► We live with a Dacia Jogger
► Room for seven, in theory
► Will live its life on car shoots
To appreciate what our newly arrived Dacia Jogger does well you need to separate motoring passion from the practicality of running a car. I’m not expecting my pulse to be racing at the end of every drive; and although it’s for the most part nicely styled, neither am I expecting to spend time staring admiringly at it.
But potential buyers of this Dacia won’t be interested in any of that anyway. They’ll be more taken with the fact that this is a lot of car for the money – the Jogger starts at just under £19k.
That’s great value – although, in the Extreme Hybrid 140 specification of our car, the cost is nearly £25k. The colour is Terracotta, a £650 option. With the Jogger arriving the day before an arduous journey to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the first job was to load up for the weekend. Opening the hatch the first thing that struck me was the lack of boot space with all seven seats in place – you may be able to seat seven, but not their luggage too.
Luckily, the two third-row seats are light and easy to remove. And with them gone, the boot is gigantic; far bigger than that of our family VW Tiguan in both depth and height. If you’ve ever done the Goodwood pilgrimage you’ll know that I’m not qualified to comment on the Jogger’s driving experience yet – much of the painful five-hour journey was spent at under 10mph. But initial observations are that the ride is comfortable and the engine responsive.
The hybrid system is integrated really well, switching between EV mode and petrol seamlessly, although the gearbox is often reluctant to change up in when the engine is providing all the power, which must be the car siphoning off some energy to recharge the modest 1.2kWh battery. The trip computer tells me I’ve achieved 52.8mpg so far, and, impressively, drove a big chunk of the return leg (158 of 386 miles) running on battery power – a suspiciously high figure that requires investigation.
It’s well specified: climate control, cruise, heated seats, Apple CarPlay and a digital dash are all standard in Extreme 140 trim. The built-in phone holder on the dash is a great idea, with a USB port hidden away behind it. I pretty much live and work out of my car on magazine shoots, so I’m looking forward to seeing how the Jogger fares at this very particular use.
Read month 2 here
Logbook: Dacia Jogger Extreme TCe 140 Hybrid (Month 1)
Price £24,645 (£25,295 as tested)
Performance 1598cc four-cylinder, 140bhp, 10.0sec 0-62mph, 103mph
Efficiency 57.6mpg (official), 52.8mpg (tested), 109g/km CO2
Energy cost 11.3p per mile
Miles this month 684
Total miles 3483