Duster 1.3L turbo: 6 things I've faced during my 34,000 km ownership

I've owned the SUV for 3 years and feel its an underrated beast of a machine.

BHPian mav3r1ckblu3 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hi Fellow T'BHPians,

This is just an ownership update since my last upgrade (which was actually about the downsizing of tyres). I've now driven 34000 Kms approximately in 3 years and it has been a wonderful experience of owning this underrated beast of a machine. One thing that has stayed consistent since the beginning of ownership is that even to this day, every time I switch off the beast and lock it to park it, I look back at it in admiration at least once before walking away

Everyone already knows about the good things of this beast so at the cost of sounding like a broken record let me go over it all over again.

1. Powerful engine
2. Great suspension
3. Exterior has aged well (I'm old-school, and this looks brilliantly proportionate from ANY angle)
4. VFM product (15 Lakhs on-road for a fully loaded Turbo Petrol MT at the time of purchase)
5. Interiors have held well, with NO loose-fitting peripherals which rattle at the slightest jerk on bumpy roads.
6. Hydraulic steering, so great feedback from the road (not to everybody's liking though)
7. OEM ICE has held its own, I only upgraded the front speakers to JBL (you can find the write-up on this thread)
8. Storage, plenty of spaces to store things inside the cabin and in the boot.
9. Highway mileage of 15 Kmpl is my personal best so far.

Not-so-great things:

1. Turbo lag till 2000 RPM (I'm used to it now, learnt to modulate the clutch and accelerator to overcome this)
2. Hard clutch (used to it now, for comparison, the clutch of the new Force Gurkha is light-er compared to this)
3. Manual transmission makes its presence felt during rush hour and start & stop traffic (I don't need to go to the gym to exercise my leg muscles due to point no. 2 above)
4. Interiors (I don't mind it though, functionality over form for me)
5. Single-digit mileage when driven hard.

Things I faced during ownership (I have opted in for extended warranty and Renault easy care packages BTW)

1. Auto start-stop feature - I never used this feature (disabled this to save battery and turbo) but it stopped functioning one time and the ASC replaced the relay fuse which had gone kaput, free of cost.
2. Rat bite issue with engine harness wiring, TWICE. Once in Kerala during the second year of ownership, which the in-house insurance took care of, got it back within a week. The second time in Chennai, just before the floods last year, in-house insurance kicked in again, but this time I got the vehicle back in 45 days (due to the engine harness wiring being in backorder status). It's a long story of me running pillar to post, involving the Renault India CEO in the email, which I'll elaborate maybe some other time. But the insurance saved me a total of 72000 INR, I only had to pay a total of 5000 INR out of my pocket for both instances. I have the engine protection cover in my insurance BTW. After the second instance, I got the underbody gauge mesh wiring installed to prevent any future Rat incursions (9000 INR spent)
3. OEM Battery dead (this was immediately after the second instance of rat bite, vehicle lying in ASC for 45 days might have played a part, but by then it was already 32000 Kms run, so had to spend 6K (with the exchange of old battery) for a 60 DIN Amaron battery, the original VARTA battery was nowhere to be found.
4. Scratches and little dents, so these maybe due to the cleaning guys over the years, plus also due to the lovely colour of my beast (Mahogany Brown, which is a blessing and a bane at the same time)
5. Expensive in-house insurance cost, I opted out of it during the beginning of 4th year of ownership, and it saved me 50% cost of renewal (INR 36000 in house vs INR 18000 outside)
6. Steering vibrations while traveling at 100+ Kmph, this was after the 4th service of 30000 Kms at the ASC that I noticed while driving back to Chennai from Kerala. While doing the wheel rotation during service the front left wheel rim just won't come off from the centre hub, despite the best of kicks from the engineers at ASC, then I had to intervene and show them the party trick of how to get it off. I'm afraid that those kicks had done some sort of damage. After the service I got the tyre balancing done from the outside but the issue still persists. I'm in a fix as to how to get it resolved. Any pointers would be helpful.

If you've read it all and have come this far, I appreciate you spending time reading this. Apart from that 45-day stint at the ASC and the yet unresolved steering vibration issue, my ownership has been nothing short of wonderful. Especially considering the horror stories that I've read of owners of some of the newer vehicles that have arrived, I consider these issues pretty trivial.

I hope the next 34000 Kms are as eventless and "boring" as the previous 34000 have been.

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