Dacia Sandero Stepway review

The Dacia Sandero Stepway is a jacked-up city car that’s an affordable alternative to the likes of the Ford Fiesta Active and Citroen C3. 

Imagine the regular Dacia Sandero cosplaying as an SUV and you’re on the right tracks here. The Sandero Stepway sees the ride height raised, some plastic cladding stuck along the wheel arches and a pair of roof rails screwed on top. Radical it ain’t. 

From a style perspective, the various plastic additions just make the Sandero look cheaper in Stepway form than it actually is. The raised ride height helps with comfort and the roof rails are a useful touch, but the rest of the visual tweaks just seem a bit tacky. 

Once you’re inside the Stepway you’ll see some more changes here too. The seating position is set a little bit higher, and the backrests have ‘Stepway’ badging. Orange trim highlights and stitching comes through as well, along with a fabric dashboard trims.

It all feels well built in the Dacia Sandero Stepway, and not like it’s one of the cheapest cars you can buy new — although the abundance of hard plastic does give the game away somewhat. It’s dead easy to find a comfy seating position as well and there’s good adjustment in the steering wheel. You won’t find any electric adjustment here though, which shouldn’t be a surprise.

Space in the back row of the Sandero Stepway is decent. Adults will find there’s good amount of head- and legroom for a car this small, though you’ll be getting cosy shoulder-to-shoulder with three in the back. That’s typical of a car of this size, though, and markedly better than the much smaller city cars that you’ll usually find at this price. 

If you want an infotainment system, you’ll need to go for a car in Comfort or Prestige trim. The 8-inch display is pretty basic but functions well, and supports both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto wirelessly. You get a built in phone holder too which is pretty handy, though if your phone’s big it’ll probably block the view out a little bit. Nothing major but worth noting.

The Stepway is no off-roader, but provides a loftier view of the world than the Sandero and a more mature driving experience than its predecessor.

The Dacia Sandero Stepway embarasses the Ford Fiesta Active in the boot space stakes, with 328 litres compared to 292 litres. It’s easy to use too thanks to an adjustable floor that can pretty much eliminate the boot lip.

You’ve got the choice of three turbocharged three-cylinder engines, all 1.0-litre in capacity. There’s 65hp and 90hp outputs for petrol models, with a 100hp bifuel version that will run on LPG as well as petrol.

The 90hp car is the one to go for. All of them are pretty sluggish — you might even be better outrunning it on a bicycle if you want to feel a rush of speed — but the 90hp car is easier to live with, and the LPG option is only really worth it if you live dead close to a fuelling station and can be bothered to fill the Sandero with two types of fuel regularly. After all, it’s not exactly a gas guzzler.

Even though it’s meant to look like a rough-and-ready, off-roading SUV, the Dacia Sandero Stepway is still most at home in the middle of town. Light steering makes it so easy to chuck about and park, plus visibility out of the front is good so you’ll be able to squeeze into tight spots fairly easy — though the view out of the back isn’t great so it might be worth going for a car with a rear-view camera.

The soft-set suspension (even softer than the normal Sandero) makes light work of bumps and potholes too so you’re not going to find yourself crashing about. It’s really impressive for something this cheap — as long as you’re cool with relying on a light tailwind on motorways to overtake.

You’ll be quite satisfied if you opt for the Dacia Sandero then, but go for the Stepway and you do just get an extra layer of comfort and the minor price increase is worth it. As long as you can live with the looks.