and Clayton brought america from Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie with smoothness and ease.

2024 Kia Seltos

Day two

We drove 40 minutes from the Sault to Bamford Island to sojourn Wilson Channel Range Front & Rear Lighthouses, and past paddled astir 10 km crossed the St. Joseph Channel to spot West Sister Rock Lighthouse. The rainfall had different plans for us, however. We waited astir 10 minutes — hoping the rain, rainfall would spell distant — earlier deciding to paddle to shore. And of course, the infinitesimal our kayaks were connected land, the rainfall stopped. Clayton rapidly jumped successful my kayak and made the 15-minute jaunt to transverse different lighthouse disconnected his list.

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Once backmost astatine the car, we were upgraded from bedewed to somewhat damp arsenic the rainfall held off. Another circular of strapping my kayak to the extortion and disconnected we went backmost to our location basal for the night.

Day three

We had to marque 1 halt to Shoal Island Lighthouse, which is astatine the extremity of a rural-ish road, earlier heading home. Emerson sat up beforehand for the hour-ish thrust portion I sat successful the back, which confirmed beauteous comfy seating backmost there, particularly with the reclining seats, good-sized windows, and amazingly awesome thrust prime for a sub-compact crossover. There was minimal discomfort implicit bumps and roadworthy imperfections. I’ve got to manus it to the Seltos; it performed good connected pavement and held its ain connected non-paved roads, with a kayak connected apical and 3 adults inside.

Sudbury to location was driven successful astir each dense rain, but the rain-sensing wipers worked perfectly while the tunes pushed done the SX’s Bose audio strategy drowned retired the sounds of the rain. Kia’s light-adjustable 10.25” instrumentality clump remains casual to get accusation from, particularly successful atrocious weather. This tested trim besides included a head-up show that’s projected onto a tiny portion of integrative rising from the dashboard, arsenic opposed to being projected straight connected the windshield.

2024 Kia Seltos

Final thoughts astir the 2024 Kia Seltos

Our closing figures for our three-day travel included 24 hours and 24 minutes of driving a region of 1,710.6 km. We managed an mean substance depletion of 8.9 L/100 km. Pretty awesome considering each the value successful the car positive a 50-pound kayak connected apical of the car, which surely would person impacted the depletion had we traveled without it.

The Kia Seltos is simply a terrific small crossover that I’d decidedly instrumentality connected different agelong roadworthy trip. It’s got the close magnitude of powerfulness if you opt for the 1.6L turbo motor — the little powered 2.0L motor would’ve been noisy and hardly capable for what we did and what we brought. There is simply a beardown magnitude of utile and modern technology, and the thrust comfortableness scores highly whether you’re successful the beforehand oregon rear seats. That Highway Drive Assist is, to me, is an implicit selling constituent arsenic longer drives go much enjoyable and little tedious with this technology, and should beryllium offered connected each trims.

The 2024 Kia Seltos exceeded our expectations, met our needs, and was an perfect roadworthy travel companion each around. When you see the SX trim is beneath $40,000, the worth proposition is remarkable; nary wonderment it’s Kia’s astir fashionable offering.

Check retired the latest Kia Seltos model.