CHEVROLET NIVA test drive since 2002 SUV

Payment for love

Chevrolet-Niva
Manufacturer: joint
Year of release: 2002
In operation while driving: since January 2003
Mileage at the time of the report: 6000 km
Previous publications in the magazine:
ZR, 2003, No. 2

Do you think, dear reader, why are plants around the world producing pre -production cars? Correct, in order to bring to mind what turns out when the plan is embodied in metal. And guess, why do experienced cars are not allowed on free sale? Well, of course: do not reason to present your mistakes to the consumer. And now-a very difficult question: is there a country in the world in which plants sell cars from an experimental and industrial party to the consumer, and when they begin to make serial, forget to fix their mistakes?
We and I along the way
- How, Alexander Yuryevich, is your Niva doing?
- Thank you, OK. I went hunting on the weekend.
This begins with a chevrolet (so I call him) a labor week. Colleagues regularly cope about the well -being of the editorial curiosity. We have been experiencing each other in January, covering about 3.5 thousand km per month. On weekends, we often whip to the cottage in the Tver region, making our way where no one has been traveling from November except us. In the trunk, we carry a shovel, anti -scrap chains, sometimes a gas generator. In general, we live a full life of nature lovers. True, it will be an exaggeration to call it an idyll. A young car in all respects to throw up problems - small and not very, but more on that later.
In general, the car is very pleasant. Spacious, warm, holds the road well, does not goose on the waves, copes with exercises such as slalom. The ZF hydraulic wrap by domestic standards works perfectly: without backlash, with good feedback.
With a suspension, designers and testers (both a vase and ji -em) worked for so long that, perhaps, they achieved optimal settings - they can ride a cornfield and does not graze on potholes. True, in winter it is very sensitive to the choice of tires. A light car in wide bast shoes is not averse to bargaining with a driver on a snowy road. And you will learn too toothy - you risk running into rather sharp breakdowns (we will talk about the tires in detail another time).
First pancake, the second rake
A prudently taken canister of Tosol was exhausted by half while he went ... to register in the traffic police and vice versa (about 10 km). Then the first time he sincerely slammed the right front door - the lock button fell inside! A car was started with varying success - after a time the immobilizer lamp, which did not recognize the key (the immobilizer sensor near the Niva, was mounted into the key). On the way home (still from the traffic police), the left brush of the wiper froze - but the right continued to work!
Tosol, as usual, went from under the non -closed clamps - on the main removing pipe of the expansion tank and the lower hose of the tosol supply to the radiator. I climb into a notebook ... ba, the same two clamps were not tightened in an experimental machine received from a vase almost two years ago! Ah yes the stability of the results. Or do you think a random coincidence?
On the expansion tank - perhaps, but on the radiator - hardly. This clamp is located so inconvenient that it is possible to get to it only from below, unscrewing two protection (!) - the main, powerful and additional, from noise and dirt. But even having reached, you can tighten the clamp only with a small key and only very flexible hands. Obviously, the desire to engage in a kind of balanced equilibrics did not arise either during the assembly of the machine, or during pre -sale preparation. It's a pity.
The immobilizer, all the more so cool, was not in the former field, but dealt with him quickly (as it seemed then). The device did not study at school and does not know at what speed the current should flow through the wires, so he asks a couple of seconds to think. If you put the key to the lock and immediately twist the starter, Fiasco awaits you. But if you insert the key, turn it into the ignition position, count in the mind once, two, three and only then twist - the engine is almost always allowed. Why almost again? Patience, my friends, we will tell you about it too.
Why did the janitor stop? Firstly, they poorly twisted the wiper on the leash. And secondly ... This trouble was not just on an experimental car - it is and, probably, it will be. A driver leash is unscrewed every six months. Either the slots here are very bad, or the thread is wrong, or both together.
About a week after the traffic police, I traveled without problems, when suddenly ... However, the word is suddenly inappropriate here: more precisely, the generator belt finally whistled. The magazine wrote a year and a half ago that for the drive of a kilowatt generator, the belt should be placed clinova, and not the ancient Zhigulevsky. In Togliatti, the lead designer showed us a car with a clinical belt. So there was no other way in the series. But, alas! Either Ji-Em experts doubted the relevance of the solution, or in our opinion-did not have time. Imagine, they show in Frankfurt or Geneva New Opel or Saba. And under the hood belt from the record: did not have time!
He pulled the strap, but decided to himself: if now any trifle happened - I will go to the warranty. Stop doing everything yourself.
Ji -em - AvtoVAZ guarantees
Here you are, the Ji-Emovsky service. People are educated, polite. Before starting the car into the repair area, washed it for free.
- What do you have?
- Here, the belt whistled, the button failed, the speaker does not work.
- Have you changed your belt yet?
Here are those on! It turns out, it turns out, servicemen about problems with the belt. Change everyone! But, of course, not on clinova, but on ordinary, only corporate.
Having examined the car, experts issued a verdict: replacing the belt, pulley pulley and ... the pump itself! And this is with a run of 1570 km! By the way, if Ji-Em experts do not yet know, we inform that the pumps rarely nurse more than 30-40 thousand km on VAZ cars in recent years of production (the experimental Niva flowed on the 32nd thousand). But this is so, for reference.
Of course, there was no spare parts for our beauty on the corporate ji-um service. But, unlike the VAZ guarantee, the chevrolet and I did not write in the queue two months in advance. Just went to the store and bought everything necessary. And not we went, but the employees of the hundred! Without taking a penny of surcharges, they installed the Hepu pump, the Gates Auto Master belt, flooded the coolant prepared from the Texaco concentrate. True, it caught my eye that the antifreeze concentrate was diluted with water from under the tap. However, some concentrates allow this, although not to say what they love.
A little longer than one could expect, fiddled with a defeated button. She, along with the traction, fell out of a plastic piston. Of course, there were no such pistons in the store, so the guys had to squat around the ill -fated door with pliers for a long time. It seems that it turned out.
But we quickly figured out the speaker: a terminal simply flew here. Electricians expressed doubts about the quality of the audio training made on a vase: the chips were put very bad - they will not hold on; We changed them, if anything happens, come again.
After about three hours, we were free. The work was done quickly and conscientiously - that would be Soviet stations worked like that.
The next day, the Niva driver praised his colleagues a guarantee: how great it is that he will go there soon (after 2 thousand km).
First that: 4 hours and 200 bucks
Do not make yourself an idol. Next time, the Niva and I got into another shift. The car was also washed and launched inside, but then they forced to wait about an hour and a half. Chevrolet and I reassured each other: they say, the owners of the Blaseers standing nearby will pay more, so they are more important. Alas, we did not guess about paying less for the Niva.
When hands reached us, it became easier in my soul. People worked as carefully, wiped every drop of oil with a fresh cloth. True, the request to fill in good oil caused a slight confusion on the master’s face: what? Norsi did not offer, Lukoil said with a shadow of doubt (do not forget - the service is cool), and when he reached Esso and Shell, he was completely sad. In the list recommended by a vase, these oils were listed with a viscosity of 10W40. For the cold, minus 30 and below, which then hooked the capital, this clearly did not fit. After conferring, they decided: if AvtoVAZ, in principle, trusts Shell oils, you can take almost the same, only better. So it was possible to ask for synthetic Helix Ultra.
At the station we spent more than four hours (along with the sink). It is too much for the first, especially since the valves on the chevrolet -niva do not need to be adjusted - there are hydraulic compensators here. We were satisfied with the quality of work, but the cost ... change the oil in the Niva engine ... Ah, sorry, Chevrolet-niva cost 650 rubles (drain the work), in the transmission (box, distribution, bridges, lubrication of crosses ) - 1300. For the engine oil itself, for example, they took 1980 rubles (4 liters, but they gave a liter with them to the valves - so, apparently, it is supposed). In the store, 4 liters would cost 1100 rubles, and I would not buy the fifth at all.
In general, more than 200 bucks (see table). Of course, you need to pay for high-quality work, but today in Russia a dozen foreign cars are sold in Russia, which have the first one is not carried out after 2000, but after 15,000 km and costs not $ 200, but $ 110-120. And for servicing the closest competitor - Kia -Sportge is asking for about $ 150. In addition, in most foreign cars the price of service is the same throughout Russia, and Chevrolet-Niva within Moscow differs one and a half times. It is not necessary ...
Equatorial Russia
Many VAZ cars with a fuel injection system do not start at low temperatures. Only, TS-SS, this is a great secret. From whom? Yes, at least from the ji-em. Yes, in the instructions for the car, at the very beginning it is written that Chevrolet can be operated at ambient temperatures from minus 40 to plus 45 ° C. A little further, twenty pages, it is said that if the car cannot be made in the cold, then, firstly, it is colder than minus 27 overboard, and secondly, you have bad gasoline. And what, let me ask: if the car does not start at minus 24, then in the tank diesel fuel?
... January in the morning was going to work. Behind the window minus 24, the oil is good, the battery is new. And in a year and a half driving in the experimental field there were no problems with the launch: it was already in Kotlas to freeze in Kotlas.
I’m struggling with a key ... Fig. I pause, I try again and again. It doesn’t want to: the engine already at the first speeds gives outbreaks, but cannot pick it up. The help of the help is approaching; We catch crocodiles. It twists perfectly, as in summer, outbreaks go in all cylinders, but never merge into a rumble. Helping the weakest, all the neighbors wound up: old carburetor fields, crazy Muscovites, injectures. Only my Chevrolet and another 16-clapable dozen remained helpless in front of my native climate. Of course, because of gasoline. Oh, I hiccuped someone in Togliatti.
Do not think, dear reader, that I dropped my hands. The next week, while strong frosts stood, I was sown to come up with at least something. He forced the car to work on bypass programs, removing chips from the sensors, watered the collector with boiling water, cooked candles, fed the engine with a special broadcast for cold start. Once outside the city, I even tried to breed bones under the car. In the end, intelligence won: he learned to start the machine with ... electric resistance with a capacity of 20 kOhm. How?
Pretty quickly I realized that the reason, most likely, is not a lack of fuel (or ether, or something else), but in its excess. The motor gives flashes at the first stage of launch - unfosed; Upon reaching a certain speed of rotation, he tries to go to the phased, but something does not grow together in small car brains - and the car stalls.
I tried to remove the chip from the fluid temperature sensor (near the thermostat) and attached the same resistance to 20 kOhm on it: so much should have a sensor at about minus 14C. The management program, regardless of the power of frost, pours as much as it should pour at minus 14C. No one floods anyone and - right, the car starts up! At least to minus 28С. By the way, if anyone thinks that the poor vase has nowhere to model a cold start: the climatic camera in Togliatti is such as all over the world, probably no more than a dozen. But this is so, for reference.
And now - attention, the most interesting! When he stuttered that the car did not start in the cold, the master assured that he still had not heard of such problems. Fortunately, another owner of Chevrolet-Niva was nearby, who came to change the belt under the warranty. The question will start or not, as if offended it: of course, no! Maybe the ji-um really does not know anything yet?*
I can’t help but say a few words about the adaptability of the field for temperature changes. Great trial happiness fell on my share. The air temperature sensor built into the Niva once showed minus 36C (and the happiness is that in such a severe frost did not have to be long - before the thaw? - jam the motor). So, some plastic parts of the car are not designed for a cold - they crack.
As promised, something about the immobilizer. Sometimes, say, stopping on a gas station, the car flatly refuses to start up until you can stand it longer (5-10 minutes) or you will not admit a couple of minutes the key in the castle without starting attempts. This happens more often in frosts, when the stove is included in great power - as if something in the brains overheats and wants to cool. When I deal with the defect, I will definitely tell.
Oh, yes in a dream I dreamed
The laws of the genre require to turn from criticism to a happy ending. To tell you the truth, it’s a shame that you have to tell you so much nasty things about a good car in general. He, by golly, deserves a better share. Everyone who had the opportunity to grab on the new field experienced feelings from satisfaction to delight. I don’t remember a single one who would not want to say about the Niva, if it was well collected and is quite reliable.
No matter how much the car suffers with childhood diseases, they are quickly forgotten (especially when you are not repaired at your own expense). Despite a long story about problems, I’m not afraid to climb with a chevrolet where there is no one except us, even when weather forecasters promise minus 30. And in general, I love him. And if you talked with someone for so much time, would you love?


Recently, they tried on off -road tires for Cooper Discovery STT dimensions of 215/75R15. And why do people buy tractors? We will tell you details another time.

Relaxing to the interior: the cup holder rests on the lever, bites the driver's belt at the top, the outer mirrors ceased to be adjusted (we think, until the summer).

Some plastic details of frost are not tolerated.

A radical solution to the problem of winter start - resistance of 20 kOhm. True, in a 30-degree frost, hands are cold.
Alexander Budkin. Photo: Alexander Budkin, Igor Solidov

Source: The magazine "Driving"