UNLESS you've been locked up binge-watching Squid Game, you can't have missed the dispiriting fact that the cost of living is going up at a startling rate, writes William Scholes.
Increases in gas and electric bills have been well publicised, while it feels like it costs an extra tenner to fill the car with petrol or diesel every time you venture to the petrol station.
Cars themselves aren't immune. A complicated set of factors, including Covid, Brexit and a global shortage of semiconductors and microchips, have, for example, combined to keep the prices of used cars high.
Yet you can still put a brand new car on your driveway for less than £10,000. That's the entry point to Dacia ownership, whose bargain basement Sandero Essential model costs just £9,845.
The Sandero swims in the same small five-door hatchback waters as cars like the Ford Fiesta, Volkswagen Polo and Renault Clio. To put its price in some context, the cheapest Fiesta these days is £16,645...
And if the price tag isn't enough to catch your attention, it's worth noting that the Sandero is also a little larger than its class rivals. So, bigger and cheaper - a winning combination, surely, and enough to make the Dacia Sandero unquestionably the car for these inflationary times through which we are living.
Things aren't quite as straightforward as that, however. That sub-£10k Sandero is, unsurprisingly, a pretty spartan device, all white paint, big black plastic bumpers and an engine that might struggle to stay ahead of Stephenson's Rocket.
In other words, you won't really want a Sandero 'Essential'. You can also get it in plusher 'Comfort' spec - priced from a still cheap-as-chips £11,445.
If you remain unconvinced, then what you probably want - particularly if, like the rest of the world, you've gone a little SUV crazy, is the flavour of Dacia featured on these pages today: the mighty Sandero Stepway, yours from as little as £11,945.
The Stepway is essentially a Sandero on stilts. Part of the apparently unstoppable trend of gentrifying regular family cars into pseudo off-roaders, the Stepway gains extra ride height, chunky roof bars and other SUV tropes such as rugged plastic trim around the wheel arches and the hint that it may have skid plates bolstering its bumpers.
As with cars like the Ford Fiesta Active, these suggestions that the Sandero Stepway is ready to tackle the Rubicon Trail are just that - suggestions. The Stepway is as resolutely front-wheel-drive and road-biased as its Sandero sibling.
However, as with the Kia XCeed featured last week, the slightly elevated ride height gives the Sandero Stepway a notably soft and comfortable ride, which is a boon on Northern Ireland roads, especially the bumpier and pot-holier sections that give a good impression of transitioning from tarmac to off-road trail...
This is the second generation of Sandero - and Sandero Stepway - to reach these shores. It's a big improvement on the earlier car.
This is the second generation of Sandero Stepway to reach these shores. It's a big improvement on the earlier car, which I remember having seats that put me in mind of the pews in a particularly ascetic Presbyterian church. Stepway v2.0 is a far remove from all that...
It also traded on its bargain price, though it wasn't an especially pleasant thing to operate. I remember it being epically slow and prone to misting up, even in the summer. Capping it all were some particularly vicious seats, which put me in mind of the pews in a particularly ascetic Presbyterian church of my acquaintance.
Sandero Stepway v2.0 is a far remove from all that. For a start, the windscreen remained condensation free and they've got round to fitting proper seats. This might not be good news for chiropractors and physiotherapists, but it's an undoubted win for the rest of us.
Best of all, the Sandero no longer feels like a miserably cheap car. Sure, there's more hard plastics in the interior than you'll find in a Fiesta or Polo, and nor is the infotainment and safety tech cutting edge, but it feels solid and well built. It doesn't ask you to make as many excuses for its low price tag as the old model did.
The test car was in everything-but-the-kitchen-sink 'Prestige' spec, which is unavailable on the regular Sandero, which perhaps emphasises the fact that customers today really are keen on SUV-lite vehicles.
Like Donald Trump - though less likely to inspire an insurrection - the Stepway was painted in look-at-me orange.
I'm all for bright and bold colours, though I think I'd prefer a more subdued shade were it my own car. There's a tendency for faux off-roaders to look a little, well, cheap - notwithstanding the fact that the Dacia genuinely is - and the 'desert orange' paintwork perhaps serves to make the plastic addenda look a little more bolted on afterthought than intended; I accept, however, that views on matters cosmetic are entirely subjective...
In essence, the Sandero is a neat design albeit one that appears self-consciously rational and sensible. There's none of the swoopy style of something like a Renault Clio or Peugeot 208; rather, we're at the Skoda Fabia end of the flair scale.
However, that rather suits the no-nonsense proposition that the Sandero represents. It also facilitates a roomy cabin, illuminated by large windows.
The dashboard is simple. There's no mystery about what any of the switches or knobs do. There's an 8-inch touchscreen perched at the top of the middle of the dashboard; its display is clear, and it works well with Apple CarPlay.
There are flourishes of orange - in the stitching on the seats and the air vents, for example - and splashes of fabric trim on the dashboard, which combine to help lift the ambiance beyond what could otherwise have been a coal bucket.
There's plenty of room up front - and the seats are more than acceptably comfortable this time - and back seat space is more than adequate. The boot volume is quoted as 328 litres, which is in the upper echelons of the class. You get a set of 'modular roof bars' on the Stepway, and taken together it's a thoroughly practical little car.
It's worth noting that a spare wheel is offered as a £250 option - many cars these days don't even offer such a thing, giving you a can of gunk and a compressor pump instead.
The Stepway is offered with two different engines. One is a novel 'bifuel' unit, which can runs on either petrol or LPG and therefore has two fuel tanks. It's hard to imagine this makes sense to anyone who doesn't live near a petrol station with an LPG pump.
Which leaves the 89bhp three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, dubbed TCe 90 in Dacia-speak, as the Sandero Stepway's default motive power.
Let's not beat around the bush. This is not a quick car. Equipped as standard with a six-speed manual gearbox, it eventually hauls itself from 0-62mph in 12.0 seconds.
The test car came with a CVT automatic set-up which, while smooth in operation, endows the Stepway with glacial acceleration and the unappealing prospect of completing the benchmark sprint, eventually, in more than 14.0 seconds.
It could be worse; the regular Sandero can be had with a 64bhp engine which eventually summons sufficient fury to get from 0-62mph in a little under 17 seconds. Yawn...
As mentioned already, the Stepway's soft springs bestow it with a nicely cushioned ride. This translates to a lot of body roll if you attempt any moderately exuberant driving. With the engine doing its best to further discourage anything that might pass as spirited progress, it's best to take it easy...
The Sandero gets only a lowly two-star Euro Ncap safety rating; it performs well enough in crash testing, but falls down compared to more expensive rivals through a relative paucity of high-tech safety aids and assistance systems.
Model-for-model, the Stepway attracts a premium of around £1,500 over the regular Sandero. The allure of its SUV-stylings probably makes that worthwhile for most punters - this, after all, seems to be what many buyers want these days.
And whatever way you look at it, the Sandero Stepway is a very affordable car - a quick scout about the Dacia website reveals a £139 a month offer for a range-topping Prestige model.
There are people who spend more than that, even in these straitened times, on their television and mobile phone packages each month, never mind gas, electric and a tank of fuel for their car.
Looked at that way, the Dacia is a rather compelling offer. It's a budget car that you don't have to apologise for; credible, comfortable and cheap - what more does anyone need?
AT A GLANCE
Dacia Sandero Stepway Prestige TCe 90 Auto
Price: £15,745. As tested: £16,590 with metallic paint £595 and spare wheel £250
Engine and transmission: 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol turbo, front-wheel-drive, continuously variable transmission with six 'ratios'; 89bhp, 105lb ft
Performance: Top speed 101mph, 0-62mph in 14.2 seconds
Fuel consumption and CO2: 45.6mpg (WLTP combined); 38.9mpg (real world/test); 139g/km
Vehicle excise duty: £220 in first year, then £155 annually
Benefit in kind: 31 per cent
Euro NCap safety rating: Two stars (2021 test)
