Dacia Logan MCV review

The styling of the Logan could be described as unassuming, or perhaps unexciting. In truth, the way the Dacia Logan MCV looks is entirely a by-product of the task it’s been designed to carry out.  

The MCV part of the car’s name stands for ‘maximum capacity vehicle’, which is pretty much what people want from an estate model. Look at it like that and you can start to understand where the designers were heading with the styling.  

Up front, there’s a simple bumper (on entry-level Access models this isn’t even painted), with the typical Dacia badge and four-strip grille above. In face-lifted cars, the four chrome strips were replaced with eight rectangles. 

The sides are pretty plain and almost vertical, in the name of providing plenty of practical in-cabin space, and the glass area is large. At the back, the vertical tailgate is as usable as it gets. The Dacia Logan MCV also has a couple of roof rails in case you overfill the boot. 

The 0.9-litre turbocharged petrol engine is a rather sweet thing, so long as you don’t have to travel too far or too quickly. It’s pretty good for nipping around town, as it’s brisk off the mark and quite happy on dual carriageways. 

If you regularly fill the boot and shift stuff here, there and everywhere (which is kind of the point of the Logan) the 1.5-litre dCi diesel may be the way to go. It’s really strong off the mark, and even more so once the turbo has spun up and got in on the action. It’ll happily spend all day on the motorway too, and shouldn’t drink a load of fuel. Yes, it likes to make its voice heard when it’s cold, but it calms down once it’s warmed up. 

The suspension on the Logan MCV is pretty soft, so it shouldn’t feel too uncomfortable on bumpy roads, although the body might bob and sway a bit on twisty roads. Still, the steering is light, so parking the big Dacia shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

The interior of the Dacia Logan MCV has definitely been built to do a job. That job, however, is not to make you feel all warm and cuddly about sitting in it. No, the job is to last a lifetime of hard use, either by families or business drivers. And if that’s the job, the Dacia Logan MCV is a bit of an expert at it. 

All the plastics used in the interior feel quite hard, yet robust; there’s no sign of squidgy luxury here, although the odd piece of glossy plastic manages to lift the ambience. Everything feels like it will long outlast your ownership period though. 

The dashboard itself is quite simple, and all the better for it. Ahead of the driver sits an instrument binnacle with three dials. The centre dial is a rev counter with a speedometer to its left, and a digital display with the fuel gauge and other information such as range-to-empty is included too. 

Left of the steering wheel sits an attractive sculpted facia with two vents and the audio system below it. On some models, this is a small touchscreen that allows you to control the telephone system, the radio and music systems, and the sat-nav. 

Below this sits the conventional rotary knobs that operate the ventilation/air-conditioning system, and beneath them are the electric window switches. 

This is what the Dacia Logan MCV was put on this earth to do, so it has loads of legroom and headroom in the front seats. The front seats are far enough apart that you won’t feel like you’re banging elbows with each other either. 

There’s decent space for a couple in the back, although basketball players need not apply, because they’ll find their knees rubbing the backs of the front seats. The door pockets are quite large, so you should have no bother stashing all your daily bits and bobs. 

The boot is great, too. It’s bigger than you’ll find in any car of comparable value and is genuinely usable. For a start, there’s no load lip to speak of, so it’s easy to slide heavy stuff in and out, and the back seats fold almost flat. 

Any Dacia Logan MCV should be relatively cheap to run. For example, the 0.9-litre three-cylinder engine sips like someone at a posh tea dance. It should manage an average of 53.3mpg. 

The diesel is pretty much teetotal because it should do an average of 61.4mpg. It’ll be at its fuel-sipping best on long trips. Insurance costs should be super-low because the Logan MCV starts off in group 2 and only reaches group 11. 

If ever a car was a car that did what it said on the tin, that car is the Dacia Logan MCV. There are no fripperies with the Logan and nothing to get in the way of it doing what it does best – which is to shift people and a whole load of stuff from nearby to far away as cheaply as possible. It’s undeniably basic, evidenced by some models having unpainted bumpers and no audio system whatsoever. If you can get a mid-spec version with Bluetooth and electric front windows, you’ll feel like you’re on to a real winner.