Dacia Bigster Review & Prices

The Dacia Bigster is a medium-sized budget SUV that majors on value. It’s roomy, looks cool and drives surprisingly well, and best of all, it costs about as much as you’d pay for a small hatchback from a posher manufacturer. It does feel its price in places, though, especially some of the interior materials and tech.

The Bigster is a bit like a really good all-you-can-eat buffet - you think it’s just piled high and sold cheap, but then you discover that several of the dishes are actually very, very tasty. It’s a similar size to the Nissan Qashqai, putting it right in the family SUV heartland.

Even the top-spec Bigster with a hybrid engine costs less than £30,000, which is pretty much where the (still cheap) Citroen C5 Aircross or aforementioned Qashqai start. For the Bigster’s starting price of around £25,000, you could have one of the latest crop of Chinese budget SUVs, such as the MG HS, Jaecoo 5 or Chery Tiggo 7 - or a smaller SUV from a more established brand, such as a Volkswagen T-Cross.

The Bigster’s styling looks really cool - it’s basically a bigger version of the very popular Duster, so it’s a blocky design that looks like you could build it out of Lego. There are Y-shaped LED daytime running lights, mirroring the Dacia badge, and the same carries through to the taillights. Chunky, plastic-clad wheelarches, hidden door handles and some interesting trim elements complete the look - it’s beefy, rugged and genuinely a little bit handsome.

The good first impression continues when you get inside, as the dashboard looks pretty stylish. There are neat touches - like the map contour-style rubber floor mats, as well as a standard digital dashboard and 10.1-inch infotainment screen. There are plenty of elements that’ll be familiar if you’ve driven a Duster or a Sandero.

You can pretty quickly figure out where Dacia has saved a buck, though. Start poking around the interior and you can easily find cheap, nasty materials, such as the trim strip on the width of the dashboard which almost feels like it’s been made on a cheap 3D printer. It’s well screwed-together, but far from luxurious.

Even if the interior errs more on hardwearing than it does plush, there’s a touch of luxury in the amount of room you get. There’s space for six-foot adults to sit behind a driver of a similar size, and no matter which engine you get the boot is huge - far larger than a Qashqai or any of the smaller alternatives.

There’s a choice of a few engines. There’s a front-wheel drive mild hybrid with 140hp, as well as a slightly less powerful 130hp mild hybrid that comes with four-wheel drive and some off-roady features. The best engine for most people is the 155hp full hybrid, though - it’s very fuel-efficient and pretty effortless to drive. It’s not quite as quiet at a cruise as a Citroen C5 Aircross, though, and it’s clunkier than the hybrid setup in a Jaecoo or Chery.

The Bigster is a bit firm over bumps in town, but it’s comfortable on the motorway and thanks to its light weight it’s even pretty nimble on a twisty back road. Plus, those rugged looks aren’t just for show - even front-wheel drive models fare quite well on the rough stuff thanks to their sturdy construction and higher-than-usual ground clearance.

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Prices for the Dacia Bigster kick off at less than £25,000 for an Expression model with the two-wheel drive mild hybrid engine. Dacia reckons 80% of people will go for a Journey or an Extreme model, though, and these are reasonably priced at well below £27,000 each. Even if you equip the most expensive engine and tick every option box (all three of them) the most you can spend on a Bigster is just over £31,000.

That makes it closer to small SUVs such as the VW T-Cross or Ford Puma in terms of price, or comparable to used models of family SUVs like the Hyundai Tucson or Ford Kuga.

And you don’t suffer with having a totally barebones car, either. All models have a 10.1-inch infotainment display with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, alloy wheels, a rear view camera, keyless entry and dual-zone climate control. Step up to Journey and you get a bigger digital driver’s display, built-in sat-nav, an electric tailgate and posher sound system, while Extreme models add a panoramic sunroof.

Very comfortable and easy to drive - but a bit noisy on the motorway and not much fun in the corners

In town

The Bigster has great visibility thanks to big windows all round - there’s even quite a good view over your shoulder, and the rear windscreen is large too. Its square dimensions mean you can judge where the corners of the car are quite easily, and all models get dull parking sensors and a reversing camera to help you judge even better.

The full hybrid engine is the only one that comes with an automatic gearbox, and it works very well around town, choosing its power source depending on the battery’s state of charge. We found it would run on electric power most of the time at slow speeds, making for a nice relaxed time.

Dacia has given the Bigster quite soft suspension too, and this combined with nice big wheels mean it deals pretty well with lumps and bumps on the road and speed humps around town. There’s something to be said for not having a very sporty setup when it comes to comfort.

On the motorway

The full hybrid engine has 155hp, so while it’s not exactly a Ford Mustang it’s not lacking in shove to get the relatively lightweight Bigster up to speed. When you put your foot down though the gearbox does take a few seconds to gird its loins, and it can feel quite clunky as it changes ratios.

Once you’re up to the national limit the Bigster remains comfortable and feels stable, with the adaptive cruise control and other driver assistance features working well. You do notice that it’s noisier than other family SUVs, though, mostly in terms of wind noise. A Nissan Qashqai or Skoda Karoq are much more hushed at a cruise.

On a twisty road

The Dacia Bigster has light steering and doesn’t weigh very much, so it feels relatively nimble on a twisty road. But there’s almost no feedback about what the front wheels are doing and the clunky automatic gearbox does a lot to discourage you from putting your foot down.

There is no Sport driving mode like you get on some alternatives, either. The Bigster is very content if you just take it a bit easier - if you’re after an SUV that’s sporty to drive, consider the SEAT Ateca or the smaller Ford Puma.

A huge boot and loads of room in the back seats - not all the storage is well thought-out, though

Space is one thing the Dacia Bigster isn’t lacking - though you might well have expected that from a car that has ‘Big’ in the name. The front seats aren’t particularly supportive in the corners but they are wide, flat and comfy for long journeys. You even get partial electric adjustment on top-spec models, a first for a Dacia.

The steering wheel has plenty of adjustment, as do the mirrors, so drivers of all shapes and sizes should be able to get comfortable. Front-seat occupants get good-sized door bins big enough for a large water bottle, a space to put a mobile phone (wireless charging pad on some models) and a pair of cupholders underneath a rubberised sliding cover. If you don’t want cupholders, you can remove an insert and turn the area into a general catch bin.

A bit more room for smaller items would have been useful, though - in particular, there’s nowhere useful to put your car key.

Space in the back seats

The Bigster’s rear seats are pretty cavernous for a car of this price. A six-foot adult can sit behind another with room to spare, and there’s space under the front seats to slide feet. Headroom is great too, even in models fitted with the panoramic sunroof.

Centre occupants don’t sit notably higher than the outer two because the seat base is quite flat, and though there is a hump in the floor, it’s not too intrusive. The centre console does extend back quite a way, however. If there’s just two passengers in the back, the centre seat does fold down to become an armrest - but it’s much wider than a normal armrest would be, and feels restrictive. Its hard plastic back isn’t particularly nice to rest your elbow on, either, though it does include cupholders and slots to hold a smartphone.

ISOFIX points to mount child seats securely are present in both outer rear seats, and there’s loads of space for a bulky rear-facing chair, with nice wide-opening doors too.

Boot space

The Dacia Bigster has an absolutely massive boot. The two-wheel drive mild hybrid model has up to 677 litres of space, beating just about everything else in the class bar the much larger Skoda Kodiaq’s 910 litres. Opt for the four-wheel drive model and capacity drops to 629 litres, while the full hybrid has 612 litres.

That’s still huge when you think that a Nissan Qashqai has just 504 litres of space, a Kia Sportage 591 litres and a Skoda Karoq 521 litres.

The rear seats fold easily from the back thanks to handy catches, and they go in a 40:20:40 split rather than the more common 60:40. This means that you can carry longer loads between two rear passengers, for example, and just gives you a lot more flexibility with how you want to maximise your boot space.

Looks great, but feels its price in places - the Dacia Bigster’s interior does some things really well but could be cleverer in others

There are some real highlights when it comes to the Dacia Bigster’s interior. First is that it retains plenty of physical switchgear - there’s a full panel of climate controls underneath the central touchscreen, plus proper buttons on the steering wheel, Dacia’s classic stereo controller attached to the steering column and a little panel on the driver’s side including a shortcut to quickly turn off the more annoying safety features with just a press. This all means you don’t need to faff about with the touchscreen too much when driving.

You do get a touchscreen too, of course - it’s a 10.1-inch display running nice simple software. It’s really easy to figure out what you’re after and navigate to it using shortcuts down the side of the screen. It’s a shame that Dacia couldn’t install Google Maps, like sister brand Renault does on its cars, but you do get wireless smartphone connectivity so you can run Google Maps - or another map provider - through Apple Carplay or Android Auto.

You even get a digital dial display, which feels quite racy for Dacia. This is a fairly basic 7.0-inch display on Expression models and a posher-looking 10.0-inch display on Journey or Extreme cars. A special mention goes to Dacia’s graphic designer, because the interface used on both screens is simple but supremely cool, and suits Dacia’s outward-bound image perfectly.

Another nice addition is the Dacia YouClip system. This is a little square mounting point that you’ll find dotted about the car, and it can be used to clip accessories to. There’s a phone holder, a cupholder, a light, a luggage hook, and more to come - available from Dacia dealers. You could even get busy and 3D print some accessories yourself if you wanted to.

While you might not feel the Bigster’s price tag in the design, you’ll soon notice it in the materials used. They’re uniformly hard, scratchy plastic, and a few textures - like the strip that runs across the width of the dashboard - feel as though they were produced very cheaply indeed on a 3D printer. Not the nicest feeling.

Everything does seem to be quite hardwearing, though, and an irritating squeak we noticed in our test model turned out only to be the YouClip phone holder, which is soon rectified.

There are three quite distinct engines in the Dacia Bigster. The entry-level choice is a 1.2-litre three-cylinder with 140hp, which emits 122g/km of CO2 and claims to return 52.3mpg. There’s also a four-wheel drive version of this engine, which has 130hp, emits 134g/km of CO2 and returns 47.1mpg. Both of these get six-speed manual gearboxes.

At the top, there’s the 155hp full hybrid model, which pairs a 1.8-litre petrol engine with a couple of electric motors and a crazily complex automatic transmission. It’s very efficient indeed, emitting just 106g/km of CO2 and claiming more than 60mpg. During our time with it, we saw nearly 55mpg over a mixed test route - very impressive indeed.

None of these make for particularly good company car choices, as their CO2 emissions aren’t anywhere near as low as a plug-in hybrid or fully electric alternative, so they suffer with high Benefit-in-Kind tax. First year road tax rates will also be quite pricey, but not ridiculously so. And the Bigster should be efficient on fuel, plus it shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg to insure either.

The Dacia Bigster was tested by Euro NCAP in 2025, where it scored three stars. The adult occupant score came back as 69%, and the child occupant score is 85%. Dacia famously doesn’t chase NCAP scores, as they often hinge on the assistance tech rather than the crash protection.

The Bigster does come with most of the safety equipment you could want, including adaptive cruise control and even necessities like blind spot monitoring.

Dacia has a mixed record with reliability - in the 2024 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, the brand came a disappointing 22nd out of 32 ranked. However, individually the Duster was rated the most satisfying car to own in the UK - so hopefully the Bigster follows in its footsteps.