Hiring a small car for a visit to the Shetland Isles gave me the opportunity to try a modern Kia Picanto. I was really impressed by its fuel economy and refinement. It felt in it's natural environment on Shetland, apart from the main road between Sumburgh and Lerwick where it ran out of puff on the steeper hills. On my first trip I managed an indicated 65.3mpg and subsequently saw flash readings of over 70mpg. The gearchange indicator light often came on long before the little car could climb a hill in a higher gear so I ignored it. This is to encourage drivers to eke out the fuel and when you're on the level or a downward grade it proved how much low down torque this little car has.
There were no parking cameras and the handbrake was an ordinary one. The footbrake felt over-servoed compared to my old cars - apart from the Citroen GSA which is like an electric switch. I didn't explore what the knobs and buttons did on the steering wheel. It had air conditioning, which I kept on for the novelty, and automatic headlamp settings, which I only discovered on the penultimate day.
The Kia Picanto is unpretentious and basic and piqued my interest because it could be sustainable motoring. It's not sleek but tall and stumpy. It's a common package used by many other manufacturers so it looks like other city cars with similar proportions. Peter Schreyer, of Audi TT fame, designed it and the Picanto has the corporate "Tiger nose" that Freyer introduced for the brand with the Kia Kee concept car.
There's not much to go wrong. It had a stop and start function The range indicator was like an electric car and, in these days of costs and distribution crises, flagging up how many miles the computer thought you had left to go supplemented the ordinary fuel gauge. I wondered idly if this prompted people to panic about running out of fuel and made them fill up before it was really necessary. It's a 35 litre tank.
I began to wonder - slightly less idly - about its technical details.
I could hear it was a three cylinder engine but the user manual was mostly about infotainment.
I used to read car magazines regularly to keep up with developments but the current crop of titles avoid the oily bits. Autocar and Motor used to have glorious cut-aways of the engine and bodyshell. Not any more. You could buy an issue that was full of about the new Mercedes S-Class. Nowadays, you get drip fed superficialities over several issues because you'll have bought one of their subscriptions, won't you? And when they do feature a new car it's about trim levels, finance packages and what colour is best for re-sale. Apparently, it's metallic silver.
New cars these days are not bought by you for you. You buy them for some one else i.e, the next owner, so no gaudy colours to put the punter off at re-sale and make sure the showroom appeal of automatic tailgates, retractable mirrors and bluetooth is still there for trade in.
New cars are disposal. You don't buy one and keep it. You even have to give them back after 4 years or so with certain finance deals. You after it for a while at your house and borrow it occasionally, within predetermined constraints.
For technical data, I cast around for an Observer's Book of Automobiles for 2022 but they'd stopped being produced in the last millenium. Manufacturer's websites were about how these cars fitted in with life style. They had dimensions and options lists and emissions and safety devices and, actually, gearbox ratios and power outputs but no cutaway drawings of the engine or descriptions of the car's heart and soul. I could find on line buyer's guides but very little to tell me what the bore and stroke of the Kia Picanto was or whether it had a wet cambelt like a Ford Ecoboost.
Eventually, I found a website that went beyond showroom appeal and went into things like bore and stroke. If I can find out about that, I can usually find out about other stuff.
Ultimatespecs told me the normally aspirated double overhead camshaft engine has four valves per cylinder with an 11:1 compression ratio with multipoint indirect fuel injection and a bore and stroke of 71 x 84mm to 998cc, which is a good number for an Imp enthusiast like me.
I remember Daihatsu marketing their three-cylinder Charades with a 993cc three-cylinder engine, claiming 330cc was the most efficient cylinder size after conducting significant research. This 330cc plus an extra bit. Max power is 49kW (66bhp)@ 5500rpm and max torque is 96Nm or 70 lb ft@ 3750rpm.
Honest John confirmed Picantos switched over from belts to chains with the second generation or TA model, introduced in 2011. The third generation (JA) came in from 2017 and these had a facelift in 2020.
Autodata indicated that the Kia Picanto can do 0-60 in 14.6 seconds (I didn't try this) although Auto Express magazine listed 12.4 seconds on their website. I had more trouble finding out the in gear 30-50mph times, as this is something I would explore, but Auto Express came to the rescue with 9.5 seconds in 4th and 13.9 seconds in fifth for 50-70mph.
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| Like many of its contemporaries, the driver's view in the Kia Picanto puts one in mind of Roland Rat. |
Front suspension is coil springs with MacPherson struts and rear is semi-independent with torsion bars.
The Kia Picanto has electric power assisted steering and a stop and start system that stops the engine when you pull up and put the engine in neutral. Depressing the clutch pedal restarts the engine. You have to depress the clutch anyway to start the motor. This seems like a sensible safety feature and prevents accidental starting in gear. It's got ABS and 7 (count them) airbags.
Picantos are made in Seosan, in South Korea, Gurun in Malaysis, Batna in Algeria and Kaliningrad in Russia.
Kia have an impressive reliability rating so may be candidates for sustainable motoring!
The 998cc engine made me of the Hillman Imp and that little car's enduring legacy. Could the Picanto be a modern take?
To take that mantle on properly, it would need a motorsport career. I can't see many modifying the Picanto in the same way that way did the Imp for cheap competition. My K11 Micra has more of a competition pedigree and might become a cult car in time to come. The Picanto is not known for its impact in motorsport, although there are one make racing series in Poland and Portugal. Hyundai i20s are more in that line. The Kia Picanto's fame is sure to be as a loyal four-wheeled servant - unless they start racing them at Goodwood in 50 years time like Austin A35s.
It weighs 874kg at the kerb and has a power to weight ratio of 13.4 kg/Hp, 74.5 Hp/tonne, which goes to show how mixed up we are with our weights and measures. It should be hp/lb or kW to kg. In real money, that's 0.03hp/lb or 0.056 kW/kg. Or 17.84kgs per kW. Or 29.2lbs per hp.
There's the 1.0 T-GDi turbo petrol option that's more expensive with flashier looks and showroom gadgets. This offers 99bhp (100PS or 74Kw) @4500rpm and 172Nm (126lb ft) @ 1500rpm. These are heavier at 920kg so the power to weight ratio is 0.08kW/kg and the 0-60 time is 10.3 seconds.
If I were to have a Picanto, turbocharged this engine in the lower spec Picanto sounds would be my choice but, if you swapped it over, would the engine loom talk to the car wiring loom? I would also opt for its rear disc brakes, please, thank you.
Wikipedia told me the Hyundai/Kia engine family is called Kappa and the third generation JA Picanto has a four cylinder Kappa engine option. These aren't available in the UK but offer 63Kw @ 6000rpm and 121Nm @ 4000rpm from 1248cc (71 x 78.8mm). A destroked version of 1197cc is offered for markets with a 1200c tax break.
Biggest Kappa engine is offered in the Hyundai Ioniq in hybrid applications. I like the styling of the latest Ioniq and their internal combustion components puts out 77Kw @ 5700rpm and 147Nm @ 4000rpm. Bore and stroke are 72 x 97mm for a swept volume of 1579cc.
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| In its natural environment at Walls, Shetland. |
Searching for this info on line is not as satisfying as looking it up in a book. Each website has adverts that pop up, slow them down and make them freeze. I am then forced to note down the products or services they offer and resolve never to give them my custom.
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| I couldn't find a 2022 guide in English |
I found a new car guide in the German language and spent a happy afternoon using auto translation technology to discover that it goes some way to filling my info gap but not as far as an Observer's book would. I loved mine, especially the 1970 edition, which seems to represent the peak in standards.
As for the Kia Picanto, a new car is always out of reach due to the purchase price and if one came my way later on someone "would have had the best of it" as a mate of mine would put it.
On Shetland, though, I couldn't fault it apart from the lack of go up hills. I liked driving the Kia Picanto but in an island situation of Shetland's size an all electric car makes more sense to me.
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