Dacia Jogger review

There are three trim levels – Essential, Expression and Extreme SE, the former with its headline grabbing £18,295 price (less than the even more headline grabbing £14,995 it used to cost when it was launched) that will turn heads and largely get ignored. Still, it’s fairly fancy for a Dacia, with cruise control, manual aircon, LED lights and rear parking sensors as standard.

Another £1,300 gets you into an Expression car, which will likely take the majority of sales. It adds auto aircon, keyless entry, electric handbrake, auto wipers, a (suspiciously askew) rear parking camera and nifty ‘Flex’ steel wheels that are styled to look like alloys but much cheaper for bouncing off kerbs. Plus you get that 8.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It's the pick of the bunch, for us.

Finally Extreme SE – reviewed separately here, for your entertainment – is the top spec trim which starts from £20,595 and adds heated front seats, interior floor mats, satnav, an extra USB charging port and a few saucy exterior styling tweaks. There are just two choices to make on the options list once you’ve chosen what spec you’re going for – whether you want a spare wheel and whether or not you fancy a splash of metallic paint.

Is the hybrid worth it?

If you opt for the 140 Hybrid over the cheapest TCe 110 petrol, you're looking at an extra £3,500 on the purchase price. Only you can decide if the improved fuel economy and marginally lower BIK make that a worthwhile investment. The jump from 48.7mpg to 56.5mpg will probably take more than a three-year lease to make itself a must-have, while the BIK drops from 31 per cent to 27 per cent.

What are the monthly costs like?

As you'd expect, finance deals are pretty cheap considering the amount of car you get for your money. Essential trim costs £295 per month over three years on a PCP (Personal Contract Purchase), Essential is priced at £308 and Extreme SE is only a tenner more at £320. In each case your deposit is six month's worth of payments and interest is fixed at 7.9 per cent APR. Be aware that all this assumes an annual mileage of 8,000 miles – anything over that will set you back a further eight pence per mile.