Dacia News

Three years and for months ago Dacia introduced the first LPG version from its range. At that time, the Pitesti car manufacturer offered a LPG engine for the Logan Sedan. A month later, Dacia offered a LPG version for the Logan MCV, and in 2009 for the Sandero. Landi Renzo is the LPG supplier for Dacia and is already implanted in the Mioveni industrial platform.

The LPG installations used for the Dacia cars are calibrated and sized from the factory for perfect integration on the models that are fitted. The CO2 emissions are reduced considerably, and all the Dacia LPG models have the Eco2 signature, which means that the CO2 emissions are less that 140 grams per kilometer, are produced in an ISO 14001 certified factory and that 95% the mass of the vehicle can be recovered by recycling and at least 5% of the plastic used is recycled.

The 100.000 LPG Dacia unit is a Sandero with Navy Bleu color. The model is equipped with a 1.4 liter engine and 75 HP and will be delivered in Italy. The LPG petrol engines are particularly popular in Italy, but also in France and Germany . In recent years, the cheap price of the liquefied petroleum gas have made this opportunity to become increasingly popular in all European countries.

After some important German tuning houses have modified the performances and the design of Dacia Duster, one Romanian tuning house is ready to impress. The Auto K9 tuning house has presented the Logan convertible.

The Logan Cabrio has two doors, is white both inside and outside, and looks great. The Logan front doors were lengthened and the rear doors no longer exits.

On the inside, a white leather covers the seats and a more powerful audio system was installed. The Logan Cabrio only problem is that it doesn’t have a soft or hard retractable roof. Therefore, this model can be used only in the summer, after studying carefully the weather forecast. The Dacia Logan Cabriolet is most likely to remain a concept.

Source: 4Tuning

Dacia has produced one million copies of the Logan model at its factory in Pitesti. The anniversary unit is a Logan sedan, white, powered by a Euro 5 engine of 1.2 liters and 75 HP, which was delivered to a customer in Romania. The anniversary unit comes six years after Dacia Logan was launched in Romania, during which the Logan was gradually offered in four different body versions. These are sedan, MCV, Van and Pick-Up.

The Dacia Logan offered gradually six tips of engines, four of which are on petrol: the 1.2 liter engine with 16 valves, the 1.4 MPI engine, the 1.6 MPI engine and the 1.6 engine with 16 valves. The diesel engine range has two units: the 1.5 liter dCi engine with 70 and 85 HP.The Logan first diesel engine offered only 65 HP. Dacia offers also two versions of the Logan on LPG, a system designed to reduce the fuel costs and the CO2 emissions.

Until 12 October 2010, the most popular version of the Dacia Logan remains the sedan produced in 636,212 units. In second place comes the favorite of the Europeans, the Logan MCV and in third comes the Logan Van with only 32,324 units. The least popular member of the Logan family is the Pick-Up model produced in just 19,326 units.

Although at the Dacia stand were not presented new models at the Paris Motor Show, the appearance of the Duster and Sandero models, the two cars that have high sells on the French market, have attracted many visitors in the Romanian car manufacturer stand.

The second edition of the Dacia Picnic will take place in France this weekend. Unlike the meeting in Sartre in 2009, this year picnic will be organized in two places: Mosseaux and Cublize. Some participants will travel over 300 kilometers just to attend this meeting.

Dacia first picnic was held on September 27, 2009. At that time, the participants had the opportunity to learn to paint, take driving lessons and learn more about their cars. At that time, about 4,000 people attended the Dacia Grand Picnic. The Dacia Picnic at Sarthe in 2009 marked a novel group picture, in which the participants formed the "J’aime ma Dacia (I love my Dacia) with their cars.

The Austrian Fiskales LKW company proposed a special tuning kit for Dacia Duster: a van version of the Romanian SUV, which offers a load volume of 1.636 liters and a maximum load of 425 kg. The van version of Duster will be powered by an 1.6 liter engine and will have an starting price of 12.508 euros in Austria.

The Austrian of Fiskales promise to produce the conversion van kit for the Duster version with 1.5 dCi engine with 110 HP. The conversion price of this package has not yet been announced. This is the first van conversion that the Duster has received, other changes announced so far were for suspensions, engines and external appearance.

In Romania, the entry-level version of Dacia Duster has a starting price of 10.941 euros all taxes included. The cheapest four-wheel drive version of Dacia Duster starts at 12.817 euros with VAT included, while the top end starts at 16.255 euros in the Laureate version with an 1.5 dCi engine and 110 HP. Dacia has its own van version of Duster, but it is offered in some markets and it is not available for the four-wheel drive versions.

The Russians from Avtovaz have presented at the Moscow Motor Show a Lada version of Dacia Logan MCV. The model is still called "Project R90" and is the first car to be built at the factory in Togliatti on the B0 platform, the one that the Romanian model is built. Clearly, this model is only a slightly modified version of Dacia Logan MCV, but there are no problems of copying a model because Nissan owns 25% of AvtoVAZ and decided to introduce this unique model on the Russian market under the Lada logo.

The Project R90 standard version will be powered by an 1.6 liter petrol engine and will have two airbags and a ISOFIX system for attaching child seats. Optionally, the model can be equipped with an ABS, a Radio CD with MP3 and side airbags. As in Romania, the third row of seats is optional. Once launched on the Russian market, the Lada R90 will have a starting price around 350,000 rubles (equivalent to 8.946 euros). For example, a Lada Priora Wagon has a starting price of 320,000 rubles (about 8179 euros), while the Renault Logan model equipped with 1.6 liter engine has a starting price of 365,000 rubles (equivalent to 9.329 euros).

For the first time in Europe the Dacia Logan and Sandero models will be offered the option of automatic transmission equipment. The main market target of this models is Russia, and therefore the French of Renault have chosen the Moscow Motor Show for the launch. The Motor Show  in the Russian capital will start on August 25 will and the new models of Logan and Sandero will be offered for sale starting next month.

The new Dacia models with automatic gearbox are not the first models that are using the automatic transmission. The Nissan Aprio, the name under which the Logan is sold in Mexico, has a version with automatic transmission that is used by Renault for the  Clio model.
Also, under the Renault brand, the Logan with automatic transmissions is sold in the Arab countries.

Dacia will replace the current Logan with a new model that has the code name X52. The X52 project  is in progress and will benefit from more efficient engines with lower carbon emissions and lower fuel consumption. The future engines will be made on the same architecture as K7 with 1.4 and 1.6 liters. Most likely the 1.2-liter engine with 16 valves will not get too many changes.

"We have new projects with Volkswagen and Renault. For the future X52 model we will have basically the same engines with small changes. They became more efficient and with lower carbon emissions and lower fuel consumption," said Catalin Tischer, the General Director of Mahle, the supplier of air filters for Dacia and other major European car manufacturers.

The Logan’s successor will have to compete in 2012 with new models that will be launched by Citroen and Peugeot. Besides these, Skoda promises for some time a low cost model that will rival Logan and other major car manufacturers also have in plan to launch a low cost model. It remains to be seen whether the Dacia-Renault will be able to apply the new recipe for success that characterized the Logan model in the case of the second generation. This time, the Romanian car manufacturer has all eyes of the European market fixed on it.

Renault is trying to make profitable the Russian giant AvtoVaz and comes with a saving plan, which is is based on the Romanian model from Dacia, the  Logan. The Euro-Asian  car manufacturer aims to develop a completely new range of models based on the current Logan platform, that will debut on the market in a few years. The AvtoVaz models will be completely different from those of Dacia and will address the Russian public.

In the next two years, the Russian car manufacturer could launch a B-segment vehicle, developed on a Renault platform and that will be scheduled to sell 300.000 units per year. Also, the Eastern conglomerate could stop producing cars under the Lada brand, and could introduce a new low cost model, estimated at 5000-6000 EUR.

In these circumstances, if all goes according to plan, AvtoVaz could produce by 2015 a total of 900.000 vehicles per year, a figure that will allow to retain its current market share of 25%.

Renault and other shareholders of the AvtoVaz promised that will invest in the Russian car manufacturer approximately one billion euros: 310 million will come from the Russian government and 240 million from the French car manufacturer. Renault will provide also the available technology, the information materials and the production equipment.