Test Drive Dodge Durango 1997 - 2003 SUV

Arkhar.

New car Corporation Chrysler de Yura is a compact SUV, de facto it is almost full of size. Durango on average for 300-400 mm longer, slightly wider than classmates, and the older brothers do not reach the length of 200-300 mm. To the conclusion that the cars of this - intermediate - size will be in demand, the corporation came after polls of potential buyers, a considerable part of which did not suit the dimensions of existing compact models, they could not get the car above the class, they could not because of more than high prices. The cost of the new Dodge in the basic configuration is in the upper third of the price scale of compacts. According to the power of the engine, passengerism and passability, the car successfully competes with full-sized SUVs, and in the thorough finishes and the number of additional equipment approaches some luxury models.
 

For the first time, Dodge Durango has shown the public in January 1997 at the New York Motor Show. Created a car, you can say with low blood. It is based on the Pickup Dakota, who received the 1997 truck title from the OFF-Road magazine, and in the Dakota R / T - the title of Sport Truck of 1998 from Sport Truck magazine. The alteration of a pick-up in the SUV cost inexpensively - more than 70% of Dakota details were used in Durango. Preserved almost the entire front of the car. A set of three engines and a four-stage automatic transmission - the same. Durango drive Full drive, in 1999, the model year is promised a rear-wheel version. Differences - in the rear. To increase the capacity, the rear part of the frame was expanded, and for more convenient accommodation of passengers on the second and third (optional), a row of seats had to lift the roof.
 

Durango has a courageous, deliberately rude appearance is clearly a car for men. In recognizable front, one for all trucks and full-size dodge, the rapidness, created by developed wings and narrow headlights, is combined with the coating and the presence of the radiator grille. Thanks to the embossed prints on the side doors, the machine seems lower than actually, and the roof thief is branded on the rails for fastening the cargo. Toned glass, painted in the body color of bumpers, as well as the absence of attachments - footage, kenguryatnik, wickets (folding frame for a spare wheel) give the external appearance of the car power and monolith.
 

Despite the considerable external threshold height, when landing problems does not occur - from the inside, the height of it above the floor is very small, the seats are set close to the doorway - to get into the car, just one step. Comfortable chairs are covered with skin, and quite thick, even coarse. There is a charm about it, because, in addition to greater practicality and durability, rough skin causes associations with a cowboy saddle and thus contributes to maintaining a car's image for real men.
 

The front seats have only two manual settings - the tilt of the back and the distance to the pedals, but they are quite enough - the shape, depth and elasticity of the chairs are so accurate. Plastic, optimal diameter and sections, with a built-in security pillow and cruise control keys. The steering column is adjustable by tilting, the adjustment range provides the convenience of coverage of the steering wheel for the driver of any growth.
 

Torpedo is made of soft plastic yellowish-brown (in the tone of the cabin). The instrument panel and beard, on which the magnetol and the climate control knobs are located, frames the dark gray insert. Chrysler is written on music and draws a signature star. The sound is very decent, in the FM range most of the Moscow radio stations are accepted steadily. Under the music center in a row - switches of the rear wiper, washer and heater, socket for additional devices and cigarette lighter. The fight against smoking in America reached apogee - to completely abandon the ashtray designers did not risk, but they settled it away from the driver that they think three times before smoking. The bank from the cola with a cut riding, inserted into the cup holder, helped solve this problem.

On the dashboard, six directional devices. Four of them reflect the main operating parameters of the engine, other two - tachometer and speedometer. The scale of the latter is taped in miles and kilometers, American units are larger and read easier. Odometer with a liquid crystal display. With the help of a special lever on it, you can withdraw a common or daily mileage.
 

The height of the tunnel for the cardan shaft is minimal - the floor in the cabin is practically even. On the fact that left from the central console, there are two cup holders, a pocket for trifles and in front of the front part, almost under the torpedo, a distribution box control lever. With it, you can choose the drive (full or only rear) and turn on the reduced transmission number. In order to manipulate the lever, you need to lean forward much - not too convenient, and while driving and unsafe. On most modern SUVs, the transmission mode is selected by the buttons on the panel, but Durango is a car for men. The reduced transmission row can only be included on a fixed car, transferring the automatic transmission to the Parking selector.
 

Between the front seats, the large box, the cover of which is also an armrest. The rear sofa is intended for three people, and they will not be closely, together there are luxuriously there. Especially if you leake the armrest in the middle of the sofa and adjust the tilt of the back at its discretion. We got a version with two rows of seats, and we could not appreciate the convenience of passenger location in the eight-bed cabin.

Decent admiration for the ease with which the passenger salon is transformed into a huge luggage compartment - just press the latch near each of the sofas halves, and under the action of the springs the back folds, and then together with the seat becomes vertically. On the vacuum space, a tool box is detected with a lid. The second is the same in the back of the cabin, near the door itself. At its walls, attachments for a jack and a balloon key are mounted, and at the bottom - a bolt that fixes the spare stake under the bottom in the rear breath. So the process of replacing the wheel will be very dirty. But in the cabin is spacious, and the rear review is not limited.
 

At all, it was not easy to prepare for movement. The auto selector is located on the steering column and moves along a rather complex trajectory. The general direction of the selection of gears is vertical, but before moving the lever with P, it must be pulled on itself, then before turning on D, still move somewhere along the steering column, etc. I had to learn. In the position of the selector helps to focus on the dashboard - in the window corresponding to the inclusion of a given transmission, a red checkbox appears.
 

There is no usual handbrake in this car, and there is a parking brake, and it turns on to a pedal located next to the working brake. But it turns off ... First, the hand falls on the handle in the form of a fungus located on the left of the steering column. The handle on itself - the overall lights turn on, then the near light. Carefully examining the torpedo around the steering wheel, did not find anything else that it would be possible to pull or press. Taketing up the bottom of the panel, it came across a small key, but it decided that it was designed to open the hood. Without finding anything else, still took over her, and the signal light on the panel went out. It turns out that the hood opens with a different lever, under the steering column. There are inscriptions on the lever, but you can read them, just looking under the torpedo.
 

The engine is all in sight. The filling necks are dispersed throughout the incapacity and are equipped with explanatory inscriptions in English, understandable, however, qualified mechanics from any country. And on the tosol tosol there is an explanatory picture.
 

In the city traffic mode, this large, high and powerful car is extremely easy to control. Her dimensions are felt great from the first minute drive. Overview Forward complaints does not cause. Back - somewhat worse, as the intra-alone mirror is really intra-alone: \u200b\u200bonly a huge salon in it and can be seen, well, maybe more fragments of roofs riding the back of cars. Basically, the situation on the road has to be monitored by outdoor bulbs of outstanding sizes. If necessary to rent back, and even in the dark - through a tinted glass, even turning to the seat, you will not see anything. Not at all, there would be more powerful reversing lights.

From the point of view of aerodynamics, the body is quite successful. Even on the most dirtiest and wet road, the splashes from both the wheels as their own and passing cars do not fall on the windshield, nor on the rear window, and if nothing drips anything from the sky (it will be poured, pours), we practically do not have to use janitors.
 

The long base and wider track make Durango is extremely stable. When turning or rearranged from a number in a row, the car is perfectly held by the road.
 

Small irregularities suspension and high tires are quenched instantly. Only tread slaps are heard in the cabin. Powerful transverse stability stabilizers do not allow the car strongly roll into turn or swing after it. Hydrauscitel - with variable characteristics, with increasing speed, steering steering becomes noticeable sharper. Automatic gearbox runs smoothly and unnoticed, and the acceleration is so powerful that they involuntarily look at the tachometer: is it not twisted by the engine?
 

Starting from the traffic light, Durango invariably left everyone. Driver Jeep Grand Cherokee, lucky blonde on the passenger seat, gestures offered us to chase. Challenge accepted. Slipped with a traffic light and immediately win two housings. Then Jeep catch up and even breaks forward. With the same lather in motors, he earlier comes the peak of torque, and the machine itself is easier to four hundred kilograms. But the celebration of the jeeper lasted not long. After 90 km / h, Durango seems to have grown wings. Cherokee stayed behind, and then lost at all in the stream of cars.
 

Nonsense. We were ready to see his tail, but it turned out the opposite. Both models from Chrysler, though performing in the same class, but Cherokee is a highway-urban SUV, and Durango is a serious all-terrain-worker.

Included cruise control. Very comfortable thing. Moving along a flat plane, on the rise or under the slide, the machine always retains the specified speed. True, going to overtaking, instead of the acceleration key, sometimes you press the gas pedal, and then the automation is immediately turned off.
 

We are approaching the highway selected for Durango Testing on Pentium. The first obstacle was found, not even turning from the asphalt. The tractor, cleaning the sidelines, built on the road two snow-ice bars, centimeters height on eighty. In order not to wheel in the surrounding area, looking for the beginning or end of the shaft, we decided to try to move through it. Through it did not come out, it turned out. The car scattered the wheels of the ice floes more and grind those that the bed. Similarly, they acted with the second, parallel snowdrift. And they were on the real off-road: a field, excised ravines, transfer, and behind it - the 4x4 club track, where all extreme conditions have been created for the competition.
 

Durango pendants - an undiscriminated bridge on the springs from behind and independent torsion front - provide a large move of the wheels vertically relative to the frame, which allows the car to easily move around the complex relief. The height of obstacles that the machine on the shoulder is determined only by the length of the base.
 

Thanks to a decent road lumen (200 mm, Dakota is 25 mm more) can be moved without fears in a deep rut. Before doing this, we carefully examined the car from below for the detection of fragile and protruding for the frame of the details. Such was found - the fuel lines and brake lines were hidden inside the boxes, the drive shaft for thickness resembles a telegraph pole, and the frames of the frame form a powerful protection for gearboxes. Under the engine - a thick steel shield.
 

When the road appeared ahead of us quite impassable, they turned the steering wheel, and the car, easily choosing from the rut, went to virgin. At first we strained a little, as unpleasant surprises could be hidden under a thick snow blanket. However, the car so confidently overcame the first fifty meters, which became clear - fears in vain. The car wound into the Goodyear Wrangler rubber is an excellent choice for Russian conditions, the wheels are not let in deep - on the hub - the snow, nor on the sandy slope. Magnum V8 (so called 5.2 liters, 237-strong engine), without increasing the voice, pulls the car from the ravine with a steep slope of at least 45 degrees, realizing 407 nm of torque through a transmission consisting of a four-step automatic machine and a mechanical dispensing box with inter-axis Differential of increased friction. Even in the middle of the slope, the car on the press of the accelerator pedal corresponds to the sharp jerk - power in the reserve.

Leaving on the field and making sure the lack of big holes and the buggers, they decided to try out the car to manage the roads. Radically rotating the steering wheel at a speed of about 80 km / h. The car obediently, with the accuracy of the circula, draws a circle, returning to his traces at the place of departure with a straight line. In the second and third circles, we consistently increase the speed by 10 km / h. Wheels effectively throw snow fountains. The spectacle is beautiful, but only for a third-party observer. It is not particularly pleasant inside the car at that moment, since when passing small irregularities, a rather tough suspension transmits significant vibration to the body. The steering wheel, at a lower speed of the two fingers, it strives to jump out of the palms. Nevertheless, the car obediently describes the circles. Following exactly in the specified direction, DuranGo refused only at a speed of 110 km / h.
 

Having finished exercises on a flat surface, we again climb the hill. The task is to rise in the spiral with a critical side roll. The devices that fix the deviation from the horizontal on the machine are not, but according to the results of past trips on cars with the lamps, we know that the slope of this hill is about 30 degrees - the value is quite permissible for the SUV. The task is complicated by the fact that there are no interclays in Dungo.
 

Under the layer of fresh snow - flood after recent thaw. Cooking for the ram and hanging on the seat belt, I try to drive a car directly and evenly. At some moments, it seems that the car is about here, but he with astounding perseverance and stunning stability pierces through the drifts, retavating meter per meter. Right at the rate clearly seen a hindrance of an unknown depth. Contrary to logic, I decide to go around at the top.
 

Carefully, literally in a millimeter, turn the wheel to the left - towards the lifting. The car leans is already very dangerous. Still a little bit - and he is a leakage. Nerves can not withstand, in hand the steering wheel left and dramatically add revs. The rear axle rans, and turns the car to the top of the hill ... The rise straight up we have already passed. The car literally flew to the top, I did not even have time to stop so that the photographer captures the spectacular frame. The descent in a straight line did not prevail neither difficulty or interest. The car smoothly rolled off the hill with a constant speed supported by the engine operating at idle.
 

Finally, we decided to try in ABS action. Through the field on which we trained circles, the beautiful, rolled up the road rolled up to solid ice.
 

I accelerate to 140 km / h and squeeze the brake sharply. At first it seems that nothing happens - there is no familiar vibration of the pedal. However, the car slows down very effectively, it is unlikely possible with blocked wheels. I turn around and make the second right, listen more carefully to my feelings. The foot is still feeling a small trembling pedal of brakes, and the beginning of the lateral injection is observed, immediately, however, depressed.
 

For all the time, the dough never had to not only go to a reduced range of transmissions, but also to take advantage of the installation of higher gears in the automatic transmission.
 

The front axle was constantly included from the moment of departure from the parking lot. Of course, there are several objective factors that distinguish the current trip from the previous ones, for example, winter tires, a state of snow cover, etc. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Durango SUV is very good. On his hood - the corporate sign Dodge - the head of the Baran, but by nature the car rather resembles a mountain goat - Arhara in our opinion. It is famous for this animal with a unique ability to overcome any coolers, climbing almost with a sheer walls and easily jump over small abyss. We did not find the abyss, but with all other obstacles to Dodge successfully coped.
 

Evgeny Romantsky
 


 

Source: Magazine Motor