Inside is where the outgoing car is feeling its age, being just a bit plain. The new one addresses that. It still doesn’t feel like an expensive, upmarket car – it’s all hard plastic in here – but it’s a bit more designed and shapely.
The exterior has Y shapes as a motif in the lights and that continues with the interior air vents. There are also interesting textures on the door cards and dashboard, and what sparing use of colour there is – acid green accents for the digital display and a copper-tinged finish for some of the fittings – is sparingly, effectively deployed.
The ergonomics are what we have come to expect from the Duster. The driving position isn’t as car-like as you would find in a Kia or VW, but the slightly propped-up view forward and out of the car, over the high dashboard scuttle, gives the Duster a plucky 4×4 feel, which seems appropriate for it (as are the rubber floor mats in our test car).
Space up front is as good as anything in the class, though fairly flat seats mean a Duster is best deployed for shorter journeys. Anything more than two hours in the saddle and, while the experience never becomes outright uncomfortable, you will wish for a slightly more recumbent position and deeper, softer bolsters.
Dacia’s engineers say the switch to the new platform has allowed them to create more interior space within the same footprint. Indeed, rear passengers have a little more leg room than before and boot space has risen from 445 litres to 594 litres in front-wheel-drive models, though the hybrid’s battery pack eats into that, dropping it to 496 litres. By comparison, a Hyundai Kona manages 374 litres and the larger Nissan Qashqai only 504 litres.
More digital tech has also sprung up – something, we would argue, the Duster didn’t especially need. Entry-level trims still have analogue gauges with a small screen between the dials, and a phone holder instead of a centre screen, but up-range models have a digital gauge cluster and a 10.1in central touchscreen.
Both of them look good and work fine, but the driver display doesn’t provide much added value apart from looking more modern. You can view the trip computer and change the radio station and so on, but you can’t show the navigation in large format or play with the layout of the major instruments.
For the centre screen, we expected to see a version of the Google system used in recent Renaults but the Duster has a bespoke system because it’s cheaper to make and, just as importantly, doesn’t tread on Renault’s toes. It’s basic and therefore easy to navigate but also quite laggy. A deficit in processing power is probably where the cost saving comes from. Usability improves if you use Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.
Elsewhere, while this cabin has a neat simplicity to it, Dacia has stuck with buttons where it counts and that deserves praise. A panel of physical switches operates the climate control and there’s another bank of buttons to the left of the steering wheel. One of those sets all of the driver assistance systems to a personal preset, which is the way all modern cars should work, really.
