Had the Picanto as a courtesy car while my other car is undergoing accident repairs and this was a last minute replacement as the Corsa I was supposed to have but someone had cracked the windscreen!

This is the base model so there

Hmmm, nice little review.

Its nice to hear they put info on basic servicing in the handbook though!

You summed it up very well IMO. Kia generally are nothing but cheap, unsafe, flimsy, generally expensive in the long run pieces of ****.

They will never make like Skoda has through its image.

SWMBO used to have a Rio and it was truly awful in every respect. Servicing (by the main dealer) was expensive and parts even small parts were incredibly expensive. She had the top of the range one and eventually it drove her to tears.

Never will or would I consider a Kia again, they all deserve to be scrapped.

Even the dealer selling them didnt rate them.

Soon there will be thousands of Picantos clogging up forecourts for little or no money. No one will want them as there will be no value in them. You certainly can not polish a turd.

Nice review though, and no offence to yourself. I have a VERY strong hate towards these supposed cars.

My local dealer always has loads of new ones at dirt cheap prices on the forecourt , but as you say the resale will be measured in pence and they seem pretty poor cars to own.

Nice review.......[Any chance you coukd write a bit bigger, even with glasses it was hard for me to read...... ..]

SWMBO has a Kia Picanto 1.1 LX, pre-reg so got it slightly cheaper.

My experience is slightly more positive, I agree with most of the comments both good & bad though

Dealer seemed reasonable enough, cost wise I am unsure right now as nothing has broken as yet (recall-related work aside)

Speakers are sh*te for sure, build quality is nowhere near VAG standards but then it is half the price, roughly.

It is a very small car, more like a Rover 100, and compared to that it is MUCH better in many ways. Handling is great for the type of car it is - i.e. drive it like you stole it = no good, drive it like SWMBO = fine.

Speed bumps seem to not be a big deal for it, my Fabia vRS (lowered admittedly) doesn't absorb them anywhere near as well.

The car has aircon. Uprated the bulbs in it to get decent road visibility. Brakes are excellent for the car, discs all round.

It will not be worth anything when you flog it on, but I haven't had the problem with scratches as yet. SWMBO uses it mainly to drive to work & back and it is perfect for that. Shopping wise it will take a reasonable amount but you end up using the backseat quite easily, it is not big for sure.

I've managed to get reasonably comfortable in the car, and done fairly long trips in it (50+ miles) without a problem.

The fairest I reckon is to say it is a basic car, not too noisy (over 80 mph it is noisy), a no-frills A-B vehicle

Hello and thanks for the feedback and comments Im no motoring journo just saying from experience !

Nice review though, and no offence to yourself. I have a VERY strong hate towards these supposed cars.

No problem:thumbup: I dont blame you if your experience wasn't good.

Any chance you coukd write a bit bigger' date='

[/quote']

I pasted the text from a Word document using Verdana which is shown as the font the forum text is using - well on my browser anyway, but should you so desire a large text version just send me a pm with email and will send you a copy!

Interesting read. Like WW VRS, My wife also has a Kia Picanto and it suits us well bearing in mind what she uses it for and what our expectations were at the time of purchase. Ours is a 1.1 auto, my wife does loads of stop start driving and has a dodgy left knee. It cost