It’s hard to argue with the formula behind the Kia Seltos. It’s been around for two years and won our Best Buy in the Subcompact SUV class for two years. It currently sits atop our Best Subcompact SUVs list.
The Seltos offers a winning combination of safety features, lots of room for such a small vehicle, an affordable price tag, and a user-friendly infotainment system. That’s been enough to give it a comfortable lead on the field for its entire short life so far.
For 2023, Kia won’t mess with a winning combination.
The 2023 Seltos gets a slight price increase — $260 or less at every trim level – to keep pace with inflation and supply chain challenges. Otherwise, all Kia has done is make it incrementally quieter and safer.
Kia says engineers have made “minor feature enhancements in the areas of noise reduction” without specifying what those enhancements are. All affordable SUVs are a bit buzzy, but our test drivers hadn’t noticed the Seltos being unusually loud before the new sound-deadening efforts.
Kia has also added blind-spot collision avoidance and rear cross-traffic alert to even the base S model so that every Seltos now comes with the same suite of safety tech.
Pricing:
Kia also charges $1,295 for delivery on every Seltos — $40 more than last year.
| Trim Level | MSRP |
| S front-wheel-drive (FWD) | $22,890 |
| S all-wheel-drive (AWD) | $24,390 |
| LX AWD | $22,840 |
| Nightfall Edition AWD | $27,040 |
| EX AWD | $26,140 |
| SX AWD | $28,340 |
