Dacia Bigster Hybrid - long-term review

As usual for the Bigster, we’ve been dragging around the UK doing all sorts of jobs this month, from the usual University moving-in runs (Oxford and Birmingham now), to various shoots and all of the airports. Honestly, I reckon Bigster Blue should have its own spot at Heathrow and Gatwick, and at least priority entry at Stansted and Luton.

Anyway, one of the weird things I’ve noticed is that the hybrid powertrain reacts pretty hard to temperature changes. Anything under about six degrees and the whole thing seems to really like holding on to a full battery - with the IC motor firing up instantly and staying on, even in traffic. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to a car that constantly shuffles between EV and petrol, and idling for any length of time suddenly seems a bit profligate.

It also seems odd to arrive places with a fully-charged (if small) hybrid battery, but there you go. And repeated cold mornings - and therefore much-used engine - mean we’ve had a dip in overall economy - 51.6mpg being the current average. Still impressive for such a usefully-sized thing, but noticeable.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that the brakes really are a bit too grabby. I did think that I’d just got a slight case of new car syndrome when it first arrived and that a bit of exposure would provide the cure, but the first inch of travel in the Bigster’s pedal is way too over-servoed. It means that any imprecise application of even medium-sized feet sees the car nosedive, making it hard to be ultra-smooth. A small issue, but when the Bigster does so well in town, I’d have preferred something more suitable. I do make use of the small bit of extra re-gen that ‘B’ mode (‘B’ for ‘Brake’) provides (double-pull on the stubby gearlever), but this isn’t a one-pedal car, so you do use the friction brakes for the last bit of that not-so-soft stop.

Another interesting feature that I haven’t used as much as I’d hoped are the YouClip accessories. They’re the little square posts dotted around the cabin that act as anchor points for various accessories like cupholders, coat hangars, that sort of thing. The Bigster only came with a phone holder, which isn’t that useful when there’s a wireless charging pad, and to be honest, I haven’t missed the other stuff. Maybe if the car came with all of the extra elements as standard, it would make more sense. But it doesn’t.

All of which might sound like I’m not that keen on the Bigster, but that’s blatantly not true. When you’re reduced to pulling such small niggles apart on a car, you know that the core stuff is pretty well sorted. OK, so it’s not much cop on a green lane even with the SUV-ish pretensions, but there’s a 130 4x4 if you need that sort of thing - 10k miles in, it’s super solid and supreme value for money. Not something it feels like you can say much these days.