► CAR lives with the UK’s cheapest 4×4
► Eight months of reports ahead
► Can it win over millennial Curtis?
When I first got the keys to my Duster, I began longing for the day I could return them; eight months on, that feeling hasn’t really subsided. Did I grow attached to the Romanian heavyweight? Did I enjoy driving it? The meagre mileage says that’s mostly a ‘no’. But do I respect it? That – much to the surprise of the me of eight months ago – is more of a ‘yes’.
Without getting too philosophical, the key to appreciating the Duster is understanding its purpose. This involves acquiring the mindset of someone for whom rewarding car ownership isn’t about how high the redline is, but rather how high the boot sill is (vital, it turns out, when you’re doing a big shop). Look around the Duster and you’ll find it laden with features that make perfect sense from this practicality-first perspective – features like the countless cubbyholes and the moveable armrests. Combine that with a bargain price, and it’s no wonder the Duster is doing absolute numbers for Renault UK.
Over the last eight months, the Duster has certainly been useful. But, for me at least, its combo of super-quick steering and trifle-like suspension hasn’t made it particularly engaging to drive. While I don’t want to exit every corner with a ‘dab of oppo’ – and most customers would rather drive with the wheels in line, anyway – it still wasn’t as much fun at speed as its (more expensive) competitors. Something I do really need to point out in an enthusiast magazine review.
This lack of fun aside, the Duster is a masterclass in subtle and sensible. It’s cheap enough new to compete with used cars. And when bought used – not a daft idea, given how well Dacia owners tend to look after their cars – the Duster is shockingly good value.
There are other cars that deliver this level of practicality – the VW T-Cross, for example. But that’s within touching distance of £30k, which seems laughably expensive, even when you account for its superb infotainment or VW badge. Simply put, the Duster is a fantastic piece of cost-cutting and internal penny pinching: a flagship for thriftiness.
The interior is refreshingly/sadly void of Level 3 autonomous driving or an HUD, but caters to a customer who would rather pay less and do without. There’s nothing experimental or half-baked like BMW’s gesture control here; it’s not pretty, but the Duster’s interior just works, and contains everything you need.
The Duster is a car with an ignition you have to physically turn – which means it’s also a car that doesn’t make you panic about leaving the keys somewhere mid-drive – a constant worry in our mainly keyless test fleet.
All this makes the Duster sound like a dull but impressive car – only that’s not the case either. Although it never captured me, my recent visit to Daciafest revealed a healthy and enthusiastic community of Dacia owners – many of whom have modded or tweaked their cars in some way. Think more third-party aerials and roof racks and less Liberty Walk side skirts and spoilers, but it’s still an example of how a car can capture the imagination.
Would I want to buy a Duster with my own money? No. But if I had a particular set of needs and a particular budget, it’d be an absolute no-brainer. The Dacia may not cater to the sexiest corner of the car market, but it absolutely dominates its niche.
By Curtis Moldrich
Dacia Duster Comfort TCe: logbook
Price £14,400 (£15,045 as tested)
Performance 1333cc turbo four-cyl, 128bhp, 11.1sec 0-62mph, 118mph
Efficiency 39.2-41.5mpg (official), 36.6mpg (tested), 136g/km CO2
Energy cost 15.9p per mile
Miles this month 362
Total miles 5298
Month 7 living with a Dacia Duster: you drive our car
Luxury, technology, driving satisfaction – three factors that rank highly in the world of the car enthusiast. The Dacia Duster is a car that goes out of its way to avoid all three of those expensive, frivolous, decadent qualities – and yet here I am at a gathering of people who are highly enthusiastic about the Duster and its Dacia kin.
What gives? I’ve spent half a year trying to come to terms with the Duster, and can’t get any warmer than a respectful acknowledgement that it fits a purpose efficiently and cheaply. It’s a sensible choice, not an emotional one.
But despite its clear shortcomings, the Duster has something of a cult following, with Facebook groups and owners’ clubs around the world full of Duster fans. Want to know which roof rack fits a Mk I best or how easy it is to install a more streamlined aerial? Want to… lower one? The Dacia Owners UK forum, for example, has you covered. And here I am at the DaciaWorld forum’s annual meeting, Daciafest.
Held at Carsington Water, the second-ever official Daciafest isn’t a huge affair, but the commitment of the people who are here makes up for it. There’s a marquee with a big Dacia sign on it, which seems to be the focal point for people with walkie-talkies, combat trousers and Dacia branding. But the rest of Daciafest is essentially a line of parked Dusters dotted with other Dacias, surrounded by animated owners.
Just like any other car meet, bonnets are up, hands are on hips, and there’s some heavy gesticulating, too. But whereas at other car meets the conversations are about epic overtakes, we Duster drivers are more preoccupied with other drivers cutting us up. It happens a lot.
There are families here, and on a green near the car park – next to a fifth birthday party – I find other forum members playing rounders. These people love their cars, but this is a social event just as much as a chance to discuss Dacia.
From talking to various owners, it seems there’s often an element of loaded-potato-skin about Dacia ownership: boring initially but ready to be infused with flavoursome memories and growing families or just perfect as a dependable, affordable tool.
But enough of the context. Why are these people here – and what do they see in the Duster that I just can’t right now? To investigate I plucked three devotees from the event and asked about their experiences of Dacia ownership, while also seeing what they thought about my car.
Meet the owners
Martyn Steer
Owns a 20015 Mk1 Duster, bought because of its practicality and low running costs, and it won him over with its charm. But is the Mk2 a significant improvement?
Kathleen Topley
Has owned a big variety of other cars but for the last four years has been delighted with her Sandero Stepway. Her question is, has the new Duster got too slick for its own good?
Lucian Popescu
Romanian, and proud of his life-long involvement with Dacias. Regularly drives between Britain and Romania, so prizes reliability, comfort and low running costs.
What they said
Martyn Steer
‘I have a Mk I Duster, one of the early 2015 models. I looked for practicality, more than anything, and then running costs, and reliability, knowing that all the engines and drivetrains come from the Renault side of things.
‘I got it secondhand. The only thing that stops me getting new is affordability. While the cars are cheap enough, there’s big initial deposits that I struggle with.
‘The Duster being bigger and better at towing was the big decider for me [over other cars]. I use it for work and it’s our normal family car. I’m a computer technician so I’m always carrying lots of computer equipment: the big boot is the big advantage.
‘My missus didn’t like the car, full stop, but after having it for about eight months she doesn’t mind it now. She’ll drive it, and she’s quite surprised by how practical it is.
‘The new interior is greatly improved, and the general quality has improved. It’s just a nicer place to be in compared to the original.’
Kathleen Topley
‘We’ve had our Stepway for nearly four years now. It was not an impulse buy, it was the sort of thing where you thought, we’ll just go and have a look at it. But you just know, when you connect with a car.
‘We had a Vauxhall Corsa, but before that we had a Freelander and before that a Range Rover, so we’ve been through quite a few different cars. My husband’s a motor mechanic anyway so every car has to reach a certain standard. Of all the cars we’ve had, he’ll say this Stepway is the favourite.
‘I think when you get one of these cars, you get a connection with it where it becomes part of the family. Everybody can drive it, you can get the family in and you can get everything in the back, too. It serves every purpose that you want out of a car.
‘You can put your own personality on it. You don’t actually see quite so many names like we’ve done printed on the front, but that shows the sort of connection you get. ‘Mechanically it ticks all the boxes, but I’ll get into it and say “come on Lilly, take me home”.
‘I like the steering; it’s not light, it’s easy. And it tells you when to change gear.
‘It’s a basic, affordable car, for people that want to be able to drive a car that doesn’t drive them. [It’s not a car where] you press a button and wait for it to start – those sorts of silly gadgets are nice but not necessary.
‘There’s not a lot of difference to [my Stepway]. The grille, they’ve modernised it, they’ve made it look nice, I’d love to see the front of my car look like that. They’ve improved it somewhat and they’ve brought it more up to date but it’s still a Dacia.’
Lucian Popescu
‘I was looking for something cheaper. I can do my job very easily with my new Duster, and I pay less than the other big brands. I do trips from England to Romania once or twice per year, and when I c0me back from visiting my parents it’s full of everything.
‘The new one is a big improvement. There’s more space, it’s quieter on the road, more refined. It’s got cameras and you feel a bit special in it, because it looks more premium.’
By Curtis Moldrich
Dacia Duster Comfort TCe: logbook
Price £14,400 (£15,045 as tested)
Performance 1333cc turbo four-cyl, 128bhp, 11.1sec 0-62mph, 118mph
Efficiency 39.2-41.5mpg (official), 33.8mpg (tested), 136g/km CO2
Energy cost 15.1p per mile
Miles this month 637
Total miles 4537
Month 6 living with a Dacia Duster: common sense victories
I’m starting to appreciate just how fit for purpose the Duster is. For me, it’s a car that does a particular job very well. But I’m still slightly mystified that some people see a lot more in it than just that. Maybe my perspective is skewed by CAR’s rich diet of much more powerful, expensive and ambitious cars.
One great advantage it has over some of those more premium products is the fact that the most basic of controls are all in the right place in the Duster. It’s a victory for common sense compared to the daily game in fancier test cars of hunt the handbrake, seek the start buttons and get to grips with the gear selector. Not so in the Duster: its simple and familiar ‘twist and go’ ethos is archaic but refreshing.
By Curtis Moldrich
Dacia Duster Comfort TCe: logbook
Price £14,400 (£15,045 as tested)
Performance 1333cc turbo four-cyl, 128bhp, 11.1sec 0-62mph, 118mph
Efficiency 39.2-41.5mpg (official), 33.8mpg (tested), 136g/km CO2
Energy cost 15.1p per mile
Miles this month 637
Total miles 4537
Month 5 living with a Dacia Duster: functional, not fun
The passage of time has softened most of my raw annoyance with the Duster, which is a polite way of saying that I’m still struggling to find much to enjoy about our front-drive 1.3-litre Duster. Functional and practical, yes. Fun, no.
I attempted a kind of shock therapy this month, swapping the Duster with Jake Groves’s Audi R8 and then comparing notes. I got an Audi R8 Spyder for a week while Jake became acquainted with the Dacia. Perhaps this fresh perspective would open my eyes.
His assessment? A shoulder shrug didn’t quite hit the word count, but after some more interrogation Jake turned out to share most of my views on the cheap, jiggly low-speed ride and poor comfort.
Still, Jake did have a few good things to say. He described the engine as ‘boosty, but refined enough at tickover’ – and also described the controls as ‘easy and light’, where I’d gone for ‘numb’.
I’m still not convinced, but perhaps a visit to Daciafest will change my mind…
By Curtis Moldrich
Dacia Duster Comfort TCe: logbook
Price £14,400 (£15,045 as tested)
Performance 1333cc turbo four-cyl, 128bhp, 11.1sec 0-62mph, 118mph
Efficiency 39.2-41.5mpg (official), 33.8mpg (tested), 136g/km CO2
Energy cost 17.4p per mile
Miles this month 1207
Total miles 3900
Month 4 living with a Dacia Duster: sitting comfortably?
The M25 is a ribbon of misery at the best of times, but combine it with seven-hour delays and it’s like a tenth tarmaced circle of hell.
Spending that much time in anything is a strain, but in the Duster, a few ergonomic annoyances build into full-on problems. I’m 6ft 3in, and the Duster forces me to push the seat all the way back – and even then it’s not far enough. My legs constantly rub on the steering wheel. Raising the wheel does me no favours either.
But worst of all are the seats. After three or four hours, I find myself effectively breakdancing in the Duster’s cabin, to a soundtrack of podcasts, hoping to stumble on a position where my lower back vertebrae don’t feel fused together.
By Curtis Moldrich
Dacia Duster Comfort TCe: logbook
Price £14,400 (£15,045 as tested)
Performance 1333cc turbo four-cyl, 128bhp, 11.1sec 0-62mph, 118mph
Efficiency 39.2-41.5mpg (official), 37.1mpg (tested), 136g/km CO2
Energy cost 16.1p per mile
Miles this month 286
Total miles 2693
Month 3 living with a Dacia Duster: missing something?
Ever get the feeling there’s a joke everyone’s in on but you? The entire CAR team has lauded my Duster’s bike-swallowing boot space, back-to-basics approach and honest appeal. Entire, that is, except for me.
It’s not that I only like premium, expensive cars. A good Ford Fiesta, for example, can be very rewarding to drive. Push the Duster, however, and you get nothing. It’s glacial.
What’s on offer is a different sort of entertainment. Use the Duster’s super-light steering to whip it into corners for a mixture of fear and hilarity, and pin the gas to conjure some speed from its 128bhp.
It’s pretty hopeless, and ultimately pointless, trying to make it behave like other cars. But that’s part of the appeal. Am I finally getting it?
By Curtis Moldrich
Dacia Duster Comfort TCe: logbook
Price £14,400 (£15,045 as tested)
Performance 1333cc turbo four-cyl, 128bhp, 11.1sec 0-62mph, 118mph
Efficiency 39.2-41.5mpg (official), 37.1mpg (tested), 136g/km CO2
Energy cost 16.1p per mile
Miles this month 432
Total miles 2407
Month 2 living with a Dacia Duster: cabin inspection
The Dacia Duster might not be the best looking car on the outside, and things get worse the moment you climb aboard. Those more optimistic than me would call the grey plastic expanse ‘honest’ or ‘utilitarian’; it makes no attempt to hide its cost-saving ethos.
Give it a knock and it certainly feels solid – I have no doubt the Duster will take anything I throw at it – but it’s durable in the same way as plastic outdoor furniture.
The doors close with a thunk, the air vents look like shutters on a nuclear bunker, and the gearstick is comically large. Why Dacia felt the need to make the gearknob the size of a Coke can I don’t know.
Another oddity is the electric mirror controls, which sit within their own square recess for some reason. I know this car achieves its bargain price by raiding Renault’s parts bin, but do I have to be reminded about it at every turn? Even the ignition switch looks like an afterthought.
There’s nothing premium about the Duster’s interior, but I’m sure it’d make a robust workhorse for a small family. It gives you generous cabin room, and the grey vastness contains 28.6 litres of storage space, too.
Cavernous doorbins can take a large drinks bottle each, there’s lots of space for multiple things in the transmission tunnel, and there’s even a drawer under the passenger’s seat. If you’ve got a family that doesn’t travel light, or you’re just a single hoarder, this car will fit your needs perfectly.
Sadly, this functionality is wasted on me: all my Dacia Duster truly has to carry is an owner’s manual, fuel fill-up logbook and pen. And me, sometimes.
So, what to think of the Duster’s interior? If you see a car as something you’ll need and want to spend a lot of time in, it’s not great. But think of it as a machine to get you from A to B, and it’s thoughtful and well-executed.
By Curtis Moldrich
Dacia Duster Comfort TCe: logbook
Price £14,400 (£15,045 as tested)
Performance 1333cc turbo four-cyl, 128bhp, 11.1sec 0-62mph, 118mph
Efficiency 39.2-41.5mpg (official), 37.4mpg (tested), 136g/km CO2
Energy cost 16p per mile
Miles this month 569
Total miles 1975
Month 1 living with a Dacia Duster: hello and welcome
The Oxford English Dictionary describes juxtaposition as ‘the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect’, but I think a picture of my new Dacia Duster long-term test car and Ben Miller’s BMW 8-M850i side by side would do just fine. That’s the scene in the car park right now.
The brawny V8 BMW is decimating tyres and fuel – and dominating the Instagram accounts and attention of pretty much everyone I know – but over in the real world, it’s the Dacia Duster that’s the true people’s champion.
Starting from just £9995, it’s crushingly good value when compared with the competition. In fact, it’s so affordable that it has to fight in a different weight category; Dacia says its main rivals come from the used market, and from the C-segment below – no other new car can directly compete when it comes to value.
Take one look at the new Duster and it becomes apparent that it’s on paper that the Dacia presents its best argument for ownership. It’s not exactly a looker, especially in this rather ’70s-style orange metallic paint (a £495 extra), though that’s only my subjective opinion, and on spreadsheets and spec lists, Dacia’s flagship model is certainly eye-catching.
People are buying it too; 45 per cent of all models Dacia sells are Dusters, and UK sales of 10,926 for the first quarter of this year represent a whopping 52 per cent uplift on the same period last year. In the sales charts at least, my Duster has that BMW 8-series beat.
We’re running a £15,000 Comfort TCe; same spacious interior and five seats as the entry-level model, but the extra £5k goes a very long way. In Dacia-speak, Comfort means Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and quite a few other toys. Dacia says most Duster-buyers feel the same; the Comfort hogs 48 per cent of the trim split, with the Essential below accounting for 17 per cent, and the Prestige above making up 31 per cent above. There’s now a flagship Techroad, but with a starting price of around £16k, it’s unlikely to move the needle.
So, does it feel like a £15,000 car? In short, yes, it does. To be fair, Dacia has tried to make the Duster look better than the first-generation model, but even when compared to its Renault siblings, design isn’t its strong suit. It’s a similar story inside, too – but we’ll get to that another time. Still, the Duster isn’t a car you’re supposed to be seduced by – it snares your heart with maths.
I’ll be spending the next six months with the new Duster, and in that time you’ll get a forensic analysis of one the nation’s most popular family cars.
By Curtis Moldrich
Dacia Duster Comfort TCe: logbook
Price £14,400 (£15,045 as tested)
Performance 1333cc turbo four-cyl, 128bhp, 11.1sec 0-62mph, 118mph
Efficiency 39.2-41.5mpg (official), 37.6mpg (tested), 136g/km CO2
Energy cost 16p per mile
Miles this month 1406
Total miles 1406