Dacia Sandero review

The Dacia Sandero is one of the biggest cars in the small car class. In fact, it almost matches the Honda Jazz for head room and actually beats it for leg room. The Sandero's interior is relatively broad, too. In short, you’d have to be mighty big to feel cramped (some of our testers are well over six feet tall and didn’t have any problems).

There’s a good amount of storage space on board, including a large glovebox, a couple of cupholders, reasonable-sized door bins and various other cubbies.  

As with front space, the Dacia Sandero is one of the roomiest cars in the class when it comes to rear space too. True, it doesn't have quite as much leg room as the Honda Jazz, but six-footers will still enjoy a gap between their knees and the seat in front.

There's absolutely loads of head room, and the Sandero is broader than many rivals, which helps when you need to put three people in the back. The rear door bins are quite small, though.

There isn't much to get excited about here, to be honest. The Dacia Sandero has 60/40 split-folding rear seats with Essential and Comfort trims, but that’s about your lot. The rear seatbacks can be folded down on entry-level Access models, but in one cumbersome piece. 

The Honda Jazz, in contrast, offers all sorts of clever features, including rear seat bases that flip up like those in a cinema. Then again, the Jazz costs nearly twice as much as the Sandero to buy.

While the design of the Dacia Sandero's boot could be improved by reducing the size of the lip at the entrance, you can’t argue with its size. Officially, there's 328 litres of space below the parcel shelf, and we managed to fit six carry-on suitcases inside. That's more than in any other car in the class, including the Tardis-like Honda Jazz.

There is some exposed bodywork around the boot entrance that's easy to scuff and scratch when lifting heavy items in and out (we'd recommend investing in some protective film to stop that happening).