2021 Dacia Sandero & Sandero Stepway review – driving the UK's CHEAPEST new car

hello welcome back to the channel of nonsense or as i should say today the channel of no nonsense no frills motoring because i'm in the new dacha sandero it's the cheapest car you can buy in the uk if you buy the really cheap one which is 8 thousand pounds but no one actually buys that one everyone buys the nine thousand pound one i'm in the top spec eleven thousand six hundred pound one which is still ridiculously cheap so this is kind of a polo fiesta sized car really but it's still about six or seven grand cheaper than those cars so this is bargain basement motoring this all new one though as i'll show you when we go driving is all new it's on a new platform that underpins the new juke and the clio so it should be a lot nicer than the old one so yeah manual gearbox i've got a 90 horsepower petrol engine i've got a manual handbrake i've got oh the steering wheel it's got everything let's go wave to the people because that's always nice i'm gonna try and get through this whole review without doing the whole james may meme thing you know where you say good news i've done it already it's gone wrong right the steering is super light the steering wheel does adjust for rake and reach so uppy down iniaty um i know that's like on every car but i don't think it was on the previous one of these this is very much the definition of and car so yeah let's see if it feels cheap that's not slow you've got 90 horsepower one liter turbocharged petrol engine and yeah it gets up to speed quite nicely not to 62 i think is in 11 seconds so obviously it's not rapid but i can already tell you're not going to struggle to keep up with traffic the ride on this bumpy road is pretty decent there aren't any rattles or squeaks okay this feels like a posture car than you would think considering you can get one for 8 000 pounds um yeah okay this is a top spec one so comfort spec in the uk 11 600 pounds it's got wireless apple carplay it's got android auto that's weird isn't it it's probably the cheapest apple carplay without a wire i drove a 50 000 pound key yesterday you had to plug it in so um yeah well done on that thatcher i already quite like it i don't want to use the word honest because that's a bit wanky so it's an honest car because cars can't lie to you really can it go around a corner yes yes it can go around the corner can it accelerate up to 50 miles an hour in fifth gear yes so far so kari right now i'm up to about 60 miles an hour yep let's go for the 60 limit i'm getting a bit of wind noise they have redesigned the door mirrors on this new one to be more aerodynamic in fact this is an all new car really the styling i'll stick some shots in it looks quite smart it's got led running lights led headlight option new tail lights new body new platform kind of new everything really in terms of engine choices there's a bogo spec naturally aspirated one liter 65 horsepower i think you don't want that it will be tedious you want this one liter turbocharged 90 horsepower one there is a hundred horsepower bi-fuel one which can switch between petrol and lpg and that has a phenomenal statistic it can do 800 miles if you fill the lpg tank and the petrol tank at the same time which is nuts and apparently lpg is about 65 per liter so it's much cheaper than petrol but less efficient but still 800 miles of range is not to be sniffed out this is good this is honest normal motoring last week i was in a gt3 rs now i'm in a duchess and aero and uh but i'm enjoying it frankly it goes around corners does it break yeah yeah the brakes are pretty sharp actually normally when you drive a cheap car like this things annoy you like the clutch is vague and the brakes are a bit crap and it doesn't accelerate very nicely this is none of those falls so far obviously these are just first impressions but first impressions count for a lot in a car like this and yeah the only thing that really tells me this is a cheap car these hard plastics here the dashboard is a sea of gray with a little digital black and white monochrome screen in the middle but that's about it i've got a phone holder here so i can wedge my phone in there and adjust how it goes portrait or landscape and it's got a usb slot right underneath it so you don't need to have cables trailing everywhere that's sensible i've got a big panel of cloth across the dashboard which just breaks up the gray plastic it's cheap to do that and it's clever it's smart it does make a big difference looks like inside of a suit it's very nice got basic air con controls but you know you have got air con yeah i mean that's kind of it really it's a lot better than you would expect for the money and the drive is actually quite nice okay i kind of want one i like this visibility over my shoulder is not great because i don't know b-pillar's a little bit thick obviously and i've got a gopro there you're out the back is pretty good massive windows it's got electric windows all around on this top spec model yeah electrically adjustable mirrors it's got six airbags i think including curtain ones so safety is good it's got these new uh anti-whiplash headrests which are kind of curved and sexy like the ones you get in a volvo xc90 okay yeah i'm a bit flabbergasted at how good this is these are my genuine first impressions and i like it i like it a lot already right that's my first driving impressions i'm going to stop in a minute i'll give you a walk around and show you what it looks like and what it looks like in here with some shaky cam footage see you in a minute okay here's a very quick shaky cam tour of the interior of the sand area from a field so the steering wheel is dead simple quite thin you've got some blanked out buttons that i think don't ever do anything because this is pretty much a top spec model and then we'll just brighten it up that's the dashboard it is plain and simple it's got monochrome screen in the middle and you can flick between a few functions using that button there so you can do your tire pressure monitor see your mpg your trip and all that kind of good stuff uh it's dead simple basically um that there's not too many options on there it's got cruise control look at that it's got really basic air con control so you can adjust it from you know an asthmatic sneezing on you to a gale force wind hotter colder it's really quite simple usb 12 volt there another usb up here with this very clever map very clever it's a phone cradle and you can have it any which way you want and you can adjust it and you don't have to have a wire trailing because there's a really short distance there this is the top spec 8 inch infotainment system which is simple bright colorful and it's got wireless apple carplay so happy days there so you can use your spotify and everything through there and listen to your world war two podcasts it's got android auto as well if you're of that persuasion there's not many options in here it's got emergency automatic braking so you can turn it on and off there and it's all that kind of stuff it's got a rear view camera as well which is pretty blurry to be fair it's clearly a cheap one but you know it's a cheap car what do you expect it's got sat nav it's got radio i mean yeah it's just nothing that you don't need no physical volume knob so if i want to get rid of take that which i do is there got this bit of cloth across the dashboard which actually does feel quite nice if i'm going to be doing a wanker protest that is rock card but what do you expect you can get one of these for 8 000 pounds there we go gear knob manual handbrake cubby hole arm rest not in the basic one only in the top shack one that's a little key fob key card thing honestly i mean it's fine it is and car and there is me hello right let's carry on driving and do the stepway briefly as well have i spoken about these headrests they're kind of oddly sensual they're to reduce whiplash um they're quite nice they're curvy they're stylish the interior is not actually too dark and drab i'm about to get told off for being in a field though better go i'm on a twisty road now and it doesn't roll that much in the corners it's got a nice gentle attitude going around the corner and it grips really well as well i've driven many many worse cars that cost double what this costs do you want to know something really really really irrelevant about this car you can heal and toe in it even in motorbike boots i'm wearing in terms of downsides well the gear knob does feel a bit flimsy the gear shift action is a bit light and a bit vague but again i've had much worse in much more expensive cars it's a bit noisy at 60 miles now but it's mostly the winds there's a bit of road noise it's just quite composed you can tell that putting on a new platform has worked wonders for it brake pedal is a little bit sharp oh engine doesn't sound too thrashy either i know i'm doing this a lot it's because i'm surprised at how good this is it just goes to show that cheap doesn't have to mean terrible the thing i've always thought about the dacia sandero one says you know cheapest car on sale in the uk for eight thousand pounds nine thousand pounds what have you [Music] it's a bit of a weird one because if you're like me and you're a petrol head and you've got eight grand you're not going to go out and buy a new car really are you going to go and buy something more exciting that's depreciated heavily you know v12 bmw or something for eight grand but you know most people out there want a new car they want something reliable as some tool to get them from a to b and therefore they're likely to buy new therefore they're likely to look at something like this and if that is you then yeah i mean these things are meant to be reliable these engines and there's basically nothing to go wrong on it you've got a three-year warranty all that kind of stuff and you probably want to finance it and the cheapest one of these is a hundred pounds a month with a thousand pounds as a deposit on a pcp finance thing goes up a bit for the version you'd actually want but 100 pounds a month i think if you total up your disney plus netflix sky subscriptions you could have a car for the same amount probably just a sky subscription with sky sports and sky pornography or whatever it is you can have adapter you can have a car that's roomy it's got space for three adults in the back it's nuts isn't it i think it's worth pointing out as well that you know if you're buying a 10 grand car if you wanted say a second-hand ford fiesta nearly new sort of thing the finance deals that you get on used cars and nearly new cars here in the uk are pretty rubbish compared to the finance deals you can get on a new car like this so that's where this really comes into its own if you want to finance a new one of these versus financing a secondhand fiesta the interest rates on second-hand car finance are usually quite bad because manufacturers really put lots of money in subsidizing finance on new cars if that makes sense so it's usually cheaper to finance a new car than a used one so you might have a 10 grand budget in mind and you might be financing both the new one will probably cost you less in the long run sort of it's all confusing with pcp finance and not really owning things oh my god what has my channel become uh willie's boobies poo right i'm now in the sandero slightly taller brother the sandero stepway which is basically a sandero with a lift kit on it the suspension's quite a bit taller it's got roof rails modular roof rails on it and yeah it's more expensive it's about one half grand more expensive than the regular sander up to two and a half grand difference because at the top end this gets a slightly higher trim level called prestige the one i'm driving is actually the most expensive sanderu you can buy because it does that no not because it does that because it's got an automatic gearbox so this is the same 90 horsepower petrol engine i had in the one just now in the normal sandero but this has got the dreaded three-letter acronym it's a cvt continuously variable transmission or is it constantly variable either way it's like a scooter gearbox where the engine revs go to the roof and then the car speed catches up with it usually they're really bad and noisy and they feel inefficient this one takes two seconds off the naught 60 times so 14 seconds if you're counting an adapter um yeah let's boot it and see if it does that classic annoying cvt thing how's that actually that bad it's actually quite responsive and the engine is quiet enough that when it does go to what does it go to four and a half thousand rpm when you put your foot down it's not an unpleasant noise really yeah i mean i'd rather have a manual but if you need an auto this weirdly isn't terrible cvts are usually gash and this is not right i mean handling wise it feels actually the ride comfort is a little better than the regular sandero that extra suspension travel must do something i guess it's still let's give some cat size still like you can feel the road it doesn't turn it into a boat it's just a bit of extra ground clearance really in a bit of a higher driving position obviously the interior is a bit different it's been tangled you've got orange stripes on the seat and yeah otherwise it's much the same as the regular sanderos just taller and uh 60 of sandero buyers by the stepway there we go have a fact other than that i think i like it just as much as the regular one although i wish i had a manual gearbox that's enough waffle from me over to you tim for a slightly shorter outro in the rain the new dacia sandero and sanderos stepway a bit like buying paracetamol for your headache you could spend two quid and get a pack with caffeine and ground up viagra and whales tears in it or you could spend 20p and just get a tool that does the job and that's kind of what the sandero is it makes you realize that in modern cars you're paying for a lot of flim flam that you don't really want or need this does everything you want and kind of nothing else but it's been tarted up a bit the panel gaps are tighter it looks more modern the interior is no longer a depressing little hole and it's got wireless apple carplay it is still just the car but it's kind of moved with the times and meets the needs of kind of what we're used to with our connectivity and stuff like that the engine is good the driving experience really there's nothing to fault with it yeah it's a very good car but it is just a car it's not going to set your heart on fire but it's roomy it's practical it does what you need it to do anyway thank you so much watching please like comment subscribe i'm going somewhere else before it rains hit my bell and i'll see you next time not outside in the rain

Channel: Tim Rodie Drives Stuff

Views: 98,479

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Id: 1dEkrI1TeAU

Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 14 2021