Test drive vaz Kalina 1118 sedan since 2004 sedan

Fit into the European standards

Distributing with new options, Lada-Kalina is more and more like a modern European car. Andrei Sidorov talks about the latest changes. Photo: Pavel Sidorov.
 
For this year, Kalina managed to lose a little fat and at the same time increase the muscle mass of a new 16-valve engine got rid of the extra 200 cubes of volume, but at the same time added nine power horses. The result was a slightly more dynamic and noticeably less voracious. And if the owner practically does not notice improvement of the dynamics (the maximum speed increased by only 5 km/h, and acceleration to a hundred fell by 0.8 s), then it will feel efficiency with its own pocket. A hundred consumption at a 1.4-liter machine in a mixed cycle of 6.7 liters against the previous 7.8 liters. In other words, every seventh kilometer is free.
We spoke in detail about the new VAZ-11194 engine in ZR, 2005, No. 9. Recall, the volume was reduced by reducing the diameter of the cylinders from 82 to 76.5 mm. Changed the combustion chamber, phases of gas distribution, equipped with a 16-valve cylinder head and GRETS GRM (Gates), whose resource (including a gear belt) is 200 thousand kilometers! Another stroke of modernity new engines comply with environmental standards Euro III, easily rebuilt to Euro IV and, as the factory experts assure, they are quite on the shoulder and promising euro V. Let the individual buyer do not, by and large, do not care, but all together the benefits of more or less large cities of Russia are firmly firmly Gari's gray hats settled.
By the end of the year, AvtoVAZ plans to produce about three and a half thousand kalin with a new engine, while a 1.6-liter engine of more than 30 thousand. Subsequently, the production of 1.4-liter will increase to 50 thousand per year.
The following two new elements of the configuration, although less noticeable against the background of a new engine, but, in my opinion, is much more important. These are airbags for the driver and the front passenger and the brakes with the anti -lock system (ABS) in the drive.
And let viburnum, thanks to the magnificent stiffness of the body and safe interior and without pillows, fit into the current norms of the UN EC, the latter is much calmer. Moreover, the pillows themselves from Sweden, from the company Autoliv, who knows in its business, and the seat belts with the premixers of the Estonian norm. But viburnum russian car, so it would be nice to take into account the original Russian mentality in this matter. Nothing prevents the motor and rushing at least at maximum speed, spitting on these belts. Heads, comparable to cast -iron balls, among us, it seems, three quarters. Their eyes look down on an eccentric, fastened according to all the rules. In other words, the mechanism that prevents the movement of the car, until everything in it is fastened, we need almost more than the pillows themselves. And not primitive, which can be deceived by snapping the locks in the position of the belt behind the back, and the real one, with triple protection from the fool.
The adaptation of the anti -lock system to Kalina began in February 2005, when the VAZ signed a contract with Bosch. In parallel, tests were also worked out by the ABS diagnostic technology at maintenance stations.
The system consists of a hydraulic unit (the main executive device that controls through electromagnetic valves in the pressure in working brakes), the electronic control unit, electric pump and four speed sensors one on the wheel. It costs the wheel blocked in braking, as the pressure in its brake falls by a split second and increases again, preventing the wheel with a sliding wheel. (On the brake pedals, the work of ABS is felt as a distinct chatter or crunch.) Thanks to this, the car remains controlled in emergency braking even on wet and slippery roads. The introduction of ABS entailed some constructive changes: to install the speed sensor, a rotary fist and front stand were changed. Tough rotors from which the speed of rotation of the wheels are read on the drives. The pressure regulator in the rear brakes is abolished.
Kalin, equipped with such a useful option, plan to release about one and a half thousand this year.
The criterion of truth
Well, now, when we know what to pay attention to, it's time to try the innovations at the wheel of the presentation program allowed to do this thoroughly, without haste.
At the first stage, I get a 1.4-liter hatchback and one and a half hundred kilometers of Karelian roads.
I'm comfortable. Behind the wheel, it is quite spacious and, unlike tens, the legs, it seems, is a little more freed by the gas pedal slightly drowned forward. Mirrors will easily evaluate the atmosphere in the back of large, convenient forms, and the sphereness is such that objects in them retain natural proportions. Adjusting with joysticks from the cabin: despite their small jerks, it does not represent mirrors in an increase in complexity.
I won’t tell you for all of Odessa, but I found the following features at a car with on -board number 3. The front suspension, in my opinion, is rather weak, several harmless potholes in the asphalt forced her to work until it stops. Not to deformation of the body, but still noticeable. Let's take into account and continue to be more accurate. The seat creaks hardly audibly, completely at home, like a cricket behind the stove, but the panel, it seemed, will rattles at times louder than we would like. To evaluate the maximum speed, they looked at a great new highway to the horizon of not a single car and any housing along the road.
Gas to the floor, 160 km/h, we cross with light vibration on the steering wheel and rest at 165 km/h along the speedometer. Well, no one else promised. And colleagues at dinner assured that they easily laid the arrow to the emphasis (200 km/h). Fishermen ...
The nature of the new motor for an amateur. To feel the growth of power, the tachometer arrow will have to be brought to the red zone. And the added kilogram of the moment moved from three for four thousand revolutions. In other words, it is necessary to click on transmissions much more often than in the good old good 1.6.
We note a pleasant feature: even at maximum speed in the car quietly, there is almost no aerodynamic noise, you can talk without straining. And two less pleasant when moving directly the steering wheel turns out to be turned to the right by about 10. The bodantu buyer such negligence will clearly not like.
The second feature was discovered the next day in a 1.6-liter car. Her suspension worthy withstand the tests for energy intensity, never having worked to the stop, but the unexpectedly sharp stroke in the fast, steep turns on the asphalt alerted. It turned out that the rear inner wheel loses contact with the road, the external one, respectively, breaks and gives noticeable lead. It is that he makes the car screw into the turn. However, such maneuvers with a screech of tires in everyday operation is a bad tone. But the ease of control, efficiency, dynamics, compactness with a rather spacious salon is a good tone. Modern options (EUR, ABS, airbags, air conditioning in the near future) and moderate price will, we hope, at least somehow resist the expansion from the East and the foreign cars in Russia collected in Russia.
Having received the options appropriate to the modern car, and having reduced the price to the class responsible for her class, Lada-Kalina gradually won her niche in the market.
 

Source: The magazine "Driving"