Long-term report: How the Dacia Duster played an invaluable role in the happiest day of my life

They say your wedding day is the happiest day of your life, but for me at least, the two days either side came pretty close.

Yes, my recent wedding was great and everything, but the days directly before and after gave me not one but two chances to test out the boot space of my Dacia Duster – and opportunities as special as that don’t come around every day. In the event that my now wife reads this, I am of course joking, but I can’t deny it was a test I had earmarked a good few weeks out.

You see, life with the Duster has settled down of late. It hasn’t been required for much in the way of long journeys to see family, fulfill work commitments or, with the football season only just returning, watch sport. Instead the Dacia has become my daily runaround in and around town. It is a job that it has performed admirably and I certainly have no complaints about its abilities, but from a road tester’s point of view, it hasn’t thrown up much to write about.

My wedding however, provided just that opportunity. The stacks of boxes, flowers, dresses, suits and kitchen sinks which required ferrying to and from the venue were no match for the Duster, which swallowed the lot up whole without any issues. With the rear seats folded down, the small SUV effectively turns into a decent-sized van, making it the perfect vehicle for the job. Despite not having the most refined ride, the Duster managed to get everything where it needed to be without too many bumps and thankfully there were no breakages whatsoever.

Those journeys, to and from my wedding venue, summed up the Duster for me – not flashy but unfussy and wonderfully functional. I’ve now been running the car for around five months and in that time there has not been a single mechanical issue, everything remains firmly bolted on where it should and it continues to carry out every job asked of it with a minimum of fuss.

Around town it continues to be economical and comfortable, feeling perfectly at home on inner-city roads, despite its pretty hefty size. On the motorway, it eats up the miles as smoothly as you could reasonably expect for a car in this price bracket, despite it maybe being slightly on the noisier side at high speeds. Meanwhile, on the very odd occasions this city dweller does veer into the countryside, its high driving position gives fantastic visibility, which helps when you inevitably get stuck behind a tractor going at roughly the same speed as a particularly lethargic snail.

My only real gripe with the Duster of late is a pretty minor one in all honesty – but it’s one that has slowly begun to get under my skin far more than it should. For a car which puts practicality and functionality at its core, the Duster’s cup holders do represent a pretty poor bit of design – maybe the man responsible for the rest of the car was off the day they did those? Positioned directly underneath the arm rest, you struggle to fit anything much bigger than a 330ml can in the second holder, with anything bigger pretty much impossible to pick up without first lifting the arm rest. As I say, this is a minor annoyance but having recently covered my lap in Fanta Lemon (it is summer after all) I feel like it’s something to bear in mind.

Overall though, I have absolutely loved my time with the Duster and will be more than a little sad to see it go back next month. It offers all the essentials at a basement price and that kind of bargain is enough to overshadow anyone’s wedding.