Yes, it's a Dacia!

[Alex_225]

James May would be very proud but here is our Dacia Duster!!

After quite a significant wait, giving us the chance to sell the Mrs Twingo 133 this is our new family wagon in preparation of our new arrival in September.

To be honest we'd been looking at buying a Clio III or Megane III of some form but the Duster won us over completely. It's spacious and practical as well as being functional and I hope as realiable as it is simplistic. I was actually quite taken with how purposeful it looks compared to rivals like the Quashquai which looks like a tall car not an off roader.

I was skeptical at first but the 1.5 dci pulls well and it wasn't as slow as I expected. Obviously doesn't handle like a normal hatch back but drove nicely, absorbs all the bumps and was actually rather refined. Genuinely impressive and in Laureate trim quite well specced.

Anyway, enough yapping here's some pics...

Oh and the car is a 1.5 Dci Lauareate, 4WD.

 

[Martin_172]

quite smart, dci110 is a cracking engine, cant imagine it in something that big and 4WD but will still return good MPG I bet!

 

[Gorms]

My wife is also due in September so congratulations! Liking the new ride aswell!

 

[Alex_225]

Thanks guys, I have to say most feedback I've had from other people has been really positive. Think it's surprised people who thought it was going to be just another nameless tin can on wheels!

As for economy, we did a drive down to Bristol whilst it only had 50 miles on the clock. With four adults and weekend bags in the boot it managed 50mpg with the airconditioning on the entire way. The engine isn't fully run in until about 3,000 miles and no revving over 2,500rpm until 900 miles, which is damn hard to do.

Also, something to take into account is that the Duster actually weighs (as far as I'm aware) much the same as the Megane with this engine. So it's no slower in gear and also it's 2WD unless you specify otherwise.

Only thing that is strange to get used to is pulling away in 2nd gear as the 1st gear is designed to be a low range gear.

My wife is also due in September so congratulations!

Thanks you mate, and congratulations to you too. Scary but exciting times.

 

[Sir_Dave]

Personally, i can think of 15k reasons not to spend £15k on one, but if it suits your needs & your happy with it, then good on ya.

Unless you bought it 2nd hand, in which case i imagine it was fantastic VFM due to initial depreciation?

Will be interested to see how Renault's cheap(er) brand compares to the full 'quality' Renaults in terms of reliability etc.

 

[AdDaMan]

I have that engine in my megane sport tourer. Pretty painful standard tbh but with a tuning box fitted its 10x better. So much more low down torque and you can actually overtake on the motorways without having to bang it down 2 gears like some kind of VTEC lol

I've done 53k on mine from new now and it has been faultless.

 

[Matt W]

I would love one of these. In Brown.

The thing that put my mother off buying one was the advertised price of £8995, but then you add things like 4wd, diesel engine and a radio and it came to around £17k

 

[banther]

Epic - I love these.

​Hero wagon.

 

[Alex_225]

Will be interested to see how Renault's cheap(er) brand compares to the full 'quality' Renaults in terms of reliability etc.

No reason why it should be any less reliable than the previous generation of Renaults. They're marketing the latest models as premium cars, price ranges more to the VAG cars than what they used to be.

The interior is a mix and match of Renault parts basically and market as a Renault Duster abroad.

I would love one of these. In Brown.

The thing that put my mother off buying one was the advertised price of £8995, but then you add things like 4wd, diesel engine and a radio and it came to around £17k

I wanted to order ours in brown or Cinnamon as they called it but it's not available in the UK.

The £9k price tag for the Duster Access literally gets you a 1.6 petrol, 2WD, everything is manual and no radio. You are quite literally getting a big car and no luxuries, not even a radio.

To price one up to over £17k you'd have to literally tick every single option as they don't offer that many extras. Three specs and three additional packs you can add on, two engine choices and 2WD or 4WD.

If you just want a spacious, economical car then a 2WD DCI would be a bargain, we decided to opt for 4WD and pay the premium because it seemed a waste to have a car like this that doesn't at least have the benefit of 4WD.

 

[Gally]

Yeah i'm not so sure. That's a lotta wonga for what is a pretty basic car. Nah I couldn't sleep at night knowing I spent that much one one.

Give me a juke and some winter tyres.

 

[Alex_225]

The Juke isn't comparable in terms of size so the Qashqai is a direct competitor. To get a Qashqai with the same 1.5dci engine, ESP and 2WD only and it's £3k more expensive and in terms of interior features actually offers the same levels of 'basicness'.

To compare to the Juke, a 2WD dci model will cost you about the same as this model Duster and again offers similar levels of features.

Yes you can argue that you can buy a second hand version of either, we wanted the warranty and something a bit different. Plus the Duster has more road prescence than the Quasquai any day as the pictures don't do it justice.

 

[MarcoB]

So its basically a Renault Kangoo?

 

[Alex_225]

It's not a van you donut!

It's a shell bespoke to that model but steals the engine from the Nissan/Renault range, the 4WD system from a Nissan X-Trail and the interior from various Renaults.

Rumoured also that Nissan will be releasing a version of the Duster under the due to be re-released Datsun brand.

 

[The Boosh!]

Yeah i'm not so sure. That's a lotta wonga for what is a pretty basic car. Nah I couldn't sleep at night knowing I spent that much one one.

Give me a juke and some winter tyres.

Thing is though the Laureate isn't basic at all, it's the top range model. It has the same features on it as the Dynamique pre Mk4. The only thing you can't get on it from factory is sat nav. There are no other brand new 4wd cars out there sub 15k. The 4wd Duke is the 1.6digT engine in NTEC spec and they're 20k. For a good spec Duster that isn't 4WD they're 13.5k.

To put that in to context, a top of the range Clio Dynamique S medianav costs £16.5k.

Sure they're not everyone's bag, and that is fine. But you can't dismiss them, and they're selling really well. I speak to at least 3-4 people per day about the Dacia range, they love it.

 

[Addicted]

Haha, I love the fact they don't even remove the Renault badge on the engine, though tbh I bet that makes it 10x easier to find somewhere to fix any issues, presumably quite a common engine!

 

[Gally]

I like them, when they're 6-7k. I don't like them when they're charging what I call strong money for what is a basic low end brand built in conjunction with Frenchmen.

It's comparable with a Juke because I just compared it with one.

Used Qashqui vs Dacia Duster?

 

[MarcoB]

It's not a van you donut!

It's a shell bespoke to that model but steals the engine from the Nissan/Renault range, the 4WD system from a Nissan X-Trail and the interior from various Renaults.

Rumoured also that Nissan will be releasing a version of the Duster under the due to be re-released Datsun brand.

You can get kangoos with windows and seats

 

[Amos91]

Looks like the interior from a Vauxhall Corsa.

 

[The Boosh!]

You can get kangoos with windows and seats

No you can't we have discontinued Kangoo Passenger.

 

[Alex_225]

I like them, when they're 6-7k. I don't like them when they're charging what I call strong money for what is a basic low end brand built in conjunction with Frenchmen.

It's comparable with a Juke because I just compared it with one.

Used Qashqui vs Dacia Duster?

I see exactly what you're saying mate, £15k gets you a lot of second hand car but in terms of a new car it doesn't get you anything close to the Laureate Duster. In terms of comparison to rivals, the Qasquai is it's direct rival and a lot more expensive.

Also one thing that people are assuming is that because it's cheap it's basic and built badly. Where they've saved money on cost is things like not having to develope bespoke interior trim, minimal advertising, only building in limited specifications. There's lots of cost cutting that doesn't involve cheapening the build quality or features, I mean for example the doors on all the models of Dacia are the same doors!

Gally, of all the car fans out there I know you appreciate a car that's more than the sum of it's parts in that you have an FRP?

You can get kangoos with windows and seats

I know, my Mrs uncle has one but it's still a van with windows. This is a completely different car.

 

[BREMBO]

Haha, I love the fact they don't even remove the Renault badge on the engine, though tbh I bet that makes it 10x easier to find somewhere to fix any issues, presumably quite a common engine!

Well spotted lol

Not really a PH's car, would rather get something second hand. New car smell so enjoy anyway!

 

[Sir_Dave]

I just cant get my head around the brand/model name lol, to me, as someone born in the early 80's, i just think of a Dacia Duster as this:

 

[Alex_225]

I can't see the pic but personally thought of Dacia as some random Eastern European brand made of bean cans.

Renault have owned them since 1999 and been driving the range in most of Europe anyway. All I can say is next time you're ever in a Renault dealership, just go have a look round one.

Honestly, I dismissed these cars initially until it won me over and I'm an avid RenaultSport fan but as a family car it's spot on.

 

[david hodson]

What kind of warranty do you get on these just standard 3 yrs or more

 

[The Boosh!]

What kind of warranty do you get on these just standard 3 yrs or more

Standard 3 years.

£395 for 5 // 60,000

£850 for 7 // 100,000

 

[Gally]

Gally, of all the car fans out there I know you appreciate a car that's more than the sum of it's parts in that you have an FRP?

Indeed mate. I'm just a stickler for people paying big money for average cars. Picassos for 18k.

That's a good used car and money! They've not moved on since the 90s. I know this. I work on cars daily.

I use the word work lightly.

 

[Cookie]

At least this is one car of yours that won't live in a garage, Alex

 

[philmots]

I like it tbh...

How much is the most basic one (with a radio and A/C) 4wd and the derv engine?

 

[Alex_225]

I suspect Dacia/Renault have been very clever with how they've gone about the aicon option, it's only available in the top end Laureate model so with the dci engine and 4WD you're look at about £15k.

The cheapest diesel, 4WD model is about £2k less than that on the road though.

 

[Munson]

Is gally comparing new vs. used prices, or is he inverted?

 

[Ben182]

I like it, good choice.

 

[Daniel]

The Juke isn't comparable in terms of size so the Qashqai is a direct competitor. To get a Qashqai with the same 1.5dci engine, ESP and 2WD only and it's £3k more expensive and in terms of interior features actually offers the same levels of 'basicness'.

To compare to the Juke, a 2WD dci model will cost you about the same as this model Duster and again offers similar levels of features.

Yes you can argue that you can buy a second hand version of either, we wanted the warranty and something a bit different. Plus the Duster has more road prescence than the Quasquai any day as the pictures don't do it justice.

So a Qashqai/juke is £3k more expensive to buy but then it will depreciate approximately 8 billion times slower than a Dacia.

I'm not knocking you for buying one, but your justification is weak dear boy!

I actually think it looks ok for the money.

 

[Alex_225]

It's not really a weak justification as that's £3k more for a 2WD petrol Qashquai, the 4WD 1.6 dci Qashqai is actually about £25k although no doubt massively more specced up than the Duster ever would be.

Other people have mentioned depreciation and guess what it depreciates about the same as every Renault I've ever owned. Estimated depreciation on the model we've got is about £6k after 4 years. Pretty much the same as the Twingo 133 we sold for the Duster.

Also, looking at the depreciation calculators the Qashqai 1.5dci 2WD is worth around £7k after 4 years so depreciation really isn't as bad as you'd expect for an unknown brand by comparison. I assume that's in part due to it having the engine people want and the 4WD which adds to appeal. I can imagine the Duster Access 1.6 2WD will be worth very little but a bargain at £9k new even still. Sub £4k after 4 years for that model from my understanding.

 

[Gally]

Is gally comparing new vs. used prices, or is he inverted?

New car depreciation has me waking up in cold sweats during the night.

Not quite 200 Gordini though...

 

[Daniel]

Your car won't be worth £9k in 4 years time!

When I worked at Renault (a 'better' brand?) we were selling new good spec Laguna II's for £23k. Taking them in px three years later for £8k, retailing them back out for £9999.

 

[Daniel]

New car depreciation has me waking up in cold sweats during the night.

Not quite 200 Gordini though...

Why? It's such a stupid thing to worry about. If you don't like new car depreciation, don't buy a new car! And if you haven't bought a new car, why are you worrying about it??

IME driving a brand spanking new car off a forecourt (my Audi and my 200) is the best feeling ever. No bogeys under the seat, no farts in the seat foam etc etc.

 

[Alex_225]

Must agree Daniel, if you're very worried about depreciation then you don't buy a new car. I mean 20% VAT off the price as soon as it's driven but like you say, lovely feeling knowing you're the first owner, picking the spec you want etc.

I'm intrigued to see how the Duster fairs in the future, we didn't buy to sell it after 4 years, had the idea to hang onto it provided it's as reliable as it is simple.

 

[Gally]

Why? It's such a stupid thing to worry about. If you don't like new car depreciation, don't buy a new car! And if you haven't bought a new car, why are you worrying about it??

IME driving a brand spanking new car off a forecourt (my Audi and my 200) is the best feeling ever. No bogeys under the seat, no farts in the seat foam etc etc.

Fpmsl! It was a joke due to my used car buying!

Jesus H Daniel, bad day you bald bristolian sister sexer?

 

[Daniel]

Fpmsl! It was a joke due to my used car buying!

Jesus H Daniel, bad day you bald bristolian sister sexer?

I'm having a fabulous day. I obviously don't get your humour. Or apparent lack of.

 

[DanielJames]

Did you look into the Skoda Yeti?