I said it. We all have been thinking it. Many of us get into a new car to review, drive, buy, or even rent for a vacation. At this point in the game, 2021, I constantly tell myself the bugs have to be worked out by now. This isn’t 2008 and the iPhone isn’t new. Every time I get confident in systems, I am let down. Case in point…

We picked up a brand new 2021 Kia Seltos for my wife. This car is mid-grade, maybe a tick better with leather, awd, wireless phone charging, heated seats, and a bit more. EX model to be exact. When I picked it up, the dealership insisted on helping me set up the phone integration, so I went through the motions and played along. As we were setting this up, the Kia system takes you through Bluetooth setup, which in turn connected CarPlay, instantly. Wow - I was impressed. Wireless CarPlay on a mainstream Kia right out of the box? That is awesome and the improvements just keep coming. As we used this setup, we found issues days later.

This particular Kia, possibly being the Seltos EX model, has a bigger screen and wireless charging. The only way to connect your device to the head unit is wirelessly. The USB ports charge, but they do nothing with the radio itself.
When cellular service is lacking, less than two bars, the system locks up, blacks out and crashes. Why does cellular signal have anything to do with the in-car connection??
If I hop in the car, want to hook my phone in to play music, use my maps or anything else - it won’t let me connect unless I completely remove my wife’s phone connection and start all over.

I find all of this unbelievable. How can they release something like this and be fine with it? I almost see what somebody was thinking. “Ok, so this Seltos has wireless phone charging on this little spot here. The future owners of this car will want to use this exclusively, so let’s make the USB ports do nothing other than charge a secondary device”

I did a quick reach out to the salesman who set me up with everything and I was given a typical company line from the dealership. They told me to make sure my phone was updated and I had a good cord. At this point it was an iPhone 12, the most current iPhone and software was all up to date. I also made sure I had a brand new Apple-branded cord. None of this mattered. From here on out, I see this going two ways. First, the system was meant to be like this and it will never change. This is unfortunate and dumb. Second, maybe there is an update at the dealership and I can take it in for service/patch/whatever for the radio.

In my experience with these types of issues, the patches rarely work and nothing gets fixed. We update and even recall issues with Subaru and Chevrolet as well. A minor bug in the system cannot be fixed for the most part. The other interesting this, lots of Kia models offer up a way to update the radio at home. Visit their site, download an update to a flash drive, plug it in and you have saved yourself a trip to the dealership. Nothing on their site indicated the Seltos was supported for this, so here we are.

My plan is to wait a bit and maybe an update will be available in the near future. I’m not holding my breath though. The problem I have found is Apple has somewhat fixed the issue or need for fancy OEM stuff with CarPlay. All Kia has to do is make their end simple and reliable. They tried to get fancy with this thing and I think they messed up. Factory Navigation is dumb, overly complicated menus are useless and touchscreens need to be reliable. I wish I could talk to somebody about this in the industry, asking them what is going on. This is one of the main reasons I shy away from specific used cars because the vehicle relies so much on a dated system. The Cadillac CTS-V, my old STi with the $250 navigation SD Card, even Ford clinging to the dumb phone keypad. They all become so dated so fast and I get that they don’t care what is going on with your radio three years later, but this Seltos is a joke.

On a positive note, I have been blown away by factory sound quality, built-in subs that are amazingly well tucked in, and the tie-in branding with Bose and others. Either way, the software and brains of the systems have to be improved. Just make it work - that is all I want. Please. We have great ideas and great software, just make it reliable and make it work, especially for people who are not the most tech-savvy.