2024 Dacia Duster Journey | PH Fleet

Nope, April Fool’s has passed. I really have sold my 340hp Audi RS3 and replaced it with a 150hp Dacia Duster. But I can explain. As much as I loved the RS3 for its epic 2.5-litre five-pot and the glorious sound it made, it was 13 years old, had clocked over 70k miles and I was haemorrhaging money on it.

Ironically nothing had actually gone wrong, yet I was spending a fortune on preventative and general maintenance. In the 18 months or so I had it, I serviced it twice at nearly a grand a pop (at specialist garages, too) and I was starting to lose sleep over what could go wrong and leave me with a huge bill. If it were a weekend car I wouldn’t mind so much, but for a daily I wanted something reliable that wouldn’t cost the earth to run. Trying to fund two project cars at the same time just wasn’t working.

Enter the Duster. It wasn’t long ago that I ran one as a long-termer and thoroughly enjoyed it, but at the time felt like I couldn’t give up on performance even for a daily. Now it’s finally time to put my money where my mouth is. For not much more than what I sold the aging RS3 for, I’ve bought a one-year-old Duster, with 10k miles on the clock. And thanks to Dacia Zen, the remainder of a seven-year warranty remains intact, as long as I continue to service it at Dacia – which costs peanuts anyway.

Had I bought any other wafty mid-sized family SUV I wouldn’t have felt compelled to write about it, but given how popular Dacia is proving on PH, here you go – you’re welcome. In fact, the popularity has grown so much that you asked us for a dedicated Dacia forum, and our Duster Extreme SE review was one of the most read for the whole of 2022. And now with a couple of years under the collective belt, the facelifted Dusters are even more of a bargain than they were new.

Some say the Duster was named after the Dacia chairman’s niece; all I know is that it’s a very welcome addition to the fleet. The majority of my daily driving is on collapsing, pothole-riddled B roads, so the Duster is absolutely perfect for it and far more appropriate than the Audi it replaced. I love its Tonka toy looks, and I have such an obsession with green cars at the moment that there was only one colour I’d settle on. Now to see if I can get the seats re-trimmed in tan cloth…

While this Duster has only just recently gone off sale, it has come a very long way since the original Renault parts-bin special, and the newest model has moved the game on even further, while maintaining a very affordable price. While I’m yet to drive the Duster that has replaced this one, the starting price has only gone up around 10 per cent, at £19,380. With the cheapest Nissan Qashqai from £30,615, it’s plain to see how much of a bargain it still is in 2025.

BP73 YWJ is exactly the same spec as my previous long-termer – a top spec Journey (ignoring the special edition Extreme), albeit in a different colour. Naturally I wanted the most power on offer, so opted for the petrol-powered TCe 150 Auto 4×2. But it’s still no overweight SUV, tipping the scales at 1,263kg, and it feels light on its feet as a result.

The boosted 1,332cc four-cylinder engine sends all 150hp to the front wheels (4WD was only available on the diesel, sadly) to launch you to 62mph in under 10 seconds. The six-speed automatic gearbox isn’t the sharpest, though nor would you expect it to be at this price point; it’s perfectly adequate for the job at hand and still my preference over the manual for a daily.

It has all the luxuries I need at this price point and none that I don’t. An 8.0-inch screen with Apple CarPlay, parking sensors with four Multiview cameras, heated seats, keyless entry, cruise control and proper knurled knobs that you turn for the climate control rather than being buried in a screen. Lovely.

I’ve already racked up 3,000 miles since picking it up in December, and it’s proving to be the perfect Sunday Service wagon and stablemate to my Renaultsport Megane 275 Trophy. And to be honest, as much as I enjoyed driving the RS3 at the time, I don’t miss it one bit.

Car: 2024 Dacia Duster Journey TCe 150 Auto 4×2 EDC
Run by: Ben Lowden
On fleet since: December 2024
Mileage: 13,546
Last month at a glance: RS3 out, Duster in – and Ben couldn’t be happier