Dacia Duster review: Cheap and cheerful, but charming too

When Examiner Motoring announced in our final column of last year our 2024 Car of the Year awards that the new Dacia Duster was our overall winner, many people – close friends and relatives included – rang my wife to inquire if I had finally lost the plot and gone rogue.

In fairness, it was not an entirely unreasonable supposition given that Dacia’s esteem in the broad scheme of all things motoring had long been akin to that of something nasty you might have trod on while out walking.

Like Skoda before it, Dacia was a former Easteren European manufacturer whose reputation for building poor cars – poor at least by Western standards – preceded its takeover by a major player in the world of automotive production. In Skoda’s case, it was Volkswagen, while for Dacia, it was Renault.

The original ‘cheap and cheerful’ tag which would have accompanied either brand’s early efforts under their new ownership were as predictable as they were correct, but they failed to signpost what would come later.

In the case of Skoda, it was a slow but steady build up to the point where they were regarded, both by the public and the trade, as a serious player and an acceptance by the buying public that what they designed and made was not alone of the highest order, but as good, if not better, than what its new parent company was making.

With Dacia that was never the case, but instead of embarrassing its new owners, it made them proud by creating a zeitgeist all of its own among the buying public. Want something cheap as either as primary or secondary family auto? Well, look no further.

Want something as a second car that you can also use to teach the kids to drive, not caring that the dings and scrapes that naturally follow such a learning curve would devalue the car? A Dacia is the car.

Simply of no mind to concern yourself about the polemics of car ownership and the passionate snobbery that goes with it? The Romanians have the answer.

Two previous generations of the Duster found the car enjoying a surprising following among urbanites who simply wanted cheap, few-frills motoring; among ruralites who wanted something that was happy to plough through endless amounts of dung and keep going; and, also among the adventurous set who wanted something which could climb a small Alp and was about a fifth of the price of a Land Rover.

The car was not an immediate success, rather being a slow burner that gained increasing traction as it went along. The figures tell the tale: last year it sold 215,024 units across Europe – up 7.3% on ’23; it has also been the best-selling SUV on the retail market since 2018. Given that it was launched in 2010, it took a little while to find its feet.

That they were making a bunch of money selling them, Renault were prepared to loosen the purse strings a little when it came to the new one and actually invest a few quid on design and engineering rather than simply allowing the Romanians plunder their parts bin and hope for the best.

It may have been that previous iterations came from what might be termed the ‘bag-of-spuds’ school of engineering and were, so to speak, as rough as a badger’s bum, but this time around the relative sophistication of the new car is almost shocking.

Somewhat cleverly – and perhaps even a little naughtily – the designers have given the Duster something of a faux ‘Land Rover’ vibe when it comes to the look of the thing. And, they have even produced something new on the exterior plastics used – 20% of which come from recycled sources – as they now have a speckled colour effect, which Dacia calls ‘starkle.’ 

While the look of the car has been heavily refined , most of the changes are under the skin; there’s a new platform, moving on from the elderly Renault-Nissan ‘B’ platform upon which it was previously based, which is nearly as old as the Flying Scotsman; there’s a whole new suspension layout; and, new powertrains, including a hybrid option (which we tested).

The interior has been heavily revised too and while there are still quite a lot of cheap plastics on display, the overall look is much more refined than ever before and there’s an air of sophistication about it now that was never there before.

There is an array of different shaped cubbies in and around the cockpit which are handy and while the entry level models have to do without a centre screen for the infotainment and all that, Dacia have installed a solid mounting for your phone and you use that instead for entertainment and navigation.

From Expression models and above there is a 10.1” screen for all the major functions including climate. This is not related to the Renault OpenR system and has been developed by Dacia itself and the results are surprisingly good and includes a ‘Perso’ button to allow you turn off all those warning systems that drive you nuts at the press of a button.

The digital instrumentation screen is also clear and easy to assimilate and can be tweaked to suit your personal tastes. All in all, the interior is still on the utilitarian side of basic, but is clever in its own right and it all works well; the seating is comfortable and roomy, although the boot is on the small side.

On the road, however, it’s all very different indeed. We had the two-wheel-drive version and if the old one understeered like a dog with one front leg shorter than the other, this one is much more planted and confidence inspiring.

The steering is a touch numb, but it weights up nicely when it’s supposed to and cornering in general is very solid and without vice. The handling in general is unrecognisable by comparison with its predecessor – smooth and passenger friendly.

As well as that, the new anti-roll bars work really well and there is no undue lean and it does not pitch badly on rough surfaces.

The hybrid engine on the Hybrid 140, as the tester is named, is wickedly economic; the system integrates a 1.6 litre four-cylinder petrol engine with a 36 kW electric motor and a 1.2 kWh battery and provides an output of 141 bhp, a top speed of 160 km/h and a 0-100 km/h time of 10.1 seconds. If you’re not getting in the region of 5.0 l/100 km (56 mpg), then there’s something wrong.

This system has been biased towards using electricity whenever possible and, unfortunately, this has its downsides. When the engine chimes in – which it seems to do somewhat unpredictably, no matter how hard – or soft – your foot is on the accelerator pedal, it does get a bit raucous.

This is surprising and suggests that the engineering team has fully got to grips with the mapping systems in the engine’s electronics; it is a small blight on an otherwise excellent drive.

Largely, then, this is a car unrecognisable from previous Dusters with regard to its look, its equipping levels, its comfort, its on-road behaviour. Indeed, the differences between this an previous incarnations were immediately obvious – and hugely welcome too.

Such was the immediate impact of the new Duster, it struck me as being a winner straight off the bat. The older cars were good too, mainly for reasons of price and durability. 

The new one retains those qualities, adding a dash of sophistication, design smarts and usable technology to the equation. That’s why it won the Examiner Car of the Year title and also gets a five-star rating.