KIA PICANTO
City scoot with added spice
AS FAR AS toe-in-thewater exercises go, Kia Australia’s experiment with launching the pintsized Picanto last year was a success. With just one model grade, engine and transmission on offer, Picanto buyers weren’t exactly spoiled for choice. That said, Kia’s staff clearly have an aptitude for reading the market, as Picanto sales quickly clinched top spot in the normally price-sensitive sublight hatchback market.
Accordingly, there’s been little inclination to mess with the basic formula. The mostly new 2017 Picanto is still a single-spec, single-engine entity, though this time around there’s a manualequipped variant to sit alongside the established automatic.
The four-pot engine and four-speed automatic carry over, but everything else, from platform, suspension, interior and bodywork, are entirely new.
A 7.0-inch colour display in a tombstone-style housing is the centrepiece of the interior, and though integrated sat-nav is still missing from the spec sheet, provision of Android Auto and Apple Carplay means you can still put map data up on that screen.
A rear parking camera is also new for 2017, joining the alreadystandard rear sonar sensors. Private buyers are the target, not fleets, hence the healthy spec list.
That up-spec aspiration flows to the rest of the interior. The toy-like dashboard of the previous gen has been swapped for slicker-looking furniture. There’s some design flair, too, with neat crosshair air vents linked by a thick silver bar to give it some visual width.
There’s fractionally more space, too, thanks to a 15mm wheelbase stretch. Front-seat passengers benefit the most with increased legroom, but luggage capacity also swells from 200L to a more acceptable 255L.
Front-seat comfort is good, with plenty of room around the shoulders, decent bolstering around thighs and kidneys, and a height-adjustable driver’s seat.
Rear-seat headroom is shaved by 2mm, but every other dimension either grows or stays the same. The backrest is reclined further too, yielding a more natural posture that should deliver better long-distance comfort.
More insulation material and revised engine intake ducting yields better refinement, though it’s not quite up to the task of quelling the Picanto’s substantial tyre roar on coarse-chip roads.
And while the engine remains a willing, if not especially powerful little unit, it’s the transmissions that could use an update.
Four-speed autos are fairly oldhat these days, and an extra ratio would help the Picanto cruise more quietly and frugally on the freeway. The manual is more versatile, but a spongy and vague clutch pedal lets it down.
The suspension hits the mark, though. Kia Australia’s local tune delivers decent compliance and control on highways, alongside respectable handling for something that runs on ecofocused tyres.
The electric power steering was also fettled. A faster rack ratio reduces the amount of carpark wheel-twirling, but it also boasts a pleasingly light weight and good on-centre feel. It feels stable at speed as well, something at which sub-light cars don’t always excel.
The old Picanto may have already proved sub-light Kia hatchbacks could lead the segment in terms of sales, but its replacement demonstrates that the Koreans can cut the mustard on qualitative terms as well.