Test drive Mercedes Benz A-class w168 2001-2004 hatchback

Vanguard

In the automobile kingdom - continuous violation of eternal values. The only Cadillac classic layout for today, Catera, is actually a modified Opel Omega. And the well-known champion of the classics, Mercedes-Benz, has already produces three front-wheel drive models-A-Class, Vaneo and V-Class! This year, the company's engineers made as many as 980 changes, the main of which is an elongated version. To make sure they are not joking, our correspondent went to Stuttgart to travel to the A170CDI L in the Avantgarde configuration.

The rarest car! Try to order an A-Class with a turbodiesel from the Moscow dealer, and it will begin to dissuade you. Meanwhile, by 2006, forty out of a hundred European buyers will prefer to self -propelled monuments Rudolf Dicelle. So with our solar-water cocktail, we once again lagged behind Europe. Porsche designer Anatoly Lapin, who does not consider A-Class for Mercedes-Benz at all, caught me on the word:-Varyushka (this is his wife), pay attention, he (that is, I) said to you, in Europe! They do not consider themselves Europe in Russia! And how else, because on the turbodiesel A -Class I would not have reached the middle of Poland - I would already have changed nozzles and fuel pumps!

But in Stuttgart in such a car you feel like a typical wealthy European. Nobody pokes a finger at the CDI tunes on the back door, truckers do not mow when you drive up to refuel to the column with the inscription Diesel. Incidentally, the company Mercedes-Benz, no matter how adherent of classic solutions it exposes itself, was the first to accustom the Germans to invent a diesel engine-back in 1936. I must say that the motor, characterized by A -Class hood, is the best of all the new generation diesel engines (with direct injection) with which it was dealt with. Although the most noisy. I will give the only undeniable argument in its favor - fuel consumption, multiplied by the cost. That is 4.9 l/100 on DM1.95, against 8 l/100 on DM2.41 for gasoline Super plus.

You can argue about the rest. For example, about design. With all due respect to Garald Leshka, Berdt Lchpar, Stefen Matten and other gentlemen involved in the creation of a Mercedes single -collar, on the side of the elongated W168 body resembles a pregnant dachshund. The grin that froze at the front line after restyling looks even more idiotic. If the windows, racks, and everything else, still somehow folded together on the sidewall of a short A-Class, then lengthening the machine 170 mm violated this fragile harmony. Also embarrassed by the interior decoration for carbon. Plastic imitating another plastic? As they would say before, an example of aesthetics alien to us. And I also remain a decisive opponent of the inscription Magneti Marelli on the dashboard. For the absence of such a clear confirmation of the purchase of cheap Italian components, this company could have been paid. And 16-inch alloy wheels with sports low-profile tires look completely inappropriate in the family car.

Yes, you will get along with her, ”Birgit Tsizer, head of the Daimlerchrysler public relations department, reassured me. - A beautiful car for trips to small cities, because it is true? Apparently, Birgit wanted to find out quietly if I was going to use the car inappropriately. He told her that he would like to get to the top of the Danube and ride along Schwarzvald. It was not aid to Madame Caizer that Russian, in terms of breadth of spiritual, could easily climb on A -Class in the very thicket of a sullen and mysterious black forest - how many roads would be enough.

The light of the headlights is in the fog floating between the trees. What is this light there ahead? He died ... A drooping road leads to the wilderness and is clearly not going to become better. On the left - sawn trunks, on the right - it seems to be an abyss, but I don’t want to make sure of it. Mountain Schwarzvald, a forest of spirits, is trying to tell me something by the hum of wind and the rustle of foliage. A branch unexpectedly appears on the side - another unknown path. Find out whether to go in the other way, you can only: turn around and shine by headlights. But I interrupt the study of the issue, barely starting - hooking the side of the road, the car swam with her nose into the black abyss. The reverse - and, twitching a little (the proprietary ASR anti -circus system, feverishly slowed down one or the other stringing the wheel to stab), the car got out onto a saving gravel. How to not recall with the gratitude of the Swedish journalist Rollen Collin, several years ago overturning A-Class on a moose stop (it was after that case that Mercedes-Benz equipped the chassis of a single-collar with a complete set of electronic systems)!

Now, after a deep Upgrade, the A-Class chassis is criticized for excessive shaking. Still, the springs of the pendants have become shorter and tougher, the front stabilizer of the anti -resistance stability is thicker. But dissatisfaction is justified only partly. It shies when you run into sewer hatches, but out of a Russian habit you try to let them between the wheels. It is worth increasing the speed or, on the contrary, sink below the city 40-50 km/h, the harsh work of the suspension stops annoying. And by the way, the chassis settings on forest paths showed themselves above all praise.

Get lost in Germany? Surely a cruel joke with me was played by Schwargvald evil. Captured by her, I decided to wait for dawn in the forest. The prospect of putting in the morning in the mouth instead of a toothbrush the pads of the orbits did not warm, but what was left to do? But I was able to appreciate the 170-mm increase in the wheelbase. The elongated version of the A-Class in terms of internal space is comparable to S-Class. There are so many places behind that you involuntarily imagine yourself in an empty spacious room with Palace. You can throw a photochecyt, roadmaps bought at the Mercedes Museum Souvenirs - it is so glorious to stretch your legs in the middle of this creative mess, after a whole day driving. Clicked the switch, and only the noise of the autumn forest remained ...

In such conditions, an acquaintance was met with the most extravagant European car today. The impression is aggravated by a semi -automatic, without a clutch pedal, a transmission controlled by wires. This is a kind of compromise between manual boxes and traditional machines. It seems to be an algorithm of action, like mechanics - and at the same time the left leg is not involved, as with an automatic transmission. I stopped once in Stuttgart on a narrow street - look at the map. I realized that I had come to a dead end and I had to take it back. I turned on the reverse, I can do it on the gas, and the car rolls under the hill forward towards the bums of the parked cars. On a small slope, you usually patch the clutch with your left foot, and only then transfer the right from the brake to the gas. And then what - to hold the brake with your left foot? I had to move off the handbrake. However, this mechanism has a great future. Suffice it to say that its installation costs 565 euros, and a five -speed machine - 1200.

On the second day of the trip, the words of Mrs. Tsizer began to come true - I gradually got used to an unusual car. He reconfigured a new chair, mirrors, changed the angle of inclination of the steering wheel. And he stopped blinking with high light when trying to turn on the turn indicator. (On the only, the left ital lever, the A-Class lever is grouped by the control of the rotary lights and wipers. The cones that controls them is not cylindrical, but a tetrahedral shape. When the wipers are already involved, the cone sets not a face under the finger, but its rib. If, including it, including a turn indicator, accidentally press on a plane, the lever simultaneously turns on the high light.)

I am ready to agree with the main thesis personifying Mercedes-Benz brand: we conquer customer sympathy. In the sense that this happens gradually. When I rolled out on a car just received from the gates of the Stuttgart office, it thought that driving at a sight of six pillows is like a bed on a dynamite box - from everywhere SRS Airbag inscriptions are looked at you. In a more traditional car and thoughts would have visited much less avant -garde.

The urban movement on A-Class gives pleasure, unless, of course, to remember other drivers constantly tormented by long-range light. High, an average of 20 cm higher than that of classmates, planting provides excellent visibility. Convenient coverage of the leather steering wheel, perfectly readable devices, tight -fitting chair. I would also like to see the edge of the hood and not see the right front strut of the roof. The first test was the movement along the winding streets with large height changes - a significant part of Stuttgart is located on the hills. The pluses of the machine were first manifested here: simplified transmission control, burden (elastic diesel draws in the fifth gear from about 1200 rpm. And at speeds a little more than 40), small rolls in corners. The advantages remained the pros on the mountain serpentines of Schwartzvald.

The car, covered with electronics, enters the bends at a fairly high speed, while not a yota without deviating from the lane trajectory. Stiring A-Class, adding or, conversely, sharply reducing the thrust, is not easy. If the first is very good, and the machine entails more to the outside the side of the road (the trajectory is still preserved the same), then the absence of gas is discharged (the main reason for overturning) seems to be unattainable. Here the enlarged negative collapse of the rear wheels and the well -known diesel inertia play a role. And most importantly - the Boshevsky system ESP, Electronic Stability Program, a kind of electronic vestibular apparatus. ESP includes transverse acceleration sensors, turn around the vertical axis (screening), the angle of rotation of the steering wheel, as well as the speed of rotation of the wheels. The processor of the system, comparing the readings of sensors with a program written on the basis of mathematical modeling of drifts and polygon tests, commands to drop the gas, slow down a particular wheel or even several wheels at the same time based on the behavior of the car. As a result, a countermill is created that returns the car to the true path.

The ESP managed to try out on one of the forest roads, when, due to the turn towards me at a frantic speed, the old, still round-eyed treshka BMW jumped out. In order not to work out the hive of airbags, I had to go to the side of the road at full speed. And not a single hint of lean! The applause sounded the characteristic chatter of the ESP executive mechanism and the fraction of gravel along the bottom of the body. It is interesting that in these seconds purely German flashed through my head: the devil, probably, Poles at the wheel!

Changing the habits A -Class is the result of an increase in the base. Any car will become more stable if the distance between the axes is increased. But such A-Class can no longer turn around on a two-lane road in one technique.

The Mercedesovites are rightfully proud that at least 70% of the length of the car are allotted under the salon and trunk. Sandwich's concept is what it is called. They lay the car around the flat floor. He was ascended over all the units, and therefore wheels and other technological ledges are not confused at the legs. A fairly controversial solution, since the space under the floor is almost not used - not every company will allow itself such waste. The arguments for Mercedes -Benz are from the field of passive safety. In the accident, units are shifted under the floor, and the energy of the impact is distributed, bypassing the salon, according to full -fledged spaces and crossbars, in fact - according to the frame welded to the body.

In addition, creating a sandwich, engineers kept in the mind the possibility of turning A -Class into an electrochemical, as they call it, with an engine on fuel elements. They will take the excess place under the floor.

Finally, the Sandwich concept implies truly mini-owl possibilities for interior transformation. As many as 36 combinations with rear seats! They are easily removed from their mounts in parts, in a ratio of 1/3 and 2/3. You can dismantle the front passenger chair.

Among the A-Class cars comparable in size, almost the largest base. But it is difficult to determine the analogues of this model, especially for a degeneration. Take at least an outstanding capacity, which is found in mini-wen D-groups. In addition, the growth of length in B -segment is an atypical phenomenon. The designers of A -Class seemed to really get ahead of everyone - they created the destroyer of the generally accepted classification.

Text: Denis Orlov
 

A source: Motor magazine [No. 1/2002]