Dacia Duster review

The Duster provides a decent amount of headroom up front, however; the front seats don't slide very far back at all and you'll struggle for comfort if you're really long in the leg. It's also annoying that there’s no passenger seat height adjustment on any model.

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The front doors are tall and wide, so getting in and out is a breeze. Storage provision is reasonable, with decent front door bins and a pair of fixed cupholders that also double as extra oddment space ahead of the gearlever. There's a selection of cubbies between the front seats, too; although some are too small to be of much use. You’ll need to step up to Comfort trim for a front armrest.

The Duster offers quite a lot of space in the rear, and certainly feels like it'll fit into family life. However, at this bargain end of the family SUV price spectrum, the MG GS offers more room up front and in the rear.

Thanks to tall door openings, access to the rear is easy and a raised floor means you don’t have to bend down too much to get kids in and out of child seats. It’s possible to fit three child seats across the back, depending on their size, but there’s a wide centre tunnel that the middle passenger will have to sit splay-legged to accommodate.

Entry-level Dusters have an all-or-nothing one-piece folding rear bench, but Essential models and up have a rather more versatile 60/40 split-folding arrangement. Folding the rear seatbacks is easy enough and leaves a very long but not particularly flat load area. Still, you can flip the seatbase up first to help create a flatter space.

The front passenger seat doesn’t adjust for height, but you can fold the backrest forward by about 45deg to allow more space for long loads when the rear seats are folded.

The Duster’s boot is large by any standards – front-wheel-drive models have 445 litres of boot space, while four-wheel-drive Dusters offer a slightly less enormous 411 litres, or 376 litres with the optional spare wheel fitted. Regardless, there’s easily enough space in the boot to carry a week’s holiday luggage, a fold-up buggy or an especially large family grocery shop.

With the rear seats folded, front-wheel-drive cars offer 1623 litres of volume; plenty for a visit to that well-known Swedish store for some flat-pack furniture. The boot itself is also a very practical shape: wide and high, with only a small lip to load items over.