Dacia Duster Long-Term Report: Dacia-ing Through The Snow

We don’t have much time left with our long-term Dacia Duster 4x4, but before it goes back home next month, the surprise arrival of some cold, white stuff coming out of the sky has given us the chance to get to grips (or lack thereof) with its ability when the going gets slippery. Spoiler alert: it’s brilliant.

In 4x4 guise, the Duster feels like it’s primed to pick up the torch from the Fiat Panda 4x4 – it’s got that same blend of unpretentious robustness, value and genuine talent that means that soon, we suspect scores of these third-gen cars will be found scampering their way up mountain passes all over the Alps.

Unfortunately, because I live in North Yorkshire, I don’t have easy access to an Alp to put this theory to the test. But I do have access to Oliver’s Mount.

In the summer, this place is England’s only public road-based motorbike racing circuit. It’s a fearsome place, particularly if you’re hammering along it at three-figure speeds with nothing but a few hundred angry cubic centimetres between your legs – narrow, undulating, packed with huge elevation change and tight hairpins, and with an unmoving platoon of trees awaiting you if things go wrong on certain parts of the track.

In the winter, though – at least when the snow comes down – it’s the nearest approximation to the Great St Bernard Pass within an easy drive of my house. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but the point is, it’s not the sort of place you’d want to take anything two-wheel drive in this weather without studded tyres.

But the Duster absolutely aced it. With the terrain response system set to Snow mode, it merrily bounded up the steepest portion of the track, sometimes set aside for hillclimb events. Despite a thick covering of fresh snow, it never felt like it was going to break traction in a scary way, the Duster’s infotainment screen telling me it was distributing its power evenly between both axles (it runs in front-wheel drive most of the time, but can send up to half the power to the back when it feels the need).

Getting up to the top of the hill is one thing, though. Getting back down it in a non-slithery fashion is another. Here, the Duster’s hill descent control proved its worth, holding the car at a nice, steady 10mph without me needing to worry about touching the brakes.

I realise that none of this is a particular revelation to people with serious 4x4s, and even in something like an all-wheel drive Audi, I’d probably have been okay on the right tyres (our Duster, by the way, is on all-seasons – also helpful). But it’s once again worth reiterating that even in this toppest of top specs, our Dacia’s RRP is £26,700. Having seen people in much more expensive crossovers hopelessly slithering their way out of junctions, it’s hard not to feel quite smug about the way the little Duster just powers through the powder unfazed.

As predicted when we picked the car up in balmy June, the heated seats and steering wheel of this top Extreme model, which back then felt almost anti-Dacia in their apparent frivolity, have been very welcome these last couple of days too, especially because they get up to temperature with incredible speed.

So yes, in parts of the world where this sort of weather is more commonplace, we suspect the 4x4 Duster is going to carve out a very nice little niche for itself. The local geese seemed to like it too, although I think they were just plotting to attack, kill and eat me, so I got out of there fairly quickly.