I don't mind foregoing gadgets and gizmos, but in a family car I'd want the reassurance of all the passive safety gear.
The biggest factor in determining occupant safety is the nut behind the wheel. In other words, your children are as safe as your driving. Children (should be!) light and have flexible bones. They don't need as many air bags as adults.
3 stars is not a good score-but it must be remembered that vehicles are tested within their own size class. So a large car with a 3 star rating might actually fare better in a collision than a supermini with a 5 star rating.
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3 stars is not a good score-but it must be remembered that vehicles are tested within their own size class. So a large car with a 3 star rating might actually fare better in a collision than a supermini with a 5 star rating.
Which is why i always go for large cars. I remember one of our customers driving his xj40 off a hill in the south of france, and although he and his wife were badly shaken they were not hurt at all, in a small car they would have been dead. And his first thing getting home was to order another!
A point for the prospective owners of dusters to consider is that it will not be driven as a sports car and most people buying it will buy it for its utilitarian qualities.
Edited by OldRoverboy on 01/07/2012 at 18:45
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Not that I am rooting for either Renault (perish the thought) or Dacia, but there are quite a few of these shopping boxes appearing on the roads over here (France). Seem to be driven by mostly half-sensible females of the forty to fifty age group (some of them not that bad looking actually-the females, not the car). The basic DCI 90 diesel over here is €11990 so that would be £9747 at €1.23 to the £sterling, so that takes the gloss off of the UK 1.6 petrol offer a bit. Very few buyers over here will buy a petrol car at the moment as diesel is just over a pond a litre at the moment and is always cheaper than petrol.
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I think I read that the RHD cars for UK will be built in India rather than the LHD ones (that are in the showrooms for us to see) that are built in Romania. Will that make a difference to quality, fit, finish etc?
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That is a valid point talking hoa***
However, I understand they are building them immediatly for the India market with the UK cars set to follow?
Can this be confirmed?
It may iron out any initial problems before the cars destined for the UK are built?
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I've seen a few of these in France and they don't look too bad. Dacia used to be rubbish but they've been under the Renault wing for some years now and have made big improvements.
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The biggest factor in determining occupant safety is the nut behind the wheel. In other words, your children are as safe as your driving.
So very true. I'm fed up with people tailgating, on their phones, not looking where they are going, all because they're driving in a daze.
Returning to the Duster - good to see a full size spare wheel as standard, even if you have to wind your own windows on the basic version. I must find the time to go and see one.
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Yep, i'm going to have good poke nose round these too in due..
LPG converted you have a decent economic simple'ish 4x4 for around £13k all in, can't be bad.
Don't get me going about tailgaters Marlot, pita.
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The biggest factor in determining occupant safety is the nut behind the wheel. In other words, your children are as safe as your driving.
So very true. I'm fed up with people tailgating, on their phones, not looking where they are going, all because they're driving in a daze.
Returning to the Duster - good to see a full size spare wheel as standard, even if you have to wind your own windows on the basic version. I must find the time to go and see one.
Wind your own windows down....?! :-O
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Wind your own windows down....?! :-O
It's something we had to do in the olden days - before your time!
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Wind your own windows down....?! :-O
It's something we had to do in the olden days - before your time!
It's fun when you have a passenger and you lean across her to wind her up - err sorry wind down the window.. or summat like that... Bet it does not have fast wind windows - 1/2 turn up full - as my Rover did (says he trying to recall a long time ago - happy day:-)
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Wind your own windows down....?! :-O
It's something we had to do in the olden days - before your time!
Or you could just open the quarterlight to flick the ash out......or fully rotate it to direct a blast of fresh air to keep you awake on the way back from the pub/party..........happy daze :-)
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Or you could just open the quarterlight to flick the ash out......
Quarterlights were designed with smokers in mind! I was impressed with the quick wind windows on a Moggie-the additional force required more than compensates for the fewer turns of the handle required. The manual windows on an 08 transit connect were much more of a chore to use.
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I seem to recall that cars became half and half - electric front windows and manual winder back windows. My parents had some sort of Nissan (L-reg so that's about '93; reckon it must have been a Primera) with windows like that.
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I think there are still some standard-trim cars sold now with wind-up rear windows - fortunately I don't think there are any with that awful, obvious penny-pinching deletion of the passenger's sun visor which was common 50 years ago.
I never had a problem with wind-up windows: a great advantage of these was that if you were saying gooodbye to friends you'd visited you could talk to them before switching on the ignition.
My first car was an Austin A50, followed by an MG 1100 and MG 1300, all of which had front quarterlights. I'm not a smoker but if you opened one a little it prevented the windscreen misting up, and on a hot day if you swivelled them right round they gave you face-level ventilation better than any car I've had since. I miss them.
Progress? I wonder sometimes. At least we've still got a proper handbrake in each of the cars in our household.
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When will they be in show rooms to have a look and test drive?
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I had a Rover 16 ** with fast opening driver's window. High geared and larger lever meant it opened and closed in 1/2 a turn. Superb. None of this winding and winding or waiting on a motor for 10 seconds. One yank and they're up.. or down.. With a thunk...
If manual windows wree fitted with a driver's window like that, I would buy one again.
Note: It was of course highly dangerous. I never tried but I imagine if you had a child resting its fingers on the window, they would at best be broken when it closed.. and at worst on the ground..
Note 2: the lever was chomed steel so heavy. It had to be for the force involved.
note 3: The window aperture and slides had to be strong - and were. That means weight.. The Rover was rather solidly built..
*** 1946 P3 with Luvax Bijur automatic chassis lubriaction, cart springs, fabric sunshione roof, opening front windscreen, louvred bonnet and built in petrol vapourisation on hot days...
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Trying to remember which lorries had those quick open close windows, might have been Leyland or AEC with the ergomatic cab, going back to my first days in transport here.
Massive lever, about a foot of movement so maybe 20 degrees would see the window fully opened or shut, but without serious effort, brilliant design and not a computer in sight.
I'm not all that bothered about a drivers window being manual, but with a sensible gearing, not this 15 turns on a silly little handle that catches your finger nails every turn, do like the passenger front window to be electric though, ISTR several lorries i drove having manual drivers window with electric passenger, good common sense solution.
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not this 15 turns on a silly little handle that catches your finger nails every turn,
Ford Transit Connect had this sort of affair. Horrible! Quick wind windows, otoh, are superb.
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My Berlingo has electric passenger mirror, and manual driver's side. I thought it was a clever bit of cost saving.
Speaking of Berlingos/vans/Transit Connects, what's the likely hood of them releasing a back-to-basics commercial vehicle?
My 54 plate Berlingo was the closest I could find to a new vehicle free of DPF/DMF/commonrail etc etc.
I'd probably go petrol if new, as a diesel will have to have all that nonsense now.
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Manual windows are great. If you end up in the drink you can open them without fear of electrics failing and get out through the window.
The Dacia Duster reminds me of the Lada Niva. Simple, crude, no nonsense car.
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That's not a pleasant thought. Bin the ditchfinders before travelling on twisty roads near water!
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Manual windows are great. If you end up in the drink you can open them without fear of electrics failing and get out through the window.
But al the films I have seen show the electric windows work under water and the goodies escape: (see James Bond in Goldfinger iirc.. A RR Silver Shadow?)
So if they work in films, it must be true.
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Manual windows are great. If you end up in the drink you can open them without fear of electrics failing and get out through the window.
Certain cars with electronic deadlocks you can't open the doors at all unless the lock is power unlocked either, the handles simply don't engage from inside, locked in your own cofffin whether fire or water...perish the thought.
edit..those affected by it won't be testifying.
Edited by gordonbennet on 24/09/2012 at 19:16
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I once drove a MAN 7.5t lorry that had an electric n/s window, operable from the drivers door, and a manual o/s window. Made sense.
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so are they in the delaerships to test drive yet?
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Interesting news on the Dacia Duster.
You may have noticed the MPG figures using the 1,5 diesel engine are not as good as other renaults/nissans/mercedes using the same engine.
You would be forgiven for assuming it was due to the higgh up large physical envelope of the Duster.
Its more to do with the filter and technology, the filters and turbo set to be used on the Duster will be wider and in the words of the renault tech 'take any form of diesel'. The reason is simplle, it will be set up the same for the UK as it will for Brazil, Argentina, Russia, India etc.
There is currently a 20,000 order backlog for the India market,
UK orders will arrive in January for those who ordered early this summer, any orders now may not arrive until March or April as the delaers have no set dates for arrival but will have dates by January when they will be calling customers who have placed a deposit in to the show rooms to test drive a RHD and finaliise the deals.
The are well on their way to their target 2,000 orders by the end of December, they are expecting the orders to really flood in when the car is available 'of the shelf'.
Edited by daveyK_UK on 07/10/2012 at 10:07
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Got told a delivery date of May today!
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Awesome, you're one of the pre-order people! I'm still debating whether to pre-order now, or wait until a test drive?
If you're interested, there are a few other people who have pre-ordered, and are discussing their options over on http://www.daciaforum.co.uk (sorry for the plug, but thought you may find it useful!)
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Very popular out here in Spain, BTW, for those of you complaining about window winders, it took 140 turns to raise or lower the wheels on an Avro Anson...
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If you're thinking of purchasing a Duster, I've done a comparison of all the accessory packs. It turns out everything bar the air-con is available to purchase separately. I've priced it all up, and yes, it is cheaper to fit yourself. I've also got hold of all the official Dacia fitting guides!
www.daciaforum.co.uk/topic/29-duster-accessory-pac.../
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They have just shown photos of the new Dacia Duster in this weeks Autobild different styling and much different engines the base model has a new 1.2 petrol engine upto 1.5dci for the top of the range. The new model will be available from March 2013 Dacia have also changed just about all the range.
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Anyone have the latest expected delivery dates?
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Dacia have just reduced considerable the prices of all models in Germany.
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How come?
Any news on the UK gettng the 1.2 petrol unit found in the mainland europe Dusters?
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