Dacia Duster 1.5 dCi | Shed of the Week
Dacia has made being cheap and cheerful a point of pride. This Duster is certainly cheap - can it make us cheerful?
The word ‘Duster’ is often heard in the Shed residence, but only in the context of Shed receiving his daily household duties from Mrs Shed, as in ‘get that duster working’. In the context of cars, there seems to be an undercurrent of fondness flowing in the Dacia Duster’s direction from more than a few PH types who enjoy its rustic charm, its old-school simplicity, and, of course, its cheapness.
Cars do have to be cheap to qualify for SOTW, and this one just about makes it under our bar at £2,000. You might be surprised to find that used Dusters with a capital D start at under £1,000 in the UK, but none of those will be all-wheel drive cars like this one. £2k is about right for a 4WD, even one with a substantial mileage like 160,000.
In his search for low-cost Dusters with a capital D, Shed found a privately owned 2013 Ambiance 4WD with 68,000 miles on it at a very cheap sounding £1,100. Why? Because it needed a new timing belt. Shed is assuming the owner found that fact out the hard way and hasn’t bothered to put a downer on his ad by mentioning any mechanical damage. Taking the charitable view that the engine is okay, renewing the belt and the water pump for safety’s sake can cost up to £1,000. Even in the best-case scenario, it won’t be less than £500.
Unfortunately we can’t see anything on the ad to set our minds at rest on this score. We are told that it had a timming change 6,000 miles ago, though. That’s a relief at least because there’s only one thing worse on a car than a busted timing belt and that’s an old timming.
We’re told by the vendor that it’s got an MOT to 21 June next year. The PH hamsters who normally give Shed the reg numbers of classified ads cars that have had their plates obscured were on their holidays this week, so Shed thought he was going to have to take that claim as read. However, in a rare moment of clarity he thought he decoded a reg number in the reference given at the end of the ad.
Sure enough, stabbing YD13 VYJ into the MOT checking site took Shed to a 2013 Dacia Duster with an MOT valid to 21 June so, ignoring the possibility of the kind of incredible coincidence that would be on a par with chimpanzees typing out Shakespeare sonnets somewhere in the universe Shed has boldly decided to take a chance on it being this one. Those scribbling chimps, if there were any, would be pleased to note the Laureate spec.
As an aside, the Duster handle goes right back to 1989 when Dacia produced a couple of 4x4s by that name, a Lada Niva-style three-door SUV and a convertible version of the same. Neither of them had enough horsepower to register a 0-60mph time but they look remarkably fresh now. In fact, the Roadster looks capable of light wading, though possibly not of the submersibility that might quickly become a desirable attribute in that scenario.
Getting back to reality for a minute, those readers who have just gone to the MOT site to check out our shed’s history are probably rubbing their eyes right now and preparing to deploy all manner of ‘not even with your dirty old bargepole’ epithets and witticisms. In fairness, there is a lot of writing on that history, the most scary entries on the current ticket being mentions of corrosion to front coil springs, ARBs front and rear, and just plain old ‘underneath’ which kind of covers everything. There is also one tyre with the infamous Nearside Rear Nail, a very specific kind of nail that only lives in that particular tyre.
On the plus side, these are all advisories and not fail items, so there’s no reason to suppose that this car is at the end of its life. It’s only had one owner in its 160,000-mile life and that person managed to put ten stamps into the service book. Hopefully these refer to services and aren’t Green Shield ones or the sort you might put onto an envelope. If that’s the case, then a quick spritz with the trusty wire wheel followed by some judicious splashes of recycled chip fat should make it good for a few more years yet.
Someone on the Cul-de-sac I live on has a much newer Duster 1.5Dci & I've said give me 1st refusal when you sell it as his does look the dogs b
ks & to say this car has done 160,000 I'm impressed.
They’re crude (lots of road/engine noise, they steam up easily, and the Bluetooth system is rubbish) but it’s done the job pretty well (and has been good in mud and snow). It needed an injector early this year, that’s been it outside of servicing. Oh and performance is basically non-existent.
The braking thing mentioned in a comment above affects the post-2018 model (and is not too common as far as I know), which is a completely different car from this.
The 4x4 models have VERY low gearing (partly because 1st is good for less than 10mph only, to make up for lack of a low range box) so the engine noise at higher speed is worse than on 2WD versions.
The 2013/4 Indian-built ones (like this) also rust far worse than later ones, when production moved to Romania - it was a common warranty issue at the time. I think they improved a couple of other things with the 2015 facelift so that’s probably a better buy.
It is fair to say that they are very much a white-good (ours quite literally) and if you want personality in a shed you’ll need to look elsewhere.
A quick zip around the yard will tell you what shape the clutch and drivetrain is in.
Any thirteen year old car is probably ready for a suspension refresh if it hasn't been touched since the car was put together.
When I looked earlier and saw the P38 picture I thought shed had dropped early this week. That was before I clicked and saw the £20k asking price.
And having looked into the MOT history, the tin-worm was rampant in the sills by the time the car was seven years old! It’s clearly been run on a shoestring, which is kind of what you might expect in this area of the market. Caveat Emptor… it would never come home with me.
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