Dacia Duster 4x4 Tested Off-Road: Is It As Rugged As It Looks?

On the road, the new Dacia Duster is a very good car. It’s a lot more sophisticated than its predecessors, but cheaper than all its rivals and packs in a much more feel-good factor than anything else in its class.

Also unique among little crossovers – apart from maybe the Jeep Avenger – is Dacia’s keenness to emphasise that, at least in four-wheel drive guise, the Duster is genuinely handy off-road.

In fact, it’s adamant that the 4x4 is the most capable new car in the rough stuff that’s not a specialised off-roader a la Jeep Wrangler, Land Rover Defender and so on. That means it doesn’t have things like a low-range ’box, locking diffs, or even full-time four-wheel drive. It does, though, have commendable approach and departure angles – 31 and 36 degrees respectively – 217mm of ground clearance, and a 4x4-specific rear suspension setup.

It also has lightness on its side – despite an extra set of driveshafts, the 4x4’s kerb weight comes in at just 1390kg (the lightest Duster, the front-drive Access, is a scant 1276kg). That, for what it’s worth, is near-as-damn-it half the weight of a V8 Land Rover Defender 130. You could call it a feather Duster. Ahem. A suite of off-road drive modes and hill descent control complete the extra gear.

Does this matter when the average Duster won’t see anything more threatening than a grassy car park in its life? Well, it’s not uncommon to see old-shape Dusters being used by  farmers, or utility companies operating in wild, remote parts of the world, so having a bit of a safety net built in can’t be a bad thing.

Obviously, Dacia’s not stupid and isn’t going to let a bunch of journalists throw its new car at obstacles it knows full well it can’t handle. Still, our course involved things that you wouldn’t tackle in the average family crossover unless you enjoyed picking up bits of car. What’s more, much of it was a wet, sludgy mire because, y’know, Britain in autumn.

The Duster was able to cling on when traversing a slippery berm that forced its occupants to cock their heads like Labradors being offered a treat. With momentum built up, it scurried through deep puddles concealing mud that resembled the stuff that comes out of the back of a cow (and smelt like it, too).

The hill descent control works well, although especially in these manual cars, it’s massively counterintuitive having to completely and quickly stop touching all the pedals to let it do its thing. Some of the more technical bits were no problem, although at times we were very aware of graunching as the underbody protection did its thing.

Perhaps most impressively, all of this was with the car’s four-wheel drive system in Auto mode. It also has dedicated Snow, Mud/Sand and Off-Road settings, but here it was largely front-wheel drive, a little graphic on the screen letting us know when the car was sending power rearwards.

That said, it’s not all rosy. Lots of more technical off-road driving requires torque, and the Duster doesn’t have much of it. There’s no diesel option anymore, and the 4x4 is only available with the 1.2-litre mild-hybrid three-cylinder engine, pushing 128bhp and 170lb ft of torque. Pair that with the manual gearbox these cars had, and you’ll be in for lots of embarrassing stalls. Or maybe that’s just me. Regardless, you have to apply a lot of grunt for some obstacles and be very precise with your pedal inputs as a result.

The array of sensors the Duster now comes with are a constant beeping, bonging annoyance, too. Even with all the advanced driver ‘assists’ switched off (via a handy button that remembers your preferred settings – nice touch), they didn’t seem to want to shut up every time we got within a foot of a small branch.

And again, there’s the fact that we drove the Duster at a Dacia-organised press event, with obstacles very carefully designed to show the upper limits of what it’s capable of, but no more. Maybe it can handle deeper puddles and steeper inclines, but we wouldn’t want to find out.

So no, the Duster 4x4 won’t convince any hardcore green laners to jack in their Land Cruiser Amazons. But so many manufacturers like to market their crossovers to outdoorsy lifestyle types, fully aware that they’d probably need pulling out with a tractor if the Glasto car park was a bit wet. The Duster, at least, is able to back up this image with some genuine chops.

What’s more, if you need something reasonably cheap with a bit of off-road talent, there’s really very little else available new. The Suzuki Jimny has disappeared from Europe, and the Fiat Panda 4x4 is dead in the UK. There’s a four-wheel drive version of the Jeep Avenger on the way, but it’s smaller and less practical than the Dacia and starts at almost £31,000. Even in top Adventure trim a 4x4 Duster kicks off at less than £26,000, and that’s quite hard to argue with.