What are Kia Picanto's like?

easylife73

Yes , the Ceed is diesel, so we'll definitely be going for petrol as it will mostly be used for the local trips. The Ceed had previously been serviced by Arnold Clark, but the dealership weren't too bothered, and we've had it serviced at Kia since we've had it. Might find one to test drive this weekend if I can.

iolanthe07

I bought a Picanto in April 2014 and it is absolutely fine. There have been no reliability issues at all, and it even has features you wouldn't expect on a car of such a low price, e.g. power folding mirrors and voice controlled bluetooth. It does have a tiny boot, though, and I have to say that its sister car, the Hyundai i10, is probably better value. My Picanto has the 1.25l engine - I think the smaller three cylinder engine is probably too slow.

Rosie_D

We went to look at a used picanto a few months ago & came out buying a brand new one! We absolutely love it, it's only for a second car & the boot space is really good for a small car, we've had it a couple of months now & wouldn't change it for anything! It's just for a runaround, kids, supermarket etc. we bought a brand new one because the offered a lot of incentives with it & to be honest, it didn't cost that much more than one that was 3 years old.

Rambosmum

My 2007 picanto was awful, sluggish, slow, constant issues. I gave it to my brother and he loved it though!

bigjl

Rambosmum wrote: »

My 2007 picanto was awful, sluggish, slow, constant issues. I gave it to my brother and he loved it though!

The older Picanto was indeed reliable if boring.

Luckily the newer one is much improved, probably still errs on the boring side though.

peter_the_piper

Forgot to mention the only annoying thing is the device to help with hill starts,helpful as it holds without hand brake for a second or two. Annoying because it also works when trying to reverse park down hill.

bigjl

And you can't turn it off?

peter_the_piper

Not that I can find, its only a niggle, all cars have them in some form or other.

LM9

I had a 56 reg Picanto 1 litre petrol for about 4 years. Had absolutely no problems with it mechanically and it was very cheap to run.

But, it was under powered. Fine around town and not too bad on motorways, as long as the traffic didn't slow down and quickly speed up again leaving you holding up a lane. Main problem was rural hills - there are two near me where it was impossible to go faster than 50 up them.

oh, the brakes were extremely harsh. And I mean extremely.

Hope that helps.

iolanthe07

I had a 56 reg Picanto 1 litre petrol for about 4 years.

But that would have been the old model. The model introduced in 2011 is completely different and very much improved. Tha Kappa engine has received a good review from motoring journalists, and is surprisingly advanced for its type, though now being superceded by the small turbo units that seem to be all the rage.