Test drive vaz Kalina 1118 sedan since 2004 sedan
Kalinzators
It was much easier and safer to test the station wagon Lada Kalina 1.6 somewhere on the factory track. To drive on good asphalt, after that, marveling at a more practical one, in comparison with the sedan and hatchback, trunk, study new options and return home with a sense of duty. Instead, five hours on an airplane, long preparations and a start to start along the steppes of Kazakhstan. AvtoVAZ engineers assured: it is precisely such extreme conditions that will allow you to better feel new technologies and the car as a whole. And even if 1,300 km spent in the society of Kalina did not kill a skeptic living in me, they managed to instill respect for the products of the Tolyatinsky giant.
Three bodies, 68 settings, and a choice of two engines: 1.4 and 1.6. Russian manufacturers have never spoiled buyers like that! That's where you can walk fantasies only to pay! In addition, Kalina was finally dressed in the most practical body of the station wagon, and in this form they sent to multiply massively on the conveyor: serial copies are already waiting for buyers in salons.
Red viburnum Fans of the station wagons can be divided into two groups. Some turn the car into a barn, not very bothering about the aesthetic component, others are looking for a two -handed tall in two volumes of the body.
Who will be pleased with Lada Kalina Universal? A single -volume body looks more harmonious than a sedan and more solid a hatchback. There are no changes in the front: the same naive gaze of lupis headlights and a highly raised nose. You can identify the car on the side: on a heavier ass.
The back is decorated quite modestly: the lanterns of an unmade, pointed to the top, the forms are slightly dissonated with smooth body contours.
The station wagon seems to be more than the sedan, which is in fact a visual deception is identical (the hatchback by 19 cm is shorter). But due to the almost vertical rear door, access to the trunk became more convenient, and the body itself will be able to take a overall luggage.
The ability to lay out the rear chair in a proportion of 1: 3 or 2: 3 allows passengers to feel in the neighborhood of luggages. The versatility of the machine is supported by a high roof: with loading/unloading problems will not arise. But do not flatter yourself: due to the preserved size of the car, the cargo compartment did not become much more voluminous. In the usual state 350, with a decomposed rear row of 650 liters. Plus, the fact that the back of the sofa can be laid out in a ratio of 40:60 and allows you to achieve an almost even platform.
Down with the screws and other inventions, which have lost their place for the owners of the tenth family! True, for the sake of a simple transformation of the salon, it was necessary to sacrifice the rear head restraints. Given the fact that even for the average passenger a convenient three -point belt is provided, such neglect of elementary attributes of safety looks strange
But there are no such neglect in another plan: for the first time, viburnum is available with two frontal airbags. Here they are one integrated into the panel above the mess, the second reminds of itself that has become a more chubby central part of the steering wheel. There are also belt pretensors, without them, eirbegs are no longer placed. The main visible change in the front console button for the control of the climate installation. True, during our trip the latter revealed one feature: it could maintain a given temperature at least 22 degrees. It was worth doing less and the system turned into an ordinary air conditioner, which instantly frozen all the inhabitants of the cabin.
Planting in Kalina was transformed largely thanks to the new, comfortable Czech chairs. Yes, and the driver’s workplace is built correctly: the main regulators of the middle console are bred quite high, and its lower part is drowned down. So the legs are freer, and there is no need to reach for the control handles of control or radio.
The upholstery of the doors and the general tone of plastic are finally made in the same color scheme elegantly and, at the same time, considerable. It only grieves that here and there you meet the irregularities of the fitting of plastic elements. Although, in comparison with the same ten, the step forward in terms of quality is tangible.
In general, the salon is perceived as quite modern, and, importantly, stingy for extraneous sounds of neither crickets nor rubbish will be the same after 30,000-40,000 km of run?
Does viburnum bloom in the steppe? Blooms, and how! Moreover: after the kilometers traveled along the broken steppe highway in the gas mode, we are behind! I finally realized that a package for bad roads is not empty words. Optimism is added by the fact that the Suspension of Kalina Universal Standard, which goes to both the sedan and the hatchback (with one difference: the last two are slightly weaker than the spring behind).
The most evil remark that arose during the trip refers to the checkpoint. Not only to include the fifth gear to reach the knees of the front passenger, but on the go of the vibration such that it is just right to refuse the tachometer: you can adopt the speed of the motor by trembling on the lever.
Honest 160 mm of a road clearance allowed storming to take bumps and potholes, which our path was plentifully flavored. Moreover, sometimes it was created that the car with a nose would fall into the obstacle, and we would arrive at the base, at best, without a bumper and with a broken radiator. But short overhangs, coupled with a good stroke of suspensions, performed a small miracle, we flew up on the bumps high from a good curb and landed without a breakdown of shock absorbers. Perhaps not every crossover will arrange such a mockery.
Cherry Kalina generally copes with a bad road. Despite the fact that the ratio of a high roof and a rather short base was supposed to result in transverse buildup, nothing of the kind was noticed. Moreover: in the tinctures of suspensions, moderate rigidity and excellent energy intensity are skillfully combined. You feel some discomfort when moving only at speeds above 120 km/h, but this is rather the fault of the steering.
It generally left a double impression. In the parking lot to twist the steering wheel with an electric power is a pleasure: it is easy and convenient, even despite the huge, by modern standards, 4.2 turns from the stop to the stop. But the speedometer arrow intersects the mark of 60, 80, 100 km of the steering wheel and does not think to share information about the position of the wheels with the driver!
Lada Priora showed the same character, which, in general, is not surprising: her mechanism is the same. The situation should change this year at the plant developed a new steering rack with a smaller transfer number. This will make it possible
car management is more acute and better to realize a good, in general, the potential of the chassis. The dough car performed by the luxury boast of the anti -lock system of brakes of Bosch. The integration of the foreign mechanism was successful: the operation is predictable, and the brake pedal itself with good feedback.
In addition, the car with ABS shod into 14-inch tires, which entailed an increase in the diameter of the front brake disc: the 13th wheels can no longer be put here, but the car stops more confidently.
Two paragraphs criticism
Lada Kalina, according to advertising, is now on all roads of the country. And if the forecasts of AvtoVAZ marketers come true, then in the countries of near and far abroad they are about to try the Russian berry.
What is this car for foreigners? First of all, the workhorse is cheap and roomy. And therefore, it is not so important for them that the factory workers represent the Kalin project as a breakthrough into the world of high technology. Climate control, ABS, airbags, belts, transformed interior, in the end, these words have long been caressed by the hearing of the owners of foreign cars. Now this wealth is in the arsenal of Lada. Great? I would like to answer: yes!, But all the two days that I, together with Kalina, polished a hundred for a hundred kilometers of Kazakh steppes with tires, did not leave a sad feeling: where were you before with my developments? ..
Really foreign modules with pillows, air conditioning or Boshevskaya ABS could not find their place on Volga cars five to seven years ago? And how much more time will it be necessary to accustom the domestic buyer to the fact that Lada is now not very cheap, but quite modern? As if by that time, the oil in the bowels of the Earth did not end, according to scientists, in stock, there are 60 years in stock. I hope we have time
Text: Alexander Mikhailov
Photo: Author and AvtoVAZ
Source: Wheel magazine [May 2008]
