Kia Picanto drivers?

Picked up our new car yesterday, and we'd been told that it could do 518 miles on a full tank. Now, we know this won't be exact and that's probably a "best case scenario" figure.

My partner has done a lot of research about how to make it more fuel efficient, so he drives with that in mind.

We filled up today (£40) and were confused because the console told us that we had 270 miles before we'd have to fill up again. Even taking into account the difference between best case and average, it's cut it in half! It is going down mile by mile as we drive, so it is accurate in counting at least.

Does anyone else have any experience of this, or know why there might be such a difference?

We will be keeping an eye on it of course, but knowing us it will take us several weeks to use a full tank so I thought I'd ask if anyone had any experience they could let us know about, just so we don't have to wait a month to find out if it's accurate!

When car manufacturers quote the fuel efficiency its usually in immensely perfect and ideal conditions/situations which for drivers is pretty impossible to achieve. Is it a brand new one? Mines doesn't even tell me how many miles i have left

Yeah I understand that, but to halve it seems a little extreme. Yep it's brand new. I had a theory that perhaps it isn't accurate yet because it needs to calculate it properly and it's never had a tank of petrol to measure mileage against but then again I don't have a clue what I'm talking about so perhaps not.

Just give it time, its the same with my dads Volvo XC90, computer blurts out rubbish all the time and changes its mileage data constantly. At least your getting a projected mileage of over 200, mines never goes above 200 miles on a full tank.

Thanks for the help . We will keep our eyes on it & try and work out if it's accurate to the actual fuel gauge. Yeah I know it's still a good amount, that's the main reason we chose the car because of the data reported on the Kia website. Not a big deal I don't suppose but money is quite tight now we've bought it, for a while anyway, so to increase fuel budget wouldn't be great until we've had at least a couple more pay cheques!

Indeed, its astonishingly expensive running a car. I'm 17 and don't even have a job. So messed up!
Kia still doing the really long warranties on their cars?

Yeah, 7 years, so that's great. Also got free breakdown cover for a year and free MOTs for life so that should take the pressure off a bit! Plus insurance is quite low as my partner is 29 so not too bad. And first 3 services are already paid in advance and it's free to tax so luckily it should just be fuel we need to worry about for a bit!

That's a pretty decent deal. Personally within my family had very very bad experiences with KIA, maybe they have brushed up their act but yeah you've got the warranty so your covered. How much is insurance for you?

We'd probably upgrade before the end of the warranty so that's fine - I hate the thought of not being covered; couldn't be bothered with the potential expense. It's £480 this year, don't have no claims yet as neither of us has ever been the main driver on a policy before so that can only get better I suppose. Paid upfront as well so don't have to think about it again until next year.

£480 sounds alot better than my £1917 ill tell you.

Wow that's crazy! But they're the kind of quotes we were looking at when we were looking at second hand cars, not sure why the difference, but we worked out that brand new would probably work out cheaper in the long term because of:

- At least 500 a year less insurance
- No tax
- More fuel efficient
- No MOT for first 3 years (and as it would turn out free MOT for life although we didn't know this at the time)
- £120 off breakdown cover

I know a few friends who've bought really really old cars and have just had them in & out of the garage since they bought them. At least with the warranty we have peace of mind, and by the time that expires we'll still have a relatively new car to trade in!

So how much did you buy it for, on the road price?

Yeah I wanna know this too. What you drive?

So how much did you buy it for, on the road price?

We got it for £8,000 for the 1.0 air model with free black metallic paint (which should apparently have cost £500 so there was no way I was paying for it lol I'd have got a white one if I hadn't managed to get it for free). Should have been £8,995, and then saved another £600 for titanium protection & gap insurance which we managed to get as well. Not bad really, it's the cheapest new car I could find that I liked.

Yeah nobody ever really pays list price. (And if you do, you either are a fool, or are really rich.)

Decent, considering its a cheap car to begin with. More expensive cars usually have more haggling room - personally I've negotiated a car down to £1500 off list price during a promotion which was ALREADY giving a free trim level upgrade.

That's impressive . We were told they had very little room for manoeuvre & most of the money we got off was from the added extras. Although actually it was £8,100 as I forgot I left a deposit when I ordered it as well haha.