Kia Picanto GT Line Review

October 24th was the big day; I received my Kia Picanto GT Line! After a long boat journey from South Korea to Rotterdam, my car got prepped and sent to Brussels. I was quite eager to get my first car ever and to start my driver’s life…

Choosing a car is tough when you have never really paid attention to them and their specifics. One thing was sure however, I wanted to be as safe as possible so it needed to be well ranked at the Crash Test and to have 6 air bags and the ADAS 3 pack. It was also important for me to have a car that would last, so the 7 year warranty was very attractive, it is a strong selling point of Kia. Hence, I started to look at this brand and loved the design of the Picanto GT. This compact car is perfect for the city but has a very distinctive and fierce look with its red details.

Another important aspect was the options I could get for a good price and to be honest, the Kia Picanto GT Line has a lot to please without being excessively expensive: mine is an automatic, with the advanced driver assistance system, automatic headlights, a really good board computer, navigation pack and a bunch of other options that I don’t really need like cruise control, speed limitation, steel rims and 17” rubbers. Regarding the colours you have a large choice too but I preferred the white one. Engine wise, this Kia Picanto GT Line is a 1.2 with 84CH horse power…For a car that weights 850kg!

All in all, it seemed like the perfect little car to start driving in a crowded city like Brussels…

After receiving a thorough explanation of all the features of the car, I was off to drive around the city…Well mainly from home to work but hey, that’s already something for me. My first thoughts were that this car was really comfortable and easy to drive. I also noticed that I was less bothered by other drivers. You know how some of them are less than courteous on the road towards small cars and L drivers? Well in this one, this is almost nonexistent!

After driving the Kia Picanto GT Line 1.2 for a few months now, I realize that there are a few down sides which I learned to deal with such as:

• The automatic gearbox isn’t the latest generation and the speed calibration isn’t ideal. It might have been better to equip the car with a 1.0 engine and a 6 speed gearbox than the current 1.2 engine and it's 4 speed options. This little car gets really quickly to 3000 rounds which is enormous;

• This car drinks a lot when you are stuck in traffic on every trip; I am currently at 8,6l/km!!

• This car doesn’t like slopes, accelerating in a slope can be a challenge;

I thought initially that I would get used to these downsides and I did but in complete honesty, I don't think that I will buy another Kia any time soon. These cars are lovely to see, contain a lot of technology but they are very slow to drive and not equipped with the latest gearbox generation... But hey, all in all the Picanto GT is a nice little car when you start driving.

You also have a Kia? a Picanto? or even a GT Line? Let me know your opinion about this car!

Cheers!

CC