Kia Picanto 2017

What’s small, fun and petite?  The Kia Picanto, of course!  At 3595 mm long the 2017 Kia Picanto is tiny, but capable of carrying four large adults in reasonable comfort – particularly around town.  Having a chatty, warm persona is always an attractive characteristic, so when the Kia Picanto scooted around the corner, its attractive lines were wed instantly with the lively and welcoming cabin experience.

Not short on entertaining its guests, the Picanto provides plenty of communicative skills in the form of Bluetooth, live streaming, audio and USB and Aux connectivity.  With a cute rear-end the Picanto has no problems parking itself just where you want it, as the rear parking sensors make for easy positioning.

Like some of the Euro equivalents, the Picanto has a large touch screen centred in the dash and has links to all the latest features for audio, communications and other live streaming.  Air-conditioning, all-round electric windows, a decent sound system and a leather-trimmed steering wheel with a glossy centre fascia keep the car looking more upmarket.  You can select any of the five interior colour packs available to add some more charisma to the standard dark grey interior.  One or two of the colour packs are more dazzling than others.

Kia Picanto Interior

DRLs and dusk sensing headlights are clear and visually attractive, offering heightened safety over outgoing Picanto models.  When it comes to small car space, the Kia Picanto is impressive for a car of its size, and it comes with the largest boot in the city car class (255 litres with the rear seats in position).

A feature Kia has gone with as a standard feature in the 2017 Picanto is that of cruise control.  Cruise control in a city car isn’t that stupid, as it’s not too difficult to get speeding tickets in heavily policed areas.  The Picanto has been primarily designed for city life, so the zippy engine responds instantly to quick squirts of acceleration while remaining economical.  Two transmissions are offered on the new Picanto: a five-speed manual or 4-speed auto.  Both well suited for city life.

Venture out onto the faster highways and byways and the Kia Picanto remains well in control, but you do feel slightly more conspicuous.  You notice on the highway that you are driving a small car with less power than most others on the road.  The all new Picanto comes with a 44 per cent increase in the use of Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS).  The increased rigidity has reinforced the chassis and provides better safety, and improves stability, handling and vibration levels.  Overall refinement for such a small car impresses on small 16-inch alloys.  It definitely feels neatly nippy in urban environments, which is, after all, this type of car’s natural environment.  Ride quality is very good and does excel over rough city streets – even with taut body control.

The Picanto’s 1.2-litre engine produces 62 kW of power and 122 Nm of torque and won’t set the world alight with performance ability, but the car feels peppy and can be fun to drive when push-comes-to-shove.  Performance figures for the 5-speed manual are: 12.0 seconds for the 0-100 km/h sprint, 171 km/h top speed, 4.6 litres/100 km combined fuel consumption and a 104 g/km carbon emission result.

Up against cars like the Fiat 500, Hyundai i10 and VW Up, Kia’s unlimited km/7 year warranty is exceptional and worth bringing to the attention of all new-car buyers looking for a low-cost bargain.  The 2017 Kia Picanto is small, nimble, cheap to run and very well equipped – boasting refinement and standard equipment more readily found on larger, high-spec cars.  Kia’s latest Picanto has been designed in concurrence between both Korea and German development and design centres.  The result is a nice looking city car with plenty character and comfort.

The current Kia Picanto model series includes the:

• Picanto S manual
• Picanto S auto

For any more information on the Kia Picanto or, for that matter, any other new car, contact one of our friendly consultants on 1300 303 181. If you’d like some fleet discount pricing (yes even for private buyers!), we can submit vehicle quote requests out to our national network of Kia dealers and come back with pricing within 24 hours. Private Fleet – car buying made easy!