I drive a Kia Seltos and while I got it because I wanted AWD, I found that anything past that has really made me second guess what Kia thinks a driver needs in the present day.
The first thing that I found wrong, was when I went to plug my IPod Touch into the USB socket in the front of the vehicle, underneath the control deck with the A/C. To find that it didn’t work except charge the IPod. When I did this with an old Sportage I drove, that was how I got my music when I didn’t want to listen to the radio.
But Kia thought we didn’t need this functionality. No, I will not fumble with ApplePlay to get music, because fuck Apple. Instead, I have to connect the IPod via Bluetooth which meant I could never pause/play, I have to risk taking my attention off driving to fiddle with the IPod to pause/play. I could also never see what song was playing nor can I navigate easily, because everything was No Info.
Speaking of this issue, I’ve had moments where I had to fight with the connectivity of the IPod and my vehicle. Where, the IPod would not be playing through the vehicle’s speakers, it would try to play from it’s little speakers. I don’t get this, it’s charged, it’s connected, the bluetooth connectivity is connected when I check both the device listing on the home dashboard and the IPod itself. But this is what the vehicle decides to do with my IPod instead of retaining connection to allow it to play on the speakers.
I actually have to randomly press buttons like disconnecting or changing devices and even sometimes having to stop Android Auto from hogging everything to finally get things working. SOME OF THE TIME, mind you.
Since I mentioned it, let me talk about Android Auto. I’m not a fan of it, it is a hog and practically takes hold of everything. Sometimes I can’t even change over to the IPod because Android Auto wants you to disconnect everything to even switch! Thanks Kia, for incorporating this level of obnoxiousness.
Other things I hate with Kia is when they feel they need to tell you what’s playing on the little screen where you need to know PSI, MPH and all that. When, we already see it on the bigger fucking interface screen on the dashboard!
The need to always hit ‘Confirm’ when presented this lecture of driving safely. Fuck off. I can ignore it when I go in reverse or just drive as normal, it’ll take awhile for it to go away.
Driving in reverse, presents the backup camera. I’ve noted that the backup camera will still remain on for a little longer even when driving forward. Why?
That stupid Auto Start/Stop system. A lot of vehicle manufacturers adopted this stupid feature. Kia included. I don’t see the point. Quite frankly, I see nothing but a huge safety hazard. What if you’re dealing with slippery conditions? What if you’re in snowy climates? What if there is no time for that when dealing with speedy drivers and heavy traffic? Who thought this was a good fucking idea?
I don’t care for Kia’s idea to digitize the dashboard and interface to finger-touching. Looking forward to cold conditions fucking it up if not already by making them dimmed or so. It’s just ugly.
According to the manual, there are 2 USB ports, a USB A port for power and a USB C port for media.
https://owners.kia.com/content/dam/kia/us/owners/pdf/2023/2023-Kia-Seltos-Vehicle-Feature-Tips.pdf
Have you tried the other port?
That’s 2023, this is a 2025 one and it does not have those. Least not in that arrangement.
I feel like a lot of these complaints are true of all car makers nowadays; some of these are complaints about safety requirements that they all need to implement and others are about general trends that they’re all following. The iPod thing sucks, but it’s old technology at this point and you’ll need to make sure that it’s compatible with things going forward - the manufacturers don’t have to support these things that are over ten years old.
Point is, nobody should feel they have to subscribe to shit like Spotify, SiriusXM or anything just to get music. Taking away the ability to plug in whatever you use for media is just that push to make people spend more money.
And if we want to talk about compatibility, why the hell do they still think people use USB sticks to put MP3s on today? That’s a feature in my vehicle, in 2025. Yet something like the IPod? Nah “too old”.
I agree that you shouldn’t be forced into a subscription, but you can still put music on your phone, no? Also, why not just put them on a usb stick if it works? At this point, they’re cheaper than buying an old iPod.
Auto stop start is to save fuel and emissions in heavy traffic.
Not that much of a good trade as prolonged use will have a tendency to add wear and tear on the engine. Air Condition interruptions. High maintenance costs. It’s a dumb idea. All for what? to save a few cents? Not a good trade off.
Why will stop-start cause additional engine wear? It’s literally off. It only kicks in when the engine, and hence engine oil, is warm, so there should be no extra wear caused by starting.
The fuel savings can be significant, but more significant is the reduced emissions. I guess you don’t care about that though. Fuck all the children breathing in the polluted air, right?
As far as I’ve read around, S&S mainly wears out the starter, not the engine itself.
I don’t understand how the system could cause problems on slippery roads, but if it works on OP’s car like it does in mine, the way it’s designed to kick in is dumb, infuriating and counterproductive.
I have to disable it every time I start the car, because otherwise it would just stop the engine and restart it immediately whenever I get to a stop sign (which burns more fuel than just staying on).
BUT, if I want S&S to work, I need to re-enable it BEFORE I slow down, otherwise it just doesn’t - but I can’t predict how long I have to wait when I stop before I get to the sign, if I could they wouldn’t have put a stop sign there in the first place!So I either:
- keep S&S enabled and disable it at every busy junction before I put it in neutral, then enable it again;
- forget about it and always keep it on, wasting fuel, increasing emissions, prematurely having my starter replaced to prevent failures in the middle of busy roads;
- forget about it and always keep it off or just never put the car in neutral, which is what all driving schools in my country teach drivers to do by the way (people have failed their tests by not preventing the engine shutdown), and possibly fully shut the engine off at my not-taking-drivers-license-test discretion.
And my car isn’t even a KIA, I can’t imagine how bad the S&S system would be on a KIA!
Engines with start-stop have beefier starter motors. Electric motors can be sized for basically any task - the motors in my EV are not going to wear out and their duty cycle is crazy compared to a starter motor! So it’s just a matter of cost and size.
Sounds insane to require drivers to disable start-stop to pass a test - where’s that? You mention stop signs so that sounds like the US. I’m afraid I don’t really trust US driving tests to accomplish anything sensible…
You mention stop signs so that sounds like the US
Wait hold on… why’s that? Is there any juristiction where there are traffic laws, but no stop signs?
Stop signs are not a big part of driving in some countries. I obviously don’t know about everywhere, but in other countries I’m familiar with (Europe), most USA “stop” junctions are give way/priority/yield junctions where you don’t have to come to a complete stop, so stop-start would have no impact.
In the UK, you only get Stop signs on junctions where your view is so extremely limited that anything less than a stop or absolute dead crawl would just always be dangerous. They’re very rare. In comparison, Yield signs in the USA are comparitively rare (in my experience) and most junctions where you most yield priority are governed by Stop signs.
Sounds insane […]
This is in Italy, it IS insane, and admittedly I don’t know how much my grievances against S&S are mitigated by automatic transmissions (never used in tests).
Tests do not require you to disable S&S, instructors simply tell you not to let out the clutch while in neutral to avoid it, but the strictest examiners see engine shutdowns as “failure to correctly operate the vehicle”, like stalling - if it happens once, we all make mistakes, if it happens twice, come on man, if it happens three times k gg bb, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a feature of the car.There are arguments that having your engine off on the road is unsafe, I guess those examiners are just being zealous? If they even exist, I’m trusting my instructor’s tales on this factoid, but drivers’ ed here is very strict so I’m inclined to believe him.
Most of the people who turn S&S off do so because they find it annoying, I myself try to use it effectively but I prefer driving responsibly rather than playing chess with a half-metric-ton deadly weapon.
I do know that S&S systems require better starters, but that just means they cost more, right? And even if the increased cost is marginal, the increased fuel consumption on short stops is still a problem.
I see. That sounds very over-zealous to me, yes. The delay in moving off is so small that it doesn’t really have a safety impact (and the idea that a delay in moving off is a safety issue is way overblown in general, because the occasions when it comes up are so rare compared to the occasions when adequate braking comes up.).
The beefier motors do cost more, and I haven’t seen a cost comparison. I would imagine they don’t cost much more though, and soon pay for themselves if you’re driving in the city. And they won’t overall increase fuel consumption - that much is clear from measurements. A random reddit post claimed that the break-even point in stop-start is a mere 7 seconds, which is basically every red light. Idk if that’s reliable but it gives you something to consider.
This video explains it well https://youtu.be/qu8cJ2t_ja8
Basically the engine experiences the most wear when starting, because it doesn’t yet have oil pressure. That takes around 7 seconds with the engine featured in the video.
Typically it experiences most wear at start because the oil isn’t up to temperature. When stopped at a red light, oil is still coating all the components, so while the pressure may be low, it will only be a momentary increase in wear. 7 seconds is very little compared to the time it takes the engine to get up to temperature on a cold morning, which is wear the majority of wear will still come from.
These systems have been in common use for like 15 years or something, and first became commercially available over 25 years ago. We’d have actual hard evidence if it were causing excess wear.
That stupid Auto Start/Stop system. A lot of vehicle manufacturers adopted this stupid feature. Kia included. I don’t see the point. Quite frankly, I see nothing but a huge safety hazard. What if you’re dealing with slippery conditions? What if you’re in snowy climates? What if there is no time for that when dealing with speedy drivers and heavy traffic?
What does any of that have to do with the start/stop system?
Really? You had to ask this?
What use does an Auto-Start/Stop system have in those kind of conditions? I doubt you have an answer.
Start/Stop system doesn’t do anything in these conditions. All it does is that it stops engine when you are stationary. Say, on a red light or in a traffic jam. It will reignite once either you start moving or battery voltage drops below certain point. Other than that, it has no effect either positive or negative in situations you have described.
It stops the engine. When you’re standing still. Are you sure you know how the system works?
PSA: don’t buy a KIA/Hyundai/Genesis if you are planning on raw-dogging anyone in your car - they explicity state, that they collect that kind of data in the EULA
Mozilla went deeper into the ToS of cars and what they do to provide you “a pleasant service” https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/kia/
They do have more brands they looked into, it’s pretty interesting!
fern also shows this in a recent video (25:12) which I enjoyed watching
But yeah, I completely get your frustrations. It’s the sole reason why I refuse to drive new cars and still drive decade old cars.
