A Seltos owner checks out the new Kia Syros: His likes & dislikes

If the suspension of this car is half as good as its interiors, Syros will be numero uno for rear seat experience in this category and above.

BHPian headbanger recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Checked out Kia Syros HTX(O) automatic at ASB Gurgaon. Here are my two cents:

Interiors:

• The overall ambience is top notch. The quality of materials that Kia uses is great and this little hatch beats even Seltos on this metric.

• The highlight is the rear seat space management. If you are someone who likes to be chauffeured around, this is a great car. You can literally place your one leg over the another (seth ji mode)

• The front console is gorgeous and functional. The feel of the physical buttons on console, the overall finish, the steering, gear knob or the smashing touch screen scream quality.

• Purely from space management front, this car should be the benchmark in its segment. Even the likes of Brezza can't challenge it on rear seat space. The under thigh support was good and the recline of the rear seat is to be experienced. Ingress and Egress are easy.

• The boot is functional and with the sliding rear seats, it can absorb the extra luggage. One nitpick is that the rails on which rear seat slides need to be taken care of if one is using the boot to full capacity. It can scratch or even tear the luggage.

• The panoramic sunroof is like 90% of the roof. It looks huge from inside the cabin.

Exteriors:

• I personally felt the car to resemble more like Wagon R pro max rather than mini Defender. Looks are subjective and this one is polarising. It cannot hold a candle to Sonet and Seltos which are beautiful looking cars.

• The elephant in the room is the placement of headlamps and tail lamps. It's simple- if this car touches any other vehicle, tree, pole, wall etc the first casualty will be lights. The lights are protruding out such that the first impact will touch them instead of thinner than eyelashes bumpers. Kia has gotten it wrong from all aspects - neither does the placement or the lights themselves elevate the exterior look nor does it fit the practicality quotient. This is strange because the interior has been managed so wonderfully, this glaring shortcoming can be a deal breaker. The rule of owning this car is to drive it like driving the opulent big three - give space to every vehicle around you and do breathing exercises when in traffic jam.

• The rear end of the exterior is plane jane. Remove the logo and stickers, it's flat.

Conclusion:

If the suspension of this car is half as good as its interiors, Syros will be numero uno for rear seat experience in this category and above. The exterior looks are polarising but it's the interiors which are the defining feature of this car. Make no mistake, the interior cabin space though great, cannot feel like sitting in Seltos. But it's definitely better than Sonet and the functionality of rear seats is the highlight. One needs to be very sure of the challenges that the headlamps and tail lamps can create before making the purchase of this vehicle. These challenges are very real and the likelihood of damage to lights is high on this car.

I hope other manufacturers take a cue from this intelligent packaging of this car. Let's see how Kia prices it - the showroom SA's narrative is that it challenges Sonet more than Seltos and I wish the pricing remains that way as well. For all that's worth, if this car tries to touch HTK(O) or HTK version of Seltos, I will prefer Seltos in that case.

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