Dacia Jogger MPV – Reliability & safety

The Dacia Jogger is a new model, but it doesn’t come with the same level of safety equipment that you’d typically find in rivals. As for reliability and owner satisfaction, we can only go off Dacia’s other current models, where the picture is rather mixed. It seems buyers drawn in by the brand’s low prices become unhappy with certain aspects of their cars, but love other parts.

Dacia Jogger reliability

Our 2023 Driver Power survey saw Dacia ranked 26th out 32 manufacturers, which isn’t particularly impressive, but does rank more highly than parent company Renault in 29th. A high proportion of owners (26%) reported faults in the first year of ownership – roughly on par with Renault with 25% of owners reporting an issue. However, while the Jogger didn't appear, the second-generation Dacia Duster was the outright winner of Driver Power 2024, with exceptional results for reliability, ease-of-use of the interior controls, and value-for-money.

The previous-generation Sandero finished 75th in 2021 and has since dropped out of the rankings, but the new Sandero and the Jogger are based on far more modern underpinnings. They’ve received numerous interior improvements, and we didn’t find the Jogger too noisy on the move, so perhaps Dacia’s ranking will improve in the next couple of years.

Safety

Safety is an area that Dacia has previously admitted not focusing a great deal on, saying that its customers would rather pay less than have too many annoying or overbearing safety systems. Still, a one-star score (out of five) from Euro NCAP in 2021 is undeniably disappointing. Before you let that put you off, it’s worth looking into why the Jogger received such a low score.

Primarily, its low rating seems to come from the lack of protection given to people sitting in the third row of seats. There are no airbags or seatbelt reminder warnings for the sixth and seventh seats, which will primarily be used by children. The Jogger was also missing some safety technology features at the time of testing, which hampered its overall score.

However, adult and child occupant protection categories – whereby the car is crash tested – were scored at 70% and 69%, respectively. That’s not not far off the Vauxhall Mokka, a car that was awarded a four-star overall rating in 2021. Plus, Dacia updated the Jogger in 2024 with new standard-fit safety tech, including lane-keeping assist, intelligent speed assist, lane departure warning, driver drowsiness and attention monitoring, and a more sophisticated automatic emergency braking system.

Bearing that in mind, the 2024 Jogger probably isn’t as unsafe as its one-star score would suggest, thanks to new safety tech and a decent crash test rating. However, most of the Jogger’s rivals are rated as safer, with even higher scores for occupant protection and more advanced safety systems.