Volkswagen Amarok test drive since 2010 pickup

Wait for it!

Any European coming from the ladder of the intercontinental liner at the Buenos Aires Iceis International Airport, clearly realizes that from now on he will have to live with a fifth point rolled into the finest pancake

But the troubles of a 14-hour flight with rude French flight attendants are forgotten when you recall that from the Moscow winter you transferred to the Argentine summer to get acquainted with the first in the history of Volkswagen, called Amarok!

The German concern decided to compete with American and Japanese pickup producers in traditional markets for these utilitans of America, Asia, Australia and, of course, Russia. It is believed that the name Amarok is borrowed from the language of the indigenous inhabitants of Greenland of Indians-Inuits. In their mythology, the giant northern wolf is called that. If you distract from the proprietary version, then the word Amarok phonetically coincides with the Gallic word Amarach, translated as tomorrow or morning. Such a tomorrow's wolf ... to drive the VW Amarok, built on a completely new spring platform for the concern, only after arriving in Patagonia, to the extremely pathos resort area with an administrative center in Bariloch. In the way, it turned out that it was a little expensive to relax here with the usual high price tags. Despite this, hotels, hotels and private houses are filing more or less (most often less) even places on the picturesque shores of the local lake. Paphos Paphos, and leaflets at the local airport in the style are sought by a police with a price tag of $ 25,000 for their heads hint: the wild West follows the traces of the children of Captain Grant!

Someone will call the exterior Amarok rustic. I will not argue: appearance is a matter of taste. I only note that the muzzle of the car is completely fits into the current style of Volkswagen. The form of headlights, a false radiator grille, the front bumper with the fog integrated into it, almost any detail gives food for all kinds of associations and allusions with the appearance of both Sirocco and Transporter. If you really find fault with the exterior of the car, then you can find the only visual flaw, characteristic, by the way, to most pickups, visually foul in front. And inside ... inside it is a typical Audi-Volkswagen. The location and organization of devices fully correspond to the ideology of the concern inherent in machines. As an innovation, you can name a selector of switching transmission modes. The inclusion buttons and indication of its current state frames the well of the manual man transactions. The front panel is not burdened with designer sorts. Everything is emphasized functionally and soundly starting with the quality of plastic and ending with the location of the devices. On the central console there is a 2-day music center with a radio receiver, and a little lower than a double-zone climate control unit. The feeling of a large machine is emphasized even by an impressive distance between these groups of devices. The testimony of the on -board computer is resolved in the popularity gaining popularity, new for VW brand machines: red scales of temperature sensors and fuel levels are made in the form of smooth arcs. Under the hood of Amarok, which fell into our hands, turned out to be a diesel 2-liter turbo engine that issues 163 hp. and 400 nm. The gearbox so far is only one mechanical six -speed. The transmission can work in all the modes necessary for this SUV: a rear -wheel drive, all -wheel drive with a location of the center differential and a full -wheel drive with a reduced gear (reducing coefficient of 2.7).

Like Amarok, a frame car with springs in the rear suspension holds the road even with the ESP disconnected, you just need to feel it. Confidently clinging to both asphalt and grader. Given the serious dimensions of the car and the high center of gravity, it will only steer perfectly. But this car also has a couple of shortcomings, accustomed to which, you stop noticing them. The first manifests itself with intense overtaking of the trucks. At a speed of 8090 km/h you find yourself in a situation where the motor is already roaring on the third transfer, but there is no special increase in traction, but does not pull on the fourth yet. The increased difference in gear relations between the third and fourth forces to carefully calculate overtaking and instills a measured style of driving on the highway. But in the third gear you can go in the speed range of 3580 km/h. Like on the machine. The main thing is to avoid significant accelerations. But the sixth, according to the Germans, is intended exclusively to save fuel at high speeds The difference from the fifth minimum. Speaking of savings. The manufacturer claims that Amarok can ride with a flow rate of 7.6 liters of diesel fuel per hundred, passing at one gas station of 1000 km. We did not manage to achieve such economy: it did not show numbers less than 9.8 l/100 km. The fact is that in the course of the test, there were only two modes: either at all drive at high (to a reasonable maximum) speed along the grader, or 100130 km/h along the highway, with overtaking of passing cars. It is clear that there is no need to talk about special savings here. So the achieved indicator of the average fuel consumption for a two -ton car with impressive frontal resistance can be considered excellent with a full basis. Another nuance that strains at the first 30 kilometers of acquaintance with Amarok, some fuzzy work of the Communist Party. At first, often instead of the first program, you strive to stick the third. About the car with the VW emblem on the hood, this has to be written for the first time: perhaps we just got a copy very rolled up by colleagues in the workshop. Speaking of pickups, it would be strange to ignore his freight opportunities. The AMAROK carrying capacity is 1.15 tons. But the most pleasant distance for future owners of this car between the wheel arches. It draws up a record for this class of trucks of 1.222 m. Without the use of a three -story mat and other improvised means, a standard euro subdod (1.2x0.8 m) is loaded sideways or an ATV, shod in mud bast shoes.

The question that during the whole test most often asked representatives of Volkswagen in different languages \u200b\u200bwas reduced to one: how much?! But in response, only promises were heard that the VW Amarok would cost at the Nissan Navara level. They haven't decided yet, they say. What can we say about the price if VW has not yet decided even with the exact terms for the output of the model to the Russian market: either the next spring, or at the Autumn Motor Show

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Dakar-2010, which wound 9,000 kilometers through the territory of Chile and Argentina, was a gift for the Volkswagen marketers. It was a sin not to use the site so successful for the targeted sale! So VW Amarok became an official escort car of Dakar-2010. The concern was at the disposal of the organizers of 20 new pickups, and another 15 cars were used by the press and the Volkswagen Motorsport team.

SPECIFICATIONS

VW Amarok

Dimensions (mm) 5254x1944x1834
Wheel base (mm) 3095
Road clearance (mm) 240
Mass (kg) 1993
Body area (m2) 2.52
Slave. engine volume (cm3) 1968
Max. Power (L.S.) 163
Max. Twisting the moment (Nm) 400
Max. Speed \u200b\u200b(km/h) 181
Acceleration 0100 km/h (c) 11.1
Cf. fuel consumption (l/100 km) 7.9
Price N.D.


Material: Alexey Batushenko
 

Source: Mkobil magazine [March 2010]