Dacia Duster Journey Hybrid - long-term review

The majority of my time with the Dacia Duster so far has been spent crawling around town, where it’s perfectly content. The hybrid powertrain gives you a nice boost pulling out of junctions, the raised ride height offers a good view of traffic, and while it’s big, it’s not oversized – so it threads through cluttered streets with ease. It’s simple, unfussy transport, and in that context, it works.

But then I had to do a long round trip from London to Dorset and back. A modest motorway run. A chance to see how the Duster hybrid copes with a few hours of high-speed cruising.

And well, it’s not that the Duster can’t do motorway miles, it absolutely can. But it becomes rather clear that this isn’t its natural environment. Wind and road noise creep in above 60mph, and the engine gets a bit shouty when asked to accelerate with any urgency. You find yourself constantly fiddling with the volume controls when listening to a podcast, just to cut through all the external noise.

That said, the ride is comfortable, and handling-wise it doesn’t feel out of its depth at higher speeds. The seats were fine too, no complaints of sore backs or any wriggling around to find a comfortable position.

There was, however, a brief infotainment glitch after a fuel stop. I pulled back onto the motorway, glanced at the screen, and realised it was still showing the rear-view parking camera. At 70mph. Not ideal. Your brain instinctively tells you you’re reversing, and at quite some pace. Luckily, after my brain caught up with reality, a few violent button presses and a long hold on the power button managed to reset it, without needing to pull off at the next services.

The Duster does deserve praise for one genuinely thoughtful feature: a handy shortcut button to the right of the steering wheel that gives quick access to your personalised driving assist settings. In a time where regulations insist on driver aids, Dacia seems to share your frustration and has handily made them easy to disable. That means you can switch off the speed warning bongs when the traffic sign recognition gets confused and insists the motorway is a 20mph zone, as well as disable the dreaded lane-keep assist, which on a twisty road tugs you left and right. None of that’s Dacia’s fault, every new car has to come with this stuff, but at least they had the sense to make switching it off simple.

Perhaps its newer, bigger brother, the Bigster, would be more suitable for long-distance cruising. But ultimately, the Duster can absolutely handle munching miles if you’re willing to accept it’s a bit noisy. And that’s OK. The Duster doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not.