Why the Dacia Duster makes sense...

Dacia is a Romanian car manufacturer founded in 1966, when Beatles hair cuts were cool. Over the years, they have made many brilliant cars, three of them being the Sandero, the Logan, and even the Duster...

The Dacia Duster started production in 2009, and eventually came to our roads way back in 2010, and when I saw one for the first time I instantly knew it was a great car, it's a car that makes sense; it's sensible and realistic, which means it's absolutely brilliant! It also has a nice name: Duster. It sounds silly and fun, which makes it a car with character. I actually remember just a few years back looking out of my window every evening just starring at a white Dacia Duster across the road from me, it was the one with the cheap wheels, magnificent. Anyone that drives past in a Duster, I instantly know that they are an absolute legend and should be awarded with an OBE and given a lifetime's supply of Creme Eggs.

Good news came this year, as a new Dacia Duster came out, and it's even better than the old one! So I decided to head over to the Holdcroft Renault Dacia garage to have a proper look...

-Dacia Duster at Holdcroft Renault

-Dacia Duster at Holdcroft Renault

I went into Renault after having a sit in the old Duster like the one I used to admire every night and I was very excited! I had a chat with a woman that worked there and she said that I could have a look around the car and take as many pictures as I wanted, so I did! At first I was impressed, and by the end, I was even more impressed. Dacia have made this new car look much more stylish and a bit less deformed and they did an amazing job, just look at it, it's a very attractive car, my mum thinks otherwise, but I'm not going to listen to her!

-Dacia Duster rear

-Dacia Duster rear

The rear end of the magnificent Duster looks incredible too, with the boxy lights and the more stylish look, it looks really pretty good! Dacia have really worked their magic on this car, it's fabulous in every way, it's sublime!

The roofbars are also really quite cool, with the massive 'DUSTER' badge, it's obviously proud of what it is! I was looking at the Techroad model Duster, the highest spec option, it starts at around £16,000 which in my opinion is fair price for the car it is! I configured one the other day with everything I could choose, and it totalled at about £19,000, which again is good! Better than what a Range Rover would cost anyway, considering they both do the same thing! I actually think the Duster does it better, but I'll leave that for you to decide.

I was also very impressed with the interior, it didn't feel as cheaply made as the old model, it was a lot more technical with it's new satnav system which I will ramble on about a bit further down your screen. It was very roomy too, I got my 6"5' Dad to sit in the back and he had plenty of leg and head room so there's no need to worry about space, because the Duster has plenty of it! There were however some places where the Duster felt cheap, but that's because it simply is cheap! On the whole though the interior seemed nicely done and very spacious bearing in mind the small price tag.

The Dacia's satnav system for me was easy to use and very useful, with the Techroad model, you can get satnav, bluetooth connectivity and everything all important you will need on your drives. It even has a reverse camera which will come in useful when you come to park in those painfully tight parking spaces around town. Another feature the car has which I found fun was the 'Driving Eco' feature, what it does is rate your driving from how you accelerate, how you change gear and how you drive all together. Now obviously the person that drove this car off the lorry wasn't that good at eco driving as you can see from his scores!

-Dacia Duster boot

-Dacia Duster boot

The boot in the brilliant Dacia is very practical, it's long and tall so it will prove to be good when you go on holiday or just need a lot of space. Part of the reason there is so much boot space is because the optional spare tire is located underneath the car, which is good, but no so good when a man with a set of tools comes along to take it off you...

-Dacia Duster 1.3l tCe engine

-Dacia Duster 1.3l tCe engine

The Duster has a 1.3l TCe petrol engine producing 128bhp or with the slightly beefier specification, 148bhp which is acceptable, especially when you come to do some off-roading in it because yes, there is a 4x4 version, and it's very very good.

But with every good car, there is some cons, and there's some with the Duster: For starters the rear wheel arch is 'naked' and looks unfinished and sadly it's very noticeable so hopefully Dacia will do something to sort out this problem. Another money-saving option is that the rear brakes are drum brakes and not disk brakes which work much better. Faults aside though, the Duster is a brilliant car with big character!

The Dacia Duster then... affordable, brilliant, reliable and makes sense! So does the Sandero and the Logan MCV. Maybe Dacia is just the perfect brand at the moment? It's definatley one of my favourites! What do you think? Comment down below!

Thank you to Holdcroft Dacia for letting me have a look at the Duster and for letting me take pictures!

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