2024 Dacia Duster Review: Refreshingly Basic, Relentlessly Charming

When the original Dacia Duster helped relaunch the Romanian brand in the UK back in 2013, we pretty quickly forgot about things like its ageing bones and the name it shared with a cleaning implement. While the market was being flooded with humdrum copycat crossovers, here was something that still fulfilled people’s appetites for jacked-up hatches while being genuinely capable, massively cheaper than all its rivals, and plenty more likeable than most of them.

That was the first-generation Duster. This is the third. In that time, it’s become one of Europe’s best-selling SUVs, and since the model’s introduction in 2010, over 2.4 million have been shifted worldwide.

While the second Duster was little more than a heavy facelift of the first, the third-gen is basically all new. No longer based on hand-me-down bits from parent Renault, it’s now on the company’s bang-up-to-date CMF-B platform, sharing plenty with the latest Clio and even some parts with the new electric 4 and 5.

Spec-for-spec, the new Duster weighs about the same as the old one and is no bigger, but has a bit more space inside thanks to those new underpinnings. It’s also a car that looks undeniably cooler than its forebears. Dacia’s chunky new corporate look works well here, especially on the copper-accented Extreme version.

It’s full of neat details, from the little Duster silhouette found in the black edging around the windscreen – taking a leaf out of Jeep’s book – to the speckled ‘Starkle’ cladding, a material made from up to 20 per cent recycled plastic.

The inside looks good, too, although it’s here where the biggest concessions to value are found. There’s a lot of cheap-feeling plastic about, but that’s sort of a non-issue in a car that so proudly wears its value on its sleeve. The bits you’ll touch most feel pleasant enough, and everything feels like it’ll withstand heavy usage. The Access has Bluetooth with a neat smartphone dock in the dash, while higher grades’ infotainment is handled by two sizes of mirroring-enabled screens. All versions get a TFT instrument display.

The powertrains have been given a shakeup as well. Gone are any diesel options, choices now kicking off with a 1.0-litre, 99bhp turbocharged triple mated to a six-speed manual and front-wheel drive. This can run on petrol or LPG, and is only available on the black-bumpered, steel-wheeled Duster Essential.

We didn’t get to try that one, but it’ll probably be a fairly marginal seller – as cool as we like to think they are, how often do you see those truly boggo Dusters about? Much more popular will be the 1.2-litre mild-hybrid 128bhp three-cylinder, which comes with a six-speed manual or dual-clutch auto, and front- or four-wheel drive; or the full hybrid that pairs a nat-asp 1.6-litre four-pot with a small electric motor for a total of 138bhp.

We spent a bit of time off-road in the 4x4 Duster (more on that soon), but the two we tried on the road are likely to be the heavy hitters in terms of sales. The first of these was the Hybrid 140 which, with a large-ish nat-asp engine and a four-speed automatic, sounds a bit old-fashioned. It feels anything but, though.

140 electrically-assisted brake horsepowers are plenty to whizz you away from a standstill and quickly up to speed, and the auto ’box is as smooth as you like. Taking 10.1 seconds to hit 62mph and topping out at 106mph, it’s not a quick car, but it never feels like it’s wheezing along, either. A quoted 55mpg doesn’t feel too far out of the realms of possibility.

More charming, though, is the manual-equipped three-pot. On paper, this is actually a quicker car than the more powerful hybrid, with a 9.9-second 0-62mph run and a 112mph top speed.

It still doesn’t bristle with pace – quelle surprise – but it has buckets of the undeniable likeability found in the best little manual cars. The combination of thrummy three-pot and light, slick gearshift is a good one, and again, feels comfortably quick enough as long as you’re not one for ambitious overtakes. This one gets a quoted 51mpg, although the mid-40s is more realistic given the workout you sometimes need to give the engine.

Regardless of powertrain, you’ll get a car that lopes on its soft springs rather than wallows in the manner of heavier rivals, although it sometimes jolts through nastier potholes, and there’s a noticeable shudder when straying over cat’s eyes. The steering is super-light and twirly, but accurate and responsive.

The Duster’s ultra-affordable mission statement means that you’ll be making some sacrifices in terms of refinement. There’s a fair amount of wind noise, and the engines, especially the 1.2, can get a bit grumbly. Again, though, they’re far from dealbreakers given the Duster’s value.

Its beefy new stance results in fairly narrow windows, so rearward visibility isn’t the best, and I’m not sure the seats would be the comfiest on a long journey. I also found it tricky to find a spot-on driving position, either being a bit too reclined or slightly hunched over. Space, though, is good for such a relatively small car – adults should be able to tolerate the rear on relatively short runs.

Oh, and per most countries’ rules, all Dacias now come with a suite of Advanced Driver Annoyance… sorry, Assistance Systems, which legally have to be on with each start of the car. Happily, Dacia includes a little button on the dash that remembers your preferred settings, so there’s no diving into various menus each time you get in. Plenty of manufacturers could learn from this.

This is where we’d normally compare the Duster to its rivals, but truthfully, it doesn’t really have any. Its size slots it somewhere between the snooze-inducing Juke/Puma and Qashqai/Kuga classes, but with pricing starting at £18,745 for the pared-back dual-fuel Access and topping out at £26,745 before options for the Hybrid 140 Extreme, it’s not only cheaper than any of these cars, but bags more characterful, and, in 4x4 guise, more capable.

In fact, just like the original, it feels more like an antidote to the scores of bland-as-a-mayonnaise-sandwich crossovers infesting the car market, without sacrificing what people actually like about them. Now, though, it’s more sophisticated and grown-up without hugely compromising its trademark affordability. Most importantly, it does what almost no other little crossover does: it makes you smile. For that reason, I’d have one over plenty of more expensive rivals in a heartbeat.