Kia Picanto review

The Picanto range looks fairly baffling when you see it all on paper, but it breaks down into bitesize chunks depending on what you’re after.

Do you just need a propelled chair or three with rain protection and low running costs? The entry-level 1-spec car starts the range at £12,250, opt for a lease deal and you can barely get in any new car for less than the base Kia’s £177 per month on a 37 month deal with just a £2,000 deposit. The most expensive of the basic trio of trims is the adequately-equipped 3 with automatic transmission at £15,950. If possible we’d urge you to stick with the manual and save £700 in the process, though.

The chunkier X-Line models (X-Line and X-Line S, both with either manual or auto boxes) range from £14,900 to £17,000, and cost £10–£20 more per month to lease. Of course, all of these models come with Kia’s impressive seven-year/100,000-mile warranty that can be transferred between owners for as long as it’s still valid. 

The sportier looking GT-Line Picantos – and the only models to offer the fruitier turbocharged 99bhp T-GDi engine – run pretty much parallel to the X-Line cars, ranging from £14,900 to £15,600 with the 66bhp engine and £15,900 to £17,050 with the turbo unit. Over £17k does seem a lot to pay for a Picanto, but just under £16k for a GT-Line with the fruitier engine is where the value is at.

Running costs will be nice and low for the Picanto too – obviously fuel consumption depends on the model and wheel combo you go for, but official figures across the range are impressive. They’re around 59mpg for the 1, 2, 3 models, 52mpg for the X-Line and 53mpg for the GT-Line with the aforementioned more powerful 99bhp version of the 1.0-litre engine.

VED is much simpler – the 1 and 2 cars with manual transmission squeak into the £170 first-year bracket thanks to their 110g/km CO2 emissions, while the rest of the range sits in the 111-130g/km band that costs £190 in the first year. After that, all cars pay £155 for VED (unless they cost over £40,000, but frankly that’s all quite dull).

When it comes to insurance groupings, all the Picantos sit within groups 1 to 5, apart from the top-spec GT-Line and GT-Line S Picantos with the 99bhp engine that fall into group 11. Phew.