Dacia Duster
REPORT 3 £ 14,400 OTR/£15,050 as tested/£260pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is the daily grind in a basic Duster more cheap than cheerful? DRI V ER Tom Ford
THE DUSTER HAS FINALLY DONE SOMETHING THAT HAS GENUINELY
irritated! and taken the sheen off a bit# It got a puncture# Now! you can’t blame the car for a screw in the tread! and having the $optional% spare wheel was a good choice & a quick swap and I could whip around to a tyre shop and get a plug# Except for the fact that! having jacked up the car on completely level tarmac and removed the flat! I realised that the supplied jack wasn’t actually tall enough to allow replacement of a fully inflated spare# Obviously plopping a short length of stable plank under the jack would solve the problem! but I was away from home! and had to refit the flat to undo the jack and shim it with something# Also obviously! it was hammering it down at the time! which meant many muttered swearwords# With no handy slabs or short sections of timber in my back pocket! I reversed over a small hump! jacked the car in the wrong place and managed to gain the last '(mm necessary to get the spare on# So not exactly world) ending! but annoying#
We’ve also been scrabbling around a little bit off) road# Now! I’m completely aware that this is a FWD model! but with the extra ground clearance and in dry conditions! the Duster is perfectly capable of the odd farm track or two# You don’t want to go attacking the north face of the Eiger! but it won’t break anything tottering across a field if you take care# I’ve had a crawl around underneath! and the suspension is extremely simple & basically hatchback stuff jacked up & so even if you did bust something! it wouldn’t be a complicated or expensive repair# I’ve also been scouting some more finance deals! and think that there are quite a few that are well under our quoted monthly figure of *+,(# I need to go into more detail! though# I also want to investigate how useful a Duster might be as a first car & just need to find the time to delve into the minefield of insurance to work some stuff out# Wish me luck…