Volkswagen Amarok test drive since 2010 pickup

VW Amarok and Mazda BT-50 pickups

VW Amarok and Mazda BT-50 are not so far in price. But the rest between them is the abyss ... Curious is the alignment with pickups officially sold in the Russian market. This is the most ridiculous of all vehicles that exist in the world, but its population is constantly growing.

There is nothing more uncomfortable and less practical than a pickup with a double cabin. His body is not able to accommodate even a wooden rail two meters long. It will have to be taken on an open side, and then its windshield is smashed at the time, the braking kettle, trying to keep up with you at a traffic light. Either you are shaking it to the roof, but then you will smash the entrance gate to the underground parking if this unfortunate rail will not tear this ill -fated rail along with frail adhesive tape.

Well, how is he, in general?
The usual pickup in dimensions is more than five meters, in the language of a simple user a little less than a twelve -story building. At the same time, inside passengers is completely inconvenient, and in some models for the driver. In addition, you become a hostage to a pick -up image. I tried to fasten a piece of wood to the chrome arc VW Amarok, when a middle -aged married couple came up to me. The man looked, and then asked: how can she finally? Since I have long been tired of answering such questions, I clarified: what exactly do you want to know? The interlocutor understood everything and quickly corrected: well, how can she? I thought a little, wrinkled my forehead and nose and answered: finally, the class. It is unlikely that this person applies the same speech in the family, he simply decided that it was in this style that we should talk with the owners of pickups.


I would not say that everything in Amarok is very convenient, but, undoubtedly, quite nice


The interior BT-50 is simple. Climate management is understandable, but other functions, alas

You will die with a runny nose
Question to connoisseurs: if it is not suitable for the simplest cargo, which easily enter the average size crossover, torments passengers and makes the owner participate in half -Patzan graters, then why is he needed at all? The Japanese knew about this, but, passing by their ears, continued to release Mazda BT-50, and the Germans listened and came up with VW Amarok. Therefore, we crossed them in one test.

There is another reason. Many potential buyers of cheap pickups do not even consider VW Amarok as a contender, but immediately begin to choose between Mazda BT-50 and Mitsubishi L200. Meanwhile, the price of a minimum configuration of a German coincides with the price of the maximum version of the Japanese. Maybe it makes sense to give a damn about Asian options and give money to a bare European? In fact, yes.

Where is Mazda good? Suppose you decided to go around around Lake Baikal, Seliger and Onega. You have iron nerves, health, a lot of money, you absolutely have nowhere to put your strength, and an orgasm occurs when the Carter pallet carries out sparks from the cobblestone. At the same time, you want to return home on your own. Then Japanese technique is indispensable. But be you at least a little siblite and at least with a slight runny nose, you will die in the BT-50, only having left the yard; Immediately clelled right in the snowdrift and jump: Lord, give me Amarok!

In advertising and in life
For many years, Mazda advertises its pickups as cars for life, not for work. And suddenly VW comes and begins to sell trucks that really correspond to Japanese advertising. How did the Germans succeed? They did a lot, and each new owner will surely mark something special finish, suspension, climate, space, comfort. I was transplanted from the BT-50 to Amarok and back many times, until I realized that I was most pleased with. The absence of obsessive vibrations in Amarok. In Mazda, they are very noticeable. And here you don’t feel at all that you are going on a truck, the illusion of driving like a Touareg.


Mazda geometric cross -country ability is better than VW. The Japanese is higher and already, the German is lower and wider. But the BT-50 is extremely inconvenient from behind, and Amarok has full-fledged passenger places

The Germans acted smartly. They declared a carrying capacity of 200 kg less than that of the BT-50, and plus they began to sell an even easier version with three sheets of springs instead of five more than minus 230 kg. At the same time, the body himself was increased, because a person has much more often have to carry light, but voluminous and long loads than short and heavy.

They made a good front panel and comfortably finished the salon with pleasant plastic. And generally tried for the client. For convenience, there is a separate climate control, and for security a stabilization system. There is nothing like this in the BT-50 even for money. Although we agreed that we would compare with Mazda the cheapest version of Amarok, and these options do not provide


The Volkswagen body has a large area plus side above. But for an ordinary user, this does not change anything. The simplest boards over 1.6 meters will go beyond the dimensions of the compartment

Stall or burst?
We will move to pampas. The advantages of the Mazda BT-50 are known on the off-road: it holds a blow well, does not graze in front of potholes and hillocks. But the disadvantages are also not a secret: there is no normal rear blocking (only useless self -block) and electronic assistants. It quickly stalls in a snowdrift on the first increased, and in Low mode begins to slip. In difficult cases at night in the forest, the choice between stall or succinating seems a little mocking.

Amarok after BT-50 on an off-road like an outlet. The steering wheel is light, the suspension is comfortable, the dynamics is noticeably more cheerful. There is an assistant during the descent from the mountain, there are imitators of locks, there is an iron rear blocking. And let the German geometric crossiness are worse than that of an opponent, he is still better with a reservation in civilian use. As soon as the rivals go to hard extreme, the light and exact steering rack VW will lose to the weighty and strong steering rods of Mazda.

Caution, technical details
VW Amarok is a very modern car, despite some archaic structure. Frame, independent spring suspension in front, springs from behind like Mazda BT-50. Also a rigidly connected front bridge. The difference in the nuances, but it is huge.

You can turn on and turn off all -wheel drive on VW at least every hundred meters right on the move with a button. Mazda requires more complex rituals. First you need to stop and move the levers of the handout. A 4x4 icon and a frightening inscription RFW will appear on the instrument panel. After that, you can turn on and off the front line, turning the lever on the go until you turn off the front right half -shaft with the button (the inscription RFW speaks about it) to complete the front turn off. Then, for the reverse inclusion of the front bridge, you will have to stop again. It’s just that the Japanese saved on automatic hubs or an automatic flock of the axle.

The rear differential of Volkswagen has a lock (turns on the button and only after the transition to a reduced gear), the Mazda of an inexperienced LSD. There is an anti -wings system on Amarok, and it can be turned off. Mazda does not offer anything like this. VW suspension is clearly developed by engineers with Dakar experience. It not only has a carrying capacity, but also practices irregularities without unnecessary shaking, preserving the car, a controllability worthy of a good passenger SUV. This cannot be said about the suspension of Mazda, clearly intended for unhurried transportation of goods. Although the equipped mass and carrying capacity of both cars are approximately the same, the body volume of Amarok is even larger.

So, the VW assets are comfortable and handling. And what can Mazda boast of? A more simple and oak design involves greater reliability and maintainability, which is important in the vastness of our Motherland.

I know where hell is
Although it is not at all necessary to arrange a competition in the taiga. About four frost is enough to check the German auto industry for the strength. In this place, Mazda supporters should get balls for fans and start a speech, because now I will tell a terrible story. During this test, I learned what true hell is. Hell is the coast of the Arctic Ocean, along which are VW pickups. Sinners are locked in them. They are allowed to turn on the stove. You can even go out, but no one does it on the street very cold. And it is also impossible to sit inside, because the button of the maximum heating of the seats does not turn off! I was in a similar hell, only on the way from home to the editor. And even if such a nonsense button sticks already at minus four, which will fail at minus twenty? It’s scary to think.

The owners of pickups are strange, perhaps they will not confuse them. As a child, they dreamed of traveling on trucks, and such an opportunity appeared. When the authorities allow civilians and missile carriers to civilians, they will also buy them. And don't ask why


Author: Dmitry Leontyev, photo of Alexander Ortnova-Baranov


 

Source: Magazine 4x4 [April /2011]