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Dacia Sandero – the cheap car that won’t embarrass you
The latest Dacia Sandero is stylish and modern, but if you value safety above all there’s a catch
Dacia (pronounced “Datch-ha”) was founded in 1966 as Romania’s state car maker, building obsolete Renaults under licence. After Renault had lost out to Volkswagen in the race to acquire Skoda, in 1999 the French company acquired Dacia instead.
But 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when East Germans had piled their belongings into their smoky Trabants and crossed into West Germany for what they hoped would be a better life, the purchase didn’t seem such a great idea. VW had bought Trabant’s old factory and fitted a cleaner, fourstroke engine from the Polo, but it didn’t sell.
Former East Germans, it appears, didn’t want a better Trabant. They wanted a second-hand Mercedes.
At the time, we thought Renault had fallen into the same trap. But just as VW learnt from its experiences and developed new VW-based Skoda models such as the 1996 Octavia and 1999 Fabia, so Renault learned, too.
In 2004, the Dacia Logan family saloon was launched. Billed as the €5,000 car, it ended up more expensive than that, but it became a huge hit, and not only because of its low price. It was followed in 2008 by a small hatchback called the Sandero, based on previous-generation Renault Clio technology, which arrived in the UK in 2013. The Duster SUV followed, and total annual Dacia production is now almost three quarters of a million. It has sold 190,000 cars in the UK.
It’s a fine balancing act, running a budget brand. There’s clearly a thirst for cheaper, simpler cars even in relatively affluent Europe, but you can’t allow the gap between regular and budget models to open too wide or sales will plummet. Similarly, if all you are trading on is price, you can quickly come undone when a cheaper rival appears. Then there’s safety and emissions requirements, which soon ratchet up the price of your formerly cheap car until it isn’t.
Has this happened to the new Sandero, still Britain’s cheapest new car?
With a sleight of their felt tips, the designers have transformed the staid previous Sandero into a modern hatchback that won’t embarrass you in the car park. As with the old version, there’s a Stepway crossover version, with faux off-road styling and a raised ride height.
The new Sandero shares parts from across the Nissan and Renault brands, including access to the latest safety and emissions equipment, although in this case, Dacia hasn’t used it. So, while the Sandero has basic stability control and autonomous emergency braking, it doesn’t have a camera system to recognise pedestrians, animals and cyclists. Similarly, it doesn’t have a lane-keeping system, while blind-spot detection (rather than full monitoring) is only available with the top-model Stepway.
As a result, the Sandero only achieved two stars in the industry-standard New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) independent crash tests.
From correspondence, we know that many of you would happily buy a car without such expensive and occasionally intrusive equipment. There might be others who think NCAP is forcing the adoption of sometimes dubious autonomous “safety” extras that are nothing of the kind, and that a car without them can be as safe as anything else if driven properly. For the record, we think two NCAP stars is at least one too few; the rest of the Sandero’s structure passed the test with flying colours.
There are three models. The £7,995 Access starts the range, with 15in steel wheels, black exterior and interior trim, no air-con or radio and with just emergency braking assist, airbags and stability control. To get manual air-con, alloy wheels and more, you need to go up to the £8,995 Essential, while the £11,595 Comfort gives you a central touchscreen, alloy wheels (still 15in), rear parking sensors and a rear-view camera, plus some shiny trim.
There are only two extras; a spacesaver spare wheel for £150 and metallic paint for £560.
The engine range starts with a 64bhp naturally-aspirated 1.0-litre three-cylinder, with a 89bhp turbo version of the same unit, and there’s also a 99bhp petrol/liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) unit.
The interior is a vast improvement over the old, as is the driving position. The seats feel more comfortable and the dashboard is more attractive.
There’s a pleasing simplicity about this car. What’s more it has Renault’s separate radio controls on a steering column stalk, which, in these days of fiddly, distracting touchscreens, seem more relevant than they’ve ever been.
The rear seats are large enough for a couple of adults to sit with head and legroom to spare.
As small hatchbacks go, this feels less like one you were forced to buy and more like one you want to buy.
Like most small-capacity, three-cylinder engines, the Dacia’s is heavily boosted, which gives the impression that there’s more power than there really is.
The Sandero fair leaps away from standstill, but quickly settles into a cruise, and above 4,500rpm there’s not much left from the engine, just more noise.
A stiffer and stronger bodyshell means the ride and handling start from a good place, giving more accurate handling and a modern feel, but you feel and hear the tyres chatting to each other about every bump and ripple. Even on the smoothest roads, the suspension never feels quite settled, although the steering feels accurate, but without much feedback.
A vast improvement in looks and road behaviour, the new Sandero could sit on any drive and not be out of place. In fact, the transformation is remarkable, though almost inevitably this car lacks the polish and the dynamics of its more sophisticated – and expensive – rivals. The lack of the latest electronic and camera safety marks it down in our view, but some folk might not find that a problem. You pays your money…
It turned out that for many Western Europeans, an inexpensive Dacia was exactly the car they wanted.
As ever, British buyers are different. We love the idea of a small, cheap and simple car, but we always end up spending rather a lot on it by adding optional extras. The Sandero will doubtless turn out to be the same.