Kia Picanto Review
Published: 25th April 2005
Kia Picanto
Ease of Use
The car features power steering and has a relatively tight turning circle of just over 26 feet. Parking is a hoot and with the wheels set at the extremes of the car, there are short overhangs making it easy to manouvre and vision is excellent all round.
All of the Picanto range feature five doors, which makes the Picanto a very easy car to get in and out of and no one has to get out of the front seats to let rear seat passengers exit.
The 60/40 split rear seats folds flat to provide you with 882 litres of luggage space, with the seats up this decreases to 150 litres although enough for the weekly shop or a sports bags. It does have a load cover to protect your luggage from prying eyes.
On a practical level the Picanto features seat back pockets, grab handles and a useful storage tray under the boot floor.
In fact the only annoying thing about the Picanto is that the indicator stalk is located on the right hand side of the steering wheel and you find yourself switching on the windscreen wipers when you want to indicate and vice versa. However, this is the case with all Korean cars and you soon get used to it.
Safety and Security 
Unusually for this class of vehicle the Picanto comes with front and rear disc brakes as standard - backed up by state-of-the-art ABS (anti-lock brakes) and load-sensitive EBD (electronic brake force distribution). The brakes are excellent ensuring that the Picanto stops reassuringly well.
The Picanto is equipped with high-tensile steel beams in each door to resist side impact forces, reinforced front and rear bumpers, child safety locks on the rear doors and three-point seatbelts for all five occupants (or four in case of the 1.1 SE). Driver and passenger front airbags and front seatbelt pre-tensioners are installed as standard and all cars have a full compliment of height adjustable head restraints for front and rear occupants. For those of you who need to fit children’s seats the Picanto has ISOFIX child seat anchors.
Security on the Picanto is enhanced by the fitting of central locking and remote releases for both the tailgate and the fuel filler flap. The Picanto is fitted with an engine immobiliser and the 1.1 LX and 1.1 SE get remote central locking and an anti-theft alarm as standard.
