Dacia Duster review

The entry point to the Duster is staggeringly low, undercutting similarly sized rivals by thousands of pounds and residual values are excellent, too.

Running costs are low if you avoid the thirstier petrol engine. The diesel unit is reasonably efficient and, given its official combined fuel consumption is 64.2mpg, you should easily average around 50mpg if you drive it responsibly. Four-wheel-drive models are considerably more expensive to buy and also bring higher fuel and tax costs.

The Duster boasts particularly competitive insurance group ratings that, again, help to keep running costs down. Dacia also offers some very cheap PCP rates so, all in all, the Duster is among the cheapest cars to own in its class.

When you look at the bargain-basement price, you probably won’t be surprised that entry-level Access trim is poorly equipped. On the positive side, it has electric front windows, remote central locking and the same safety kit as other Dusters, but there’s no radio, driver’s seat height adjustment, USB input and comes on plain steel wheels.

It’s definitely worth upgrading to Essential trim – our favourite – because it adds all of the above, plus air conditioning, 60/40-split rear seats, fancier (albeit still steel) wheels and steering wheel stereo controls.

Comfort trim is a fair bit pricer, but does jazz up the interior and exterior should you want to cut a dash in suburbia and want a touchscreen infotainment system. As for Prestige, it has a good level of equipment but starts pushing the price up too much for our liking.

Dacia is owned by Renault, so many of the parts are tried and tested items from the French company. That's probably why Dacia finished a very respectable 13th out of 31 manufacturers in our most recent reliability survey; believe it or not, that’s higher than Renault.

The Duster’s standard warranty is an unremarkable three years or 60,000 miles. Extended five-year/60,000 mile and seven-year/100,000-mile warranties are affordable options.

Safety is one of the areas where the Duster falls well off the pace. It has six airbags (including curtain ones) as standard across the range, but there’s no option to have automatic emergency braking, while blindspot monitoring is only available on top-of-the-range Prestige trim. That's partly why the Duster scored a very disappointing three stars in its Euro NCAP crash tests.

Thatcham Research has not tested any Dacia for resistance to forced entry and theft. Although the steel wheels on the two cheapest trim levels are unlikely to attract thieves, it’s disappointing that an alarm isn’t standard.

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