Renault Duster (First report)

Once it gets into the meat of its powerband (between 2000 and 4000rpm) the Duster is a fantastic sprinter, and it gobbled up the 94km Mumbai-Pune expressway without a fuss. On the highway, there’s adequate overtaking poke and you don’t need to use the six-speed gearbox too frequently. It’s when you take a right turn to Wai off the Pune-Bangalore highway and start the climb up to Panchgani that you feel the lack of low-end grunt typical of a small-displacement engine. On the ghat roads, you need to use the gearbox a fair bit to ensure that the engine doesn’t go off boost. Even so, you can’t power out of bends with ease, and whilst overtaking on these twisty roads with blind corners, the Duster doesn’t feel as effortless to drive as on the highway.

The good thing is that the gearshift, though not very precise, has a light and unobtrusive action. But what gives you huge confidence on any road and any surface is the Duster’s phenomenal and unflappable poise. It feels so planted at serious highway speeds and particularly around corners, and this makes it absolutely undemanding. The steering isn’t particularly precise or bristling with feel, but it’s accurate enough to allow you to point the Duster wherever you want it to go. The ride is flat and consistent, and the suspension has very little movement, which simply hides away bad roads. Passengers are not tossed around and, as a result, even after a 4-5 hour drive, they emerge neither shaken nor stirred. But they would’ve liked to have stretched their legs; the Duster is a compact SUV and so not as spacious as, say, the similarly priced XUV500 or Safari Storme. Though the seats are really comfy and offer a nice, upright seating position with good support all round, space in the rear is at a premium.