£700 gearbox rebuild shortly after £200 on new brake calipers on current 07 golf has resulted in requirement for car which spends less time in someone else’s company. Test drove Panda and Sandero, the Dacias extra size will be very useful. Seems very cheap for what you get and 5 yr warranty when bought with finance. Anyone bought one and regretted it?

An old Renault design, built in Romania. What could possibly go wrong?
In all seriousness, they seem Ok so far, reliability-wise.
Just bear in mind it’ll be worth the square root of diddly squat when the warranty runs out.

If you are buying it to run for ages and basically accept that it will not be worth much then no issues tbh.

They have the resale value of a polished turd.

Has anyone seene the true residuals on them ?

We all speculate them to be low but reality is few have been sold privately , it seems that as long as theres warrnety dacia dealers are offering good prices on them to keep the residuals high to make new ones look attractive.

As for the car , if what you want is a cheap run about commuter i cant fault them , how ever when they get wound up on the motorway its let down 🙁

They are too new to know exactly what the residuals will be, but this tactic has been tried before.
Daewoo offered a good warranty and bought back any cars coming on the open market to keep depreciation at an unrealistically low level for some years. People weren’t fooled however, and they became effectively worthless once the warranty ran out (not helped by the fact they were awful, awful cars).
Once this happened Daewoo’s reputation was shot and they have now ceased to be a brand in the UK.

Yah the matiz – all the charisma of a shopping trolley with a wonky wheel.

The dacia drives very much like your typical french. Motor, fairly soft and wallowy but not surprises.

Its gonna do the 12 mile commute along nasty potholed lanes and occasional runs of about 70 miles. Test drive was all good, just a bit noisy above 60. Not too worried about residuals, may well run it till it dies.

Residuals of simple cars are becoming better and better as the MOT’s become more draconian and repairs on complicated systems prohibitive. A 5 year old ‘posh’ motor is a time bomb these days – there will always be a market for a used Sandero.

Ah, but a Sandero isn’t a simple car. It has to pass the same safety and emissions tests as any other modern car.
Therefore it is laden with all the same stuff that causes problems for the other manufacturers, just made more cheaply.

What do you find most common when you get called out other than flat tires these days ?

Sensor failures i guess ?

Battery related problems are still no. 1 (this includes flat batteries, dead batteries, bad connections, charging faults, electrical problems causing battery drain etc)
After that comes tyre problems, then come sensors and other electrical problems. The company has spent a fortune on new state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment – the latest cars have literally hundreds of sensors and without being able to interrogate the ecu’s you haven’t a hope of diagnosing or fixing the fault.
The job has changed a lot since I started – it used to be points and distributor caps, now it is yaw sensors and egr valves…

Can’t you buy slight second rather than brand new and chucking a load of cash down the drain!

Nope cause dacia are keeping residuals artificially high.

When i was looking a new one made more sense than slightly used as the price difference was a couple of k……

Tbh I’m half tempted to get a Jimmy as my next car- basic charm. The Dacia is basic without any charm.

“Tbh I’m half tempted to get a Jimmy as my next car- basic charm”

Had no more or less charm than a sandero…. shit interior , small , cramped and noisy.

£6295 gets you a brand new Sandero petrol with a 5yrs warranty (Subject to taking their finance)

Got to admit that bloody cheap. TBH it doesn’t matter if its a turd, at that price and warranty you are looking at cheap motoring for 5yrs

I still wouldn’t buy one

Whats their finance like?

I’ve just bought a Duster after my Focus died, I gave them £7400 and the Focus (which was so bad it barely made it to the dealer).

The plan is to keep it for as long as possible. It’s definitly a cheap build, the interior isn’t up to much but I consider it’s like buying bike kit from Aldi, it does the job for commuting. If it does fall apart I wouldn’t worry anyway as I don’t really care about cars much, so long as it starts and stops OK will do me. It hasn’t got a lot of power but living in the crowded south east you can only go as fast as the car in front of you anyway.

If I were doing a lot of miles I may have bought something else, I only do around 8-10k a year though. 2nd hand cars around that price were a few years old, this way I haven’t got to worry about it as it’s gauranteed and no MOT’s for 3 years. I think that the engine and gearbox in mine is from a Megane, on the Sandero I think it’s from a Clio, so spares should be readily available. If not then I haven’t gambled that much dosh.

If I’d spent 20k on a new car it would probably lose the value of my one as soon as I took it out of the showroom!

In theory that finance deal isn’t bad- it’ll cost you 5k for 5yrs use (assuming you wont pay 2.5k at handback).

Is there any mileage penalties though if you do decide not to pay 2.5k to keep it?

I just got a bank loan as rates are fairly low at the moment, it gives me the freedom to keep it or sell it on in the future.

Will it still have the 5yr warranty though?

Actually they seem to have good residuals. Low purchase price + good residuals = cheap motoring.

No, three year’s warranty, after weighing it up I felt that it was enough.

I don’t like the ‘pay us a couple of grand to keep the car’ deals, just feels like long term renting and also ties you into getting another one of their cars.

Furry muff- nows the time to haggle hard. Contact 2-3 dealers and say ‘give me your best price’.

Any that bleat say ‘heres my number- anything changes within 24hours please call me’.

You’ll get ‘we’ve nothing in these etc etc’ – but I wouldn’t be surprised if they find at least £500 from one of those called.

Thats three phone calls work for brand new Pike forks?

Didn’t seem to be any haggle room, most I could get was a full tank of fuel. Will probably pay the finance off after 2 payments – so get £500 off and extra 2 years warranty (although there are about £200 of finance fees, so make that £300 off).

We can’t afford a car which will make me feel all fluffy inside (well we could, but at the sacrifice of decent holidays 2 or 3 times a year), so it’s just transport and even a Dacia is a damn site better than a bus!

I was told this when looking at a bogstandard C1 Citroen. Not all main dealers are the same or operate the same. There will be one with more room.

I know how to haggle and walk away if the deal’s not right, there’s no leeway on Dacia’s though as they’re already at a low price. Best I could manage after walking and waiting for the customary phone call was a full tank of petrol, they were prepared to lose the sale than drop the price any further (more than one dealer as well).

Ignore those residuals. I can only find 2 cars in my area for sale second hand and guess what, they are nearly as much as new price. Therefore they wont sell.

If the only person you can sell your car to is the dacia dealer then you might find that what they are advertising them at is a different kettle of fish to what they will give you for it, especially as the people who bought these when they started to be pushed about 2yrs ago start to bring them back to dealerships.

It is not an attractive car. It is not a quirky car, it is a cheap car. As long as you don’t want to change it within the 5yrs, it should be a good enough buy.

What was the interest rate charged by dacia? Most motor finance can at least compete with bank finance. Surprised you waved the 5yr warranty for it.

spurns17. At that point (Ignoring hora and his penny pinching) try to build a good relationship with the nearest dealership and make sure they promise things like courtesy cars and free washes when your car is in. You would be surprised how this kind of thing makes ownership so much easier than £50 saved on a tank of fuel

In 3yrs time the residuals will be crazy low due to the amount of used ones now (then) available dont forget. I’d hazzard the Sandero will be similar in residuals to an older Clio- still popular for newish drivers etc.

hora – check the wait list for a dacia before you try haggling ……there is demand for cheap new cars and dacia have got it cornered £ for CM of space.

the i had to try 3 or 4 before i found one who even had a logan to test drive and all warned me of long waits to get one.

i ended up trying a sandero and a duster at my local and not bothering trying a logan.

“I was told this when looking at a bogstandard C1 Citroen”

and then you leased , stellar haggling there.

TheLittlestHobo; I’m not bothered about those things, if I need any work done after the guarantee runs out I’ll go to an independant garage (I can do a lot myself, friends are helpful as well), if it goes to the dealer for anything I’ll use my bike for a few days, and my cars get washed about twice a year!

Car will be abused driving 5 miles to the station, carrying bikes, rubbish to dump, and allotment duties.

The salesman/sales side doesn’t link to after sales dept does it?

BTW- I got 4k off list on a Honda FRV years ago 😉

On the lease- I got my deal £50 less a month than any brokers could get it for from a main dealer in Wakefield.

The salesman/sales side doesn’t link to after sales dept does it?

Different people, different targets, different account manager with the manufacturer. Very little cross over.

Oh, I love car depreciation threads! Loads of opinions thrown around as facts. Which I’m going to add to 🙂

Hora – it’s always worth checking a dealer cost for contract hire rather than brokers, especially on stuff like a C1. Most of the broker sites use the manufacturers contract hire figures with a couple of hundred built in for their broker commission. So without their couple of hundred, suddenly you get a cheaper lease.

Dacia dealers don’t discount. It’s not like a C1 when you can play them off against Peugeot and Toyota, it’s buy it or don’t. Simple, as the adverts say.

OK, lets look at some opinions from CAP –

Sandero Ambience 1.2 petrol. List £6,610, RV after 3 years & 60k miles £2,218 – retaining 33% of it’s new value.

Skoda Citigo 1.0 MPI 5 dr. List £10,030, RV after 3 years & 60k miles £4,039 – retaining 40% of it’s new value.

Polo 1.0S 5 dr. List £11,825, RV after 3 years & 60k miles £4,345 – retaining 37% of it’s new value.

So the Dacia won’t be worth much after 3 years but it wasn’t much to start with. Unlike the poor Polo driver who’s paid over £7,000 in depreciation just so no-one sneers at his cheap Romanian ex Renault!! 😀

dacia may well be the new bangernomics for my replacement motor when the time comes with those figures chrissyboy :d

So the Dacia won’t be worth much after 3 years but it wasn’t much to start with. Unlike the poor Polo driver who’s paid over £7,000 in depreciation just so no-one sneers at his cheap Romanian ex Renault!!

But you’ve spent 3 yrs in a Dacia!

A lot of people like to sit in a car that offers a nice environment and a bit of style, not an awkward looking car with a dashboard made of plastic as thin as a yoghurt pot!

Looking at chrissyboys post- its mental what basic cars are costing now. That I will agree on. 10k for a standard box. **** me.

But you’ve spent 3 yrs in a Dacia!

TBH if you covered it in dents and didn’t wash it- it’d look sublimily cool. If you kept it polished it’d look tragic.

Same goes for the likes of the Berlingo, Panda etc (cars I like too).

3 years in a dacia…. Big deal its better than the bus or standing on the train . I personally aim to spend as little time in my car as possible. I dont get paid to be there.

Said it before . My car is just another white good. It may as well be a washing machine.so long as its cheap to run and is reliable.

I have a Duster on my shortlist to replace the Berlingo when it dies. It is a 51 plate and while things looked iffy a few months back, it went to the garage and came back good as new…well, sort of.

It refuses to die.

So far we have not had any significant bills.

It is scruffy, scratched and dented and is doing a very laudable impression of the stereotypical French car (in France).

The Berlingo cost me £7,500 cash payment (new) so it has been as cheap as a Dacia. I have nothing against cheap cars as long as they start, stop and cost me as little as possible to run. If a Duster did as well as the ‘Lingo I’d be well pleased. Would I worry about being seen in one? No.