Kia Picanto Review & Prices

The Picanto is Kia’s smallest car, and it’s one of the few true ‘city cars’ that you can buy these days. It looks great, offers a surprisingly roomy interior and it’s well equipped, but it’s a bit out of its depth on the motorway.

Being one of the last proper city cars left standing amongst the Hyundai i10 and Toyota Aygo X, you can think of the Picanto as the house from the movie Up. It’s still here against a sea of newer, larger alternatives – but instead of new-build high rises it’s facing off against cars such as the Citroen C3 and Fiat Grande Panda, and it’s a bit more charming, too.

A substantial mid-life facelift gave the Picanto an all-new look, in line with the larger Kia EV3, EV9 and Sorento SUVs. What was once a slightly dowdy-looking thing now has a seriously mean mug, with aggressive headlights and boxy bumpers. It’s handsome, and its dinky proportions still keep it looking friendly.

The interior isn’t quite as striking (you can still see the earlier model’s roots here), but all Picantos come equipped with an 8.0-inch infotainment screen and digital driver’s display as standard. That should bring the model up to date, but the driver’s screen is confusing to wrap your head around.

Material quality isn’t great, with a cabin full of hard plastics, but that’s par for the course in a car this cheap. At least it’s spacious inside, and you can genuinely fit four six-foot adults in the Picanto with little fuss - you even get ISOFIX child seat anchor points. The 252-litre boot is surprisingly large for such a small car, too.

You only have one engine to choose from in the Picanto, a modest little 1.0-litre unit which produces 68hp and comes with either a manual or automatic gearbox. Choose the manual, as the auto option is dire.

The Picanto is in its element around town, where its tiny footprint, upright seating position and wheels pushed right out to the corners of its bodywork make it a breeze to chuck around tight streets. The gear lever, clutch and steering are finger-light, too.

Cracks begin to show on the motorway, where it gets battered around by strong winds and the little engine feels very strained when accelerating up to a cruise. Overtakes are best planned days in advance.

Pull onto a country lane and the Picanto becomes fun to drive, not because it’s sporty, but because it's light and has surprisingly little body lean. It’s far from a hot hatchback, but it’s entertaining enough on a back road.

Have a look at the latest Kia Picanto deals on Carwow, or Picanto lease deals, instead. You can find used Picantos for sale through our trusted dealer network, as well as other used Kia options. You can even sell your car through Carwow, when the time comes to switch.

The Picanto starts at under £17,000 in the Pure trim level, which makes it one of the cheapest cars in the UK - though the Dacia Sandero and electric Dacia Spring and Leapmotor T03 duo undercut it. The mechanically-similar Hyundai i10 costs around £500 extra.

Opting for an automatic gearbox will set you back an extra £700 - but we would really recommend avoiding it, as it’s far from smooth and very sluggish. All cars do come with alloy wheels, air conditioning, a reversing camera and smartphone connectivity, but for the sportier-looking (and far more attractive) version with cool alloys, you’ll need to pay over £1,000 more for GT-Line trim.

Range-topping GT-Line S models come in at almost £20,000, but they’re better equipped with more driver assistance software, a sunroof and an LED light bar at the front.

The Picanto's tiny body makes it easy to drive in town and the engines are well-suited for urban environments, but it’s hard work on the motorway

In town

The city is the Picanto’s natural environment. Its compact dimensions mean it is easy to thread though the traffic, with its narrow footprint being especially handy when trying to squeeze through narrow streets and between parked cars.

A tight turning circle makes parking manoeuvres easy too, and it's simple to squeeze into spaces which SUV drivers would have to ignore. All cars get a reversing camera and rear parking sensors, too, so it’s easy to make sure you’re going right up to the next car’s bumper.

Despite the small overall length, the Picanto has a longer wheelbase than is usual in this sector, which makes it feel remarkably refined around town. Broken surfaces are absorbed admirably by the suspension and even speed bumps are soaked up without drama. Steer clear of the bigger 16-inch wheels if ride comfort is crucial to you though. They make the steering feel sharper but add to the road noise and make the car feel firmer.

The 1.0-litre engine is far from quick, but feels fine for urban traffic situations. You might be tempted to opt for the automatic gearbox to save your left leg in traffic, but we’d advise against it - it’s a very cheap kind of automatic known as an automated manual, and it’s lumpy, unresponsive and frustrating to use.

On the motorway

It’s important to put the Picanto’s motorway manners in context. Compared with a small car from ten years ago, it’s practically a limousine. However nowadays, Dacia, MG and Citroen will sell you a much larger car that copes with faster roads far better than the Picanto does - for a comparable price.

The 1.0-litre 62hp engine requires some forward planning for overtakes or sliproads, and you’ll likely need to rev it quite a lot to keep up with traffic in these scenarios. The Picanto’s tiny size means it can get bouncy on faster roads, and its light weight does make it more susceptible to cross winds.

On a twisty road

Even the sporty-looking GT-Line models are not really designed to be a fun car in the same way as a proper hot hatchback, but there is still something entertaining about driving a small and slow car like the Picanto on a twisty road.

You do need to work the gears hard, and rev the engine a lot to keep your momentum up. That’s not too much of a chore, as the gearbox feels really nice to use (as long as you get the manual) and there’s plenty of grip from the front tyres to allow you to carry what little speed you have into the bends.

The steering feels positive but it’s very light, and body lean is quite well-contained.

Five doors and plenty of room for such a small car - but you can get bigger vehicles with more space for the same money

The Kia Picanto can’t quite do a TARDIS and cheat physics. It’s a small car, so it has a small interior. However, if you’re a couple or perhaps a young family, you might find that it’s all you need - and it’s certainly more spacious than something like a Fiat 500.

The driving position isn’t perfect as the steering wheel only adjusts for height. That means if you have very long arms or legs you might find it’s difficult to get comfortable. However, all models get a height-adjustable driver’s seat, and so you should be able to minimise the issue.

Storage up front is pretty good. There are a pair of cupholders which you can hide away if needed, plus a small tray in front of them and another just underneath the climate controls that’s perfectly sized for a mobile phone. It’s a shame that there’s no way to route a cable, though - if you’re plumbed into the infotainment system, you’ll have to have your phone upright somewhere else.

The door bins are shaped to hold a bottle, there’s a reasonable glovebox and a modicum of storage under the central armrest. It’s a pretty good arrangement for such a small car.

Space in the back seats

Don’t expect to fit a whole rugby team in the Picanto’s back seats. However, what you can genuinely do is fit a six-foot adult behind a six-foot driver. They’ll have to sit quite upright, but it’s more than feasible for short journeys.

It also means there’s more space for a child seat than in many similarly-sized alternatives, and there are a pair of ISOFIX mounting points on the outer rear seats to facilitate this. The rear doors also open nice and wide, and unlike the Toyota Aygo X you get proper electric rear windows instead of meagre pop-out affairs.

Boot space

You probably won’t be expecting to start a removals business using a Picanto, but it is worth checking that the 255-litre boot is going to be big enough for your needs. It's marginally roomier than those in the Hyundai i10 (252 litres) and is just beaten by the Suzuki Ignis (267 litres), so you won’t struggle to fit a weekly shop for two or a weekend getaway in there.

All models come with rear seats that fold and split 60:40, so you can carry a passenger in the back next to some flat-pack furniture poking through from the boot.

If you’re splashing out on one of the top models it comes with an adjustable load floor that means you can slide a suitcase into the boot without having to lift it over the load lip, and can hide valuable items too.

Nicely-designed interior is easy to use with plenty of buttons - shame the digital dials are a poor attempt and there’s no wireless connectivity

The Picanto’s interior has quite a lot to like about it, and the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. First of all, it’s a little old-fashioned, but in a really nice way. That means you get a proper instrument binnacle that you can see in direct sunlight, as well as discrete climate controls which you can alter without ever having to go near the touchscreen.

Even the screen itself has shortcut buttons underneath it as well as a physical volume dial. Add in the manual gearshifter and real handbrake, and it’s distinctly analogue in here.

Well, until you reach the dials. Kia says it’s a fully digital instrument cluster, and that’s technically correct - but instead of fitting a big screen like you get in most alternatives, you instead get two LCD readouts for speed and revs. The latter in particular is really quite useless - we’re accustomed to seeing revs as a needle, so the number ‘3.4’ (for example) doesn’t really mean anything. You get a small screen between these two readouts for stuff like your trip computer or nav directions.

The infotainment screen is easy to use and responsive, even if its 8.0-inch screen looks a little small by today’s standards. All models get sat-nav built-in, which is nice, but it’s a shame that Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are both wired-only, even on models that come equipped with a wireless charging pad.

Material quality isn’t perfect - the dashboard is made of uniformly hard plastics, for example - but that’s to be expected in a car this small and cheap. Everything feels very well screwed-together nonetheless.

Kia claims that the Picanto’s 1.0-litre engine can manage over 52.4mpg, though if you’re doing a lot of faster driving and working the engine hard then a more normal average is around 45mpg.

The Picanto’s CO2 emissions range from 120g/km to 123g/km - low enough for an economical first-year road tax bill, but not enough to make it a more appealing proposition than a larger, plug-in hybrid or electric car for company car drivers.

The Picanto gets a fairly average three star rating in the independent Euro NCAP tests, but that’s on a par with its rivals in the city car sector. However, that rating was back in 2017, and the test has become a lot tougher since.

It actually has a decent amount of safety kit to protect you as standard, including side and curtain airbags and a forward collision avoidance assist system.

Rear parking sensors and a camera are standard on all models to prevent low speed knocks. It’s a shame that Kia doesn’t fit any shortcuts to turn off the more annoying advanced safety features - you have to go through a couple of menus to do this yourself.

To stop anyone making off with your Picanto, there is a standard alarm across the range, along with locking wheel nuts and speed sensing auto door locking.

Kia came 18th out of 31 manufacturers in the 2025 Driver Power survey for owner satisfaction, which puts it in the lower half of the table. Not great, given Kia’s generally sterling reputation.

The Picanto comes with a seven-year, 100,000 mile warranty, which is reassuring, but still some way behind Toyota’s 10-year guarantee.