Three months ownership now so have formulated more of an opinion of the stepway.first thing to say is Dacia would not have been my first choice but finances dictated it,i needed a new car with a larger boot to take a wheelchair,needed it to be easier for my mother inlaw to get in and out of,she is 85 registered blind and can hardly walk and four doors so when there was three of us in my wife didnt have to struggle to get in.
So i took it out for a test and thought yes ok no irritations i could live with this,things have moved on from there and now its a case of really liking it,plenty of comfort not short on power and handles well.
Fuel economy well that was a strange thing having had two new puntos previously which showed a computer MPG of 40 mpg in short town trips i felt this was not as good as i was only retuning 36-38mpg on tank to tank calculations,but my wife pointed out to me we where doing exactly the same driving as we did in the punto and putting £5 a week less fuel in,so the Dacia must be doing better.
Faults,well two really one the fuel gauge was playing silly beggars and never showed full but instead of running straight back there i thought give it a few months for any other faults to show and get them all done at the same time,its now sorted itself.
One of the rubbers around a rear quarter light has developed a bulge which could allow water in so its going back for that.
Financially its a no brainer,tax the same as the punto,insurance half price,5 years warranty better MPG,can only guess but my thoughts are if i had paid £15,000 for a car in five years i would be very lucky to get £7,000 back so a loss of £8,000 paid £9,000 with all the bits ie extended warranty so only got to get £1000 to be no worse off.
