Dacia Duster LPG – more than a thousand kilometers without refueling

I have already written about the interior, equipment and cabin quality of Dacia Duster, so now it’s time to drive it. This is a car with a conventional turbo petrol engine, with a small displacement – it is only a liter unit. Its power is 100 HP. And in some cases we will feel its deficiency. When there are four people and luggage in the car, acceleration takes a very long time and is accompanied by a bad clang of the 3-cylinder engine. Furthermore, driving with a heavy load means that even though the engine is small, it still needs a lot of fuel. On the highway, at 140 km / h, we can reach up to 10 liters of gasoline per 100 km. However, this is a special case. Everyday life is better.

In addition, the desire for gasoline is less important than in other cars because in the tested Dacia Duster, in addition to the gasoline tank, we also have an additional one – for gas. The advantage of this solution, that is to use the factory installation, is, firstly, the fact that we do not lose the warranty, and secondly, the entire system is fully connected to the car, including its on-board computer.

Thanks to this, you can not easily switch between LPG and gasoline (use the right button), but you can also monitor the current and average consumption of each of the two fuels on the on-board computer screen. We also see both the amount of fuel in the tank and the range we can rely on for the current driving style. It’s really very simple.

Dacia Duster LPG – a worthy range of economical diesel

The mentioned range is good to look at, because in good conditions, using both methods of strengthening the engine, it can travel even more than 1,000 km without refueling. I realized how rarely you need to fill the Duster when I drove it for more than a month without visiting a gas station. Of course, I checked the behavior of the car using both types of fuel, and in everyday life it makes more sense to put gasoline in the tank and use the cheaper LPG. However, you can also count on a long time, more than 500 kilometers in urban traffic (the gas tank has a volume of 50 liters).

How much fuel does the Dacia Duster two-wheeler use? It depends on what oil we use. More expensive gasoline burns a little less than gas, which is due to the special nature of the fuel. In practice, in the city we can calculate 9 liters of LPG per 100 kilometers and a little more than 7 liters of gasoline. This is a good result, although remember that under the hood of the Duster there is only a 100 HP engine. When driving slowly, it should be more economical.

On the road, the results vary greatly, because – as with small engines in large cars – fuel consumption increases rapidly as a function of speed. This is also the case with the Dacia SUV. In city roads we can burn about 5 liters of petrol per 100 kilometers and more than 7 liters of LPG. On a fast road (120 km / h) it will be 8 liters (gasoline) and 10 liters (LPG) per 100 km, respectively, and on the highway it will be at least a liter more. Is that much? In terms of petrol, this is a normal value for a car like Dacia Duster. And LPG? Well, that’s a good result. And what’s more, one that won’t ruin our wallet, because while gasoline now costs about PLN 6.5, LPG costs less than PLN 2.8. This is a big difference in operating costs.

Dacia Duster LPG – not a fast car

By driving with liquid gas, we can save a lot compared to motor oil and gasoline. However, the price of cheap driving is performance. Dacia’s 6-speed gearbox is set up for economical driving. The gear ratio does not allow for very strong acceleration. When running on gasoline (then the engine is less powerful), we can calculate the sprint to 100 km / h in 15 seconds, when we change the gas, this time decreases to less than 14 seconds. However, these are still high values ​​that indicate that the Duster in this version it is not a fast car. Well, something for something.

In fact, this performance in the city does not bother you at all, because on crowded streets there is no point in pressing the gas pedal and there is basically no place to pass. It’s the same with expressways – we drive at our own pace. Average performance will only be felt badly on normal city roads, when we want to overtake a truck, for example. It is better to plan such a maneuver well and wait for a large enough space in front of us.