Dacia Bigster Hybrid - long-term review

You may be thinking, with nigh-on 15k miles on the clock, that the Bigster would be due for a change of fluids pretty soon - but the handy app says it’s due a service as soon as it lands back with Dacia next month, consisting of an ‘A’ service and cabin filter replacement. Somewhat confusingly, it then says that it needs a ‘B’ service the month after with engine oil and filter. Can’t help feeling that those two could somehow be rolled into one for convenience.

December of ’26 would see air filter and replacement plugs, but we won’t be holding onto it that long. Good to keep things in mind and check them on the app though, even if it does have some little quirks; like if you dig into the tips for driving most efficiently, it throws up YouTube videos of Renault Meganes. Related, yes - but just a surprise to be repping the parent company in a Dacia app.

Still, I do like the added convenience of the phone-based monitoring, and it comes with a little map to show where you parked and how much fuel you’ve got in the car. Handy. Not quite the pre-conditioning convenience of an electric car, but pretty sure that’ll come.

Interestingly, Dacia recently released a little concept called the Hipster - a pared-back, right-sized, practical and cheap EV. And a Top Gear Award winner, no less. It’s a halfway house from the limited-use quadricycles (think Citroen Ami, which you can’t use on a dual carriageway because they’re essentially Olympic tortoises at 28mph flat out), has four proper seats, some safety and more mobility.

But it forgoes big screens for BYOD (bring your own device), has a weeny battery just for town use and asks the big questions about the need for full on lane-keep assist, steering assist, multiple cameras and speed-limit bongs just to trawl to Tesco Express at sub 10-mph average. It does have airbags (two, in the front), but none of the ‘helpful’ things that seem to be pointlessly standard on most cars. Dacia reckons it’s one of the most Dacia Dacias ever - more akin to something like a 2CV than anything else. Which is great.

I’d argue the Bigster and the Duster are the most Dacia-like Dacias. Not hip. Not trying to be cool. Cheap to buy and run, surprisingly comfortable and robust. Solid. No, they aren’t posh, but there’s an antihero undercurrent to a car that doesn’t cost the earth and does the job. And ‘the job’ is everything a modern car can do. I’ve been trawling motorways for six months, run to Scotland a couple of times, courted London traffic, even tottered down a few dirt tracks and the Bigster hasn’t batted an eyelid. And at no point have I regretted taking the Bigster.

OK, so it’s not the plushest, but it looks smart and really does have all the bases covered for proper everyday transport. When you add in a very reasonable purchase price, decent residuals and attractive PCPs, there really is no shame in picking the right tool for the job.