Dacia Sandero: why the UK’s cheapest new car is also one of my favourites

I consider myself very lucky in my job that I get to drive lots of posh and expensive new cars, and my daily driver for the past couple of months has been a £65,000 Volkswagen ID7 GTX. It’s super comfortable and refined, has massaging seats which I use a lot, and it has loads of tech on board.

However, this has left me feeling a bit out of touch. For years I’ve owned cheaper old cars, like my 2005 Skoda Octavia vRS which had a radio and not much else. So to bring me back down to earth, I asked Dacia if I could have a Sandero for the week – and they happily obliged.

The Dacia Sandero is the cheapest new car you can buy right now, with prices starting from £14,700 – although you can get one through Carwow for £14,000 at the time of writing. However, the one we’re testing the most expensive Sandero you can get.

It’s a top-spec Journey model with an automatic gearbox, and this one has a £650 metallic green paint job. This brings the price up to £18,865, pricey for a Sandero but still less than a basic Renault Clio or Vauxhall Corsa.

I thought going from my big, luxurious 340hp electric car to a 90hp petrol hatchback would be a novelty, and one which would wear off pretty quickly. In reality though, I’ve absolutely loved my week with the Sandero.

I think the main reason I’ve fallen for this Dacia is the pure simplicity. I don’t want to get too “old man yells at cloud” here, but why are so many modern cars so complicated? So many new models I drive demand an account or an app to access certain features, and my ID7 requires me to dive into the touchscreen just to move the air vents away from my hands.

Jumping into the Sandero was a breath of fresh air. You get a decent little touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, physical climate control knobs and a simple, clearly labelled button to switch off the annoying, but legally mandated, warning beeps. It’s everything you need and nothing more.

The interior doesn’t really reflect its low price tag either. Of course it’s not festooned with leather and posh plastics, but everything feels really well screwed together. All the switchgear feels good, with the indicator stalk having a particularly satisfying thunk as you operate it, and the fabric on the dashboard lifts things nicely. It’s best described as cheap but by no means flimsy – and it’s nice to see a budget car which isn’t pretending to be anything but.

Then there’s the way it drives. I expected it to be a bit of a chore after being cosseted for so long by the ID7, but it’s a delight. Around town you get great visibility and light controls to make tight manoeuvres a breeze, and it’s even good fun to chuck down a country road thanks to the low weight.

It’s not a fast car – the 90hp 1.0-litre petrol engine can struggle a bit if you’re trying to join a dual carriageway with a short slip road, but at least it is economical. In a week of mixed driving it returned 49mpg.

The Sandero even copes well with long motorway drives. Sure, the seats aren’t the most supportive, but it feels planted at speed and there’s not even much wind or road noise. I managed a few motorway slogs of two hours plus with no issue at all.

Now not everything was perfect with this little Dacia, with my main gripe being the CVT automatic gearbox. It feels a bit lurchy in stop-start traffic, and a low-powered hatchback like this is, in my opinion, better suited to a manual gearbox to make the most out of every horsepower available.

But beyond this, the Dacia Sandero ferried me around for the week with no fuss. This top-spec Journey model isn’t the one I’d go for – the mid-spec Expression is around £1,000 cheaper and still gets the touchscreen infotainment system, rear parking sensors and a reversing camera – so that’s where my money would go.

My time with this car has been overwhelmingly positive, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed going back-to-basics for the past week. If you’re after an honest, affordable small car which is charming and cheap to run, I’d highly recommend the Dacia Sandero.

*Prices correct at the time of writing

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