[Barnaby the bear]

I have driven autos for the past 18 years , does this one take much learning, do you find much wait time from pressing the accelerator to power been delivered when pulling out of junctions roundabouts, do you find the gear change clunky or smooth, many thanks for your time

I've had the Picanto 3 AMT (998cc) for a month now. The AMT gearbox is very good in my view, but the car is a bit sluggish when accelerating from a standstill (especially at roundabouts, when speed is needed). The reason seems to be that the gears are rather low: it has to change from 1st to 2nd and then to 3rd gear before it picks up enough speed. My old Aygo MMT only has to change up to 2nd gear to get up to a reasonable speed.

 

[Barnaby the bear]

The amt does 55 to 60 mpg on the instrument panel. I have not tested it with full to full tank.
It is powerful enough around town and happily does 70 on the motorway. We test drove both gearboxes and there is little difference between them.
If you search picanto amt on youtube you will find some reviews

My Picanto 3 AMT has averaged 61 MPG since its last refuelling, only on local commuting trips. That's according to the display on the dashboard, which someone here said is overoptimistic.

 

[Barnaby the bear]

Thanks for the input , does you know what mpg you are getting out if the AMT automatic, many thanks

I have an answer (5-week-old Picanto 3 AMT) based on real petrol consumption! In the last 245 miles, local trips only, it did 55.5 MPG. This is a bit disappointing because the vehicle claimed it had done 61.4 MPG. It's also worse than my 14-year-old Aygo, which I was using for the same trips in the same time period, which managed 57.9 MPG.

 

[Barnaby the bear]

That's seems really good mpg for a new car, how do you find the AMT auto box when it changes gear, jerky at all?, is it slow to re engage for example when stopped at around about or lights, how do you find it going up hill? , Many thanks

The gear change is extremely smooth and hard to notice, at least in normal use when I speed up gradually. I haven't noticed the slow/jerky gear change that was mentioned in a lot of reviews. The only problem is at roundabouts, when I need to accelerate quickly from a standstill. The gears are so low (lower than my old Aygo's) that one needs to get into at least 3rd gear ASAP but it takes a long time to change up from 1st to 2nd and then 3rd. I tried changing manually but couldn't do it faster than the automatic gear change. I'm now trying to solve this problem by accelerating harder, but that (not surprisingly) does result in a jerky movement during the actual gear changes.

I haven't tried going up or down any steep hills yet. I frequently go up a gentle hill with a 60mph speed limit and the car keeps to 60mph well, whereas the old Aygo struggles a bit.

 

[Barnaby the bear]

Does the harder accelerating at roundabouts get you away faster?, with the trade off with the jerky gear changes at roundabouts.

Not really. I tried it today on an empty road. Accelerating hard from a standstill, it reached 21mph after 4 seconds (at more than 5000rpm!) in 1st gear. It then stayed at about 21mph for more than 1 second while changing to 2nd gear. It took another 3 seconds to reach 33mph, when it changed to 3rd gear. It's not ideal at roundabouts with heavy fast traffic.

 

[Barnaby the bear]

not at all. I test drove one and had no issue on a 66bhp auto picanto.

You wouldn't discover this problem on a test drive. I've driven 1000s of miles and most of the time it's fine. The main problem for me is when trying to accelerate rapidly from a standstill. @Mawkie described the problem(s) well here.