DACIA DUSTER

The family SUV has dealt with urban life admirably, but how about hundreds of miles over a weekend?

- Andy Pringle [e-mail]

THERE'S a rule in the Pringle Book of Car Testing that says if you want to really put a car through its paces, take it out of its comfort zone. And that's just what we did with the Duster on a long weekend away to see friends in Northumberland.

Received wisdom told us that a £26k hybrid SUV with a focus on strong economy around town was not the ideal car for a 650-mile round trip – especially when about 630 of those would be on a motorway or dual carriageway. But if there's one thing the Duster has been doing over the past few months, it's confounding expectation. The question was: when we arrived, would we be singing its praises or screaming at it?

Well, the main picture probably answers that question immediately – although it's fair to say our daughter was as happy to see her friends for the first time in six months as she was with the performance of the Dacia on the trip north along the M1, A1 and A69.

This was – by some distance - the longest single trip we'd ever undertaken in the Duster. The car had happily taken us to Devon and back over Easter, but the trek to Northumberland meant going twice as far for the same period of time.